I have a custom-built PC with the following hardware:
- Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Socket 939)
- 2 GB PC3200 DDR1 memory
- MSI MS-7125 motherboard (nForce 4 MCP)
- Geforce 7600GT PCI-express graphics card
- Windows XP SP3
I have had the computer since fall 2006, never encountering any problems until Summer 2009, when it started to freeze up sporadically. This only seems to happen while playing games, as I have successfully played a few hours of streaming video (Hulu) without any problems. I have also booted it in Linux, and tried running some benchmarks for a while to see if the problem appears there as well, but I haven't yet had it crash. I have also run Memtest86+ v2.11 from the Ubuntu boot CD for a while (10 minutes just now), and it didn't find anything.
The crashes/freezes do not occur at any fixed amount of time after starting playing, but I haven't gotten more than about 20 minutes of play before it freezes; sometimes as little as a minute.
When it crashes, the screen simply freezes, but no BSOD occurs. Sound output stops, and I am no longer able to ping the computer over the network. Checking the system temperature after the reboot shows that it is not a problem of overheating. I also don't have it overclocked or anything.
I recently replaced the power supply, which had been faulty and wasn't able to boot the computer at all (pressing the power button had no effect whatsoever).
Any ideas as to what it might be?
UPDATE: Forgot to mention, the old power supply was 420 Watts and the new one is 500, so it's probably not a problem with insufficient power. I've also updated my graphics drivers to the latest version from NVidia. Also, I have a Zalman CPU fan, like this one, so I'm pretty sure the CPU is being cooled well.
I'll check out the GPU temps.
UPDATE 2: I reinstalled Windows, updated to SP2 with all updates applied, installed the latest NVidia drivers, and installed SpeedFan 4.40 to check the temperature of various components. The GPU is sitting at a steady 41 degrees Celsius, even during gaming, and it still freezes. I got an extra 80mm fan and pointed it directly at the GPU, but the problem persists.
Again, this problem occurred under both the old and new PSU, even though the new one has a higher wattage. I am also not overclocking anything at all. Could the graphics card just be dead?