Crashing whilst playing games

I have noticed over the past month my PC has been crashing alot only whilst playing games, and I suspect it may be the graphics card, but I'm not sure. Also of note this only started to happen roughly since last month - 2 months, and I have made no changes at all to my PC.

I have fully cleaned my PC thoroughly so theres no dust left, plus the card is inserted firmly, and all of my hardware drivers are fully up to date (including DirectX). It is also adware and virus free.

I have also tried installing an old version of the Nvdia Forceware drivers to see if it would make any difference but it didn't.

I'm not entirely sure what is the acceptable temperature range for the graphics card is, but here it is as follows, GPU Temp:

63 degress idle
73-80 degrees on load (usually always around 77 degrees).

All of my other temperatures such as CPU, motherboard and hardrives are all far well within an acceptable range, and the PSU has enough juice as it is Antec 550w.

My setup is AMD 3200+, Corsair 1GB Ram, Nvidia 6600gt, Antec 550w PSU, Windows XP pro SP2, DirectX 9.0c (No overclocking at all on any components).

Appreciate any help.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

That's a pretty hot load temp on your video card. What kind of case cooling do you have, since that might help cool it down. Try running your case with the side off next time you run a game to see if that solves your problem. If it does, then your video card is likely overheating. Also, is it the same game that crashes, or all games that you play?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

While you're doing that, take a look at the graphics card while you're running a game, to see if its cooling fan is running at all. If its not running, you'll have to at least replace the fan and possibly the whole card. I know there are a number of cooling fan replacements for graphics cards nowadays such as Zalman's VF700 (which comes in various versions, including one with an LED). It'll void the warranty though, and if the card has been running without a fan for a while the chip may already be damaged.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Radical

What kind of case cooling do you have, since that might help cool it down. Also, is it the same game that crashes, or all games that you play?

I have 4 cooling fans 2 blowing in and 2 blowing out, and also I have 2 hardrive coolers as well, my case temp is around 29 degrees. It crashes on some games, e.g Guild Wars, WoW, Americas Army, I haven't really played many games these past few months so I'm not entirely sure but the screen freezes.

It makes no difference if the side is off.

Like I said it only started to happen recently, cooling hasn't been a problem since I built my PC.

Originally Posted by OnlyJedi

While you're doing that, take a look at the graphics card while you're running a game, to see if its cooling fan is running at all.

The fan on my video card is spinning fine.

Edit: Also Memtest and my hardrive utility report no problems.

Any other suggestions?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

It does seem like the graphics card is hot. The fan may be spinning, but not cooling it. There is a minor chance that the PSU is going bad. The PSU has to crank things up quite a bit to power the graphics card when it needs it. But the big chances are that it is your graphics card. Cheapest solution is to try out a new cooling system for the GPU.

When you say that your computer crashes, what does it do? Just shut off?

I was speaking idiomatically.

I would try remounting the GPU cooler, and if that doesn't work, try using a different video card.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?