Computer crashes while playing high-end 3d games

hello everyone,



I've had a really frustrating problem where my computer crashes about an hour into playing Call of Duty 4. The screen freezes and is accompanied by scrambled audio and a really high pitched beeping noise. The beep doesn't come in intervals it comes in one long beep, like a heart monitor flat-lining. The crash can come within 10 minutes of gameplay or like an hour of gameplay and the only way to recover from the crash is to restart the computer.


I've ruled out problems with my memory (ran memtest fine), and problems with my PSU (installed a 500w PSU recently). All my graphics and audio drivers are up to date. I'm not sure what the problem is.

Here are some system specs:

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual core processor 3800+ @ 2015MHz
2GBs of RAM
ATI Radeon x850 XT
Mobo: ASUS A8N-SLI
SB Audigy 2 ZS
Rosewill 500w PSU(forgot the exact details but i dont see the PSU as the problem)


please help :/

The causes are sometimes hard to track down, because there are so many possibilities: Excessive heat at the processor from inadequate cooling; Inadequate memory; Value Ram or other slow ram instead of modules with rapid timings; overheated video card; video card with inadequate memory; slow hard drive; cpu heatsink is not firmly seated with thermal paste; too much thermal paste which acts as an insulator; cpu fan is wearing out; dust and hair in any cooling fan or heat sink; hard drive is going bad; too much heat inside or simply inadequate case cooling; power supply is not up to the task and provides less reliable output as it overheats; Sound card is overheating or other PCI card unrelated to what you are doing is bad... such as a modem.
Different techs have various solutions for tracking down the problem, but all of the above may need to be examined before you determine the cause.
Good luck. Let us know how it turns out.

i also ruled out the possibility of overheating. I use ATI tool and the temperatures usually show 48 degrees celsius for the video card and motherboard when it is idle. The video card can go up to about 68 degrees celsius under heavy load and the motherboard stays around 55 degrees celsius.

edit: these temperatures are taken from playing Call of Duty 4

Cool enough on the idle, but 68C under load could really be 73C internal... which will tax some systems. (154F to 163F) But higher than that, it varies by motherboard as to what is acceptable.