Games freeze and unfreeze

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hey, could someone please help me out here with this problem, i'm getting desperate and have tried everything...

Since a couple of months ago my games which require 3D acceleration (GTA3, Pro Evolution Soccer 4 etc) freeze randomly and momentarily. There is however a slight identifiable pattern to it, i have tried to gather the most information i could, and the pattern is something like this :

For the first few minutes (usually 5 if the computer has been on for a long period and 10 if the computer has just been turned on) the games run perfectly. After that it starts freezing for short amounts of time (5-10 seconds) and with smaller and smaller intervals between these episodes. I've tried monitoring motherboard temperatures while i'm playing the games. Temps reach as much as 70ºC (160F) while running the game, but even when they're at 40ºC (100F) the game freezes with no apparent change in the freezing pattern.
The computer had previously worked with no problems and i didn't change anything, no new drivers, no new hardware, nothing, and on other applications and games that do not require 3d acceleration, the computer runs fine.

I'll give you my computer specs :

OS - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2
Motherboard - Asus P4T-E chipset i850
Processor - Intel Pentium 4, 1700 MHz (17 x 100)
Memory - 256 MB RDRAM (2x128)
Graphic card - NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti4600
Sound Card - Creative SB Live!
Storage - Seagate Barracuda 60Gb (7200rpm Ultra-ATA/100)

and the tests i performed's results :

EVEREST Home Edition

memory read speed 2342 Mb/s
memory write speed 1059 MB/s
memory latency 162,5 ns

Memtest 86+ 1.55

L1 Cache 8K 13996 Mb/s
L2 Cache 256k 11941 Mb/s
Memory 256 MB 1212 MB/s
Chipset Intel i850 FSB : 100 MHz
Standard Test, 9 passes, 0 erros

other details :

my drive is 85% full but that was never a problem in the past.
DirectX 9.0c installed (haven't updated it in a while, but always worked fine)
Nvidia Driver version 71.89 installed (updated it since the problem began, didn't change anything).

Thanks in advance for anyone who can help me on this.
Take care all.
 
If your mobo is getting upto 70 degrees then heat may well be the problem. I suggest adding as many fans as you possibly can in your case, also, the graphics card is probably overheating, i use a slot cooler to keep mine at a decent temperature and they are cheap. The only thing is, heat may have already done some damage so you really need to check everything out thoroughly. Incidentally, more heat is produced during 3d as it requires large amounts of processing, especially by the graphics card and the processor.
Hope that helps. Rik.
 
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