Video card or something else?

[bigdog1962]

Ok, I have a 2000 hp pavillion xt868. I upgraded it to 384 ram and slapped in an nvidia gforce2 v64 mg card in 2001. It worked great on games till just recently. I've upgraded to direct x 9.0c. I even used different drivers for it. Now when i play a game like tachyon the fringe(space shooter game) my computer freezes up and I have to reboot. The amount of time it lets me play the game is down to 15 seconds before frostbite. The computer still works great for web surfing and doing my work and stuff but the games cause it to freeze. So, is it the video card or what going bad? Help please I have no idea.
Tim

 

[fishhookz]

What are the sizes of the case fans inside the case?

 

[olefarte]

As fishhookz is hinting at, it could be heat related. Have you looked inside your computer case? Look at you cpu heatsink and your video card. If you haven't cleaned it in a while, you will probably see a lot of dust. Buy a can of compressed air and gently blow out the heatsink and any dust you see inside. You will be suprised how much this could lower your temps, if it is dusty inside.

You can download a program called Motherboard Monitor to check your temps.

 

[bigdog1962]

I cleaned the case and cards and stuff inside and will try the game again. I did download the motherboard monitor (it sounds cool) but during set up I couldn't find my mother board manufacturer so I uninstalled it-Hope the cleaning works.