Hello all,

Im usually quite good with computer, not so good with posts, so please accept my apologies.

A few weeks ago my old Nvidea 6800 Gainward Bliss Graphics card died on me. So I upgraded to a 9500 GT and noticed it did not run off a seperate ATX 12v (I think) power supply. It runs off the board.

Anyway, when playing games (mainly) the computer just freezes. The only way I can describe this is the screen freezes and the sound freezes...i.e. it sounds like a stuck cd only much faster. Occassionally (but less often than the freeze) I get a complete restart. I do not get a BSOD and there is noting in the error logs.

Im really stuck and worst thing is Im not even sure how to determine what my PC is made up of as I chucked all the boxes...is there any software application I should run to get a hardware profile to help you???

sounds like a driver to me, did you install the set that came on the CD with the card or did you download the latest release from nvidia? if you need to update your drivers, download the latest set from www.nvidia.com and then Driver Sweeper. you can run this software after you have removed the display drivers from the Add/Remove Programs list. it will wipe the files associated with the video driver and prepare the system for a fresh install.

you may also want to make sure that your directx is up to date and that the files are in tact. you can run "dxdiag" from the Start > Run window to diagnose any problems with DX. if you are still getting freeze-ups, try disabling Auto Restart feature so that you get a BSOD instead of a hard reset (you will need to restart manually anyways). Post back with your results...

Thanks for the above,

As I was working today to see the post I think the error has happened for the last time.

I turned on the PC to get a low CPU fan speed warning message. Then a few sec later a reset. In the reset the Mobo didnt even get to do the boot test.

After opening up the system and gradually removing components from the PSU etc I finally got to just processor and mobo with PSU for the Mobo to return a memory test failed. I initially thought PSU so after a call and swap with a friend who has a much more powerful CPU than mine the result was the same....no boot noise will all components plugged in....memory test failed with just processor and mobo going off the PSU. I therefore think the mobo or processor has had it.

Ethical dilema now, diagnose to fix, or do a rebuild and upgrade all!

run chkdsk on the hard drive from dos