Odd computer crashes

[Burzhui]

So a friend of mine calls me up and says that his computer works fine and all, except when he starts any game, it works for about a minute and then freezes, he replaced the video card and it still freezes after about a minute... any ideas?

[jase71]

If it works fine most of the time, but only locks or crashes a minute into playing a game, my first thought would be heat.

Games are cpu intensive. Could be that the cpu is just heating up, and after a minute or so, gets too hot, and locks.

Would be worth checking to see what temps his cpu is hitting.

[Burzhui]

nah i don't think it's the temp, that was my first guess as well, but i asked hi to tell me what the temp was and he said while just idling and running MS word 5 instances of IE, and winamp, the temp was 34C

[sho.gun]

could it be video/sound driver issues?

[Burzhui]

Originally posted by sho.gun
could it be video/sound driver issues?

hmm i doubt it, especially since it works fine without games, or heave load on the video card

[LPMiller]

need a lot more info...processor, mainboard, driver versions, and what video card.

[attgig]

maybe it's directx or opengl issues..
make sure he got the lastest/greatest...

[kellygirlbeads]

I used to run win2k server, and it would crash about a minute into playing counterstrike/halflife/any opengl game. It turns out that some of the opengl instructions can crash the OS (for reference, it was a Diamond TNT2 card, with detonator 12.x drivers). I tried everything to track the problem down, from heat to hardware, and I'm 90% sure it was an OS/OpenGL problem.

[sho.gun]

hmm if I play Starcraft, the computer would crash at random times. I'm guessing it's a video problem too...

[clutchy]

ok, idle temp has nothing to do with load temp. i had a comp that would idle and do random junk at 32C then would shoot up to 56C when i hit a game for 5 mins.

I think it's either heat or he fried or chipped his cpu.