can't figure out what is wrong here

[sayser]

Hello

I am having some weird issues with my computer and I just can?t figure out what exactly is causing it.

Here is my system spec:
MSI K8N NEO-Platinum nForce3 250Gb Audio
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
DDR (400) 3200 - 1 GB
NVIDIA 6800 GT
SoundBlaster Live 5.1

Whenever I try to play any 3D games I get color lines and dots on the screen, then system freezes and computer reboots. After reboot I get those color lines in Windows also and screen goes black from time to time for a second and the longer system is on the more "colorful" the screen gets with those lines and color dots. After I reboot the system again it loads into windows and everything is ok, I can watch Videos I can brows web and do other things, but as soon as I try playing a game it gets weird on me again.

I had this problem before and I send my computer to manuf. they did not find anything wrong with it and send it back to me, and surprisingly it was working ok even with games.

I reinstalled windows yesterday and I got same problem again.

Now the question is, can it be Video Card, Hard Drive, Motherboard, or Monitor?
It's not monitor probably since it wouldn?t cause my system to freeze, it's probably not a video card because I have a good old GeForce 4 and the problem still persists. As far as hard drive, it is sort of old but I am not sure if it could cause all those colorful lines and reboots.

I do have latest drivers for everything, 78.01 for NVIDIA and latest DirectX9c

As I remember last time when I got this problem I tried reinstalling windows a couple of times but problem persisted so I am not sure what to do now. I really need to figure out what is causing it. Drivers? Hardware? Or what.


Please post you suggestions or comments on this, any information would be appreciated.

 

[sayser]

could it also be cause by power supply? i have 500w one that i got 8 month ago

 

[imported_Woody]

I've had these exact symptoms on two separate systems on separate occassions.

The first time it turned out that the power supply unit was being pushed too far when in games and would begin to fail under the stress. I upgraded the PSU and all was good again.

The second time, interestingly enough, was on another system that inherited the weaker but still good PSU I removed from the first system so my first suspicion was that the PSU was going bad again. This time, however, it turned out that the graphics card, a GForce4 MX had gone bad and was failing in 3D mode but worked great in 2D. I upgraded to a more powerful graphics card, a leftover ATi 9700Pro and all was good again....obviously nothing wrong with the PSU that time.

In short, troubleshoot the graphics card and the PSU as your most likely culprits. I would start with the PSU since this is more likely to fail and may simply be very dusty and dirty inside.

 

[sayser]

is there anyway to narrow down the search by runing some tests to know which hardware causing the problems? I can not afford another GeForce 6800 card, so i am hoping it's PSU or just some drivers that i need to reinstall

 

[GregANDTCH]

Can you borrow the video card /or power supply from another computer & see if that fixes the problem?

 

[imported_Woody]

If you have a new vid card I would put money on the PSU being bad. Go out and buy a good namebrand 480Watt or better from a local retailer and test it out. Make sure you don't unpack the PSU in a way that you can't put it back in the box neatly should you decide to return it to the store.

What Power supply are you running now?

 

[sayser]

i got 500w PSU last year.

here is the error message that i get when my PC lucks up and crashes

"The problem seems to be caused by the following file nv4_disp....
The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop.."

Could this still be caused by PSU or hard drive? I have a lot of things hooked up to my computer(3 hard drives, DVD rom, CD rom and a bunch of USB things) so maybe they suck up all the power and that causes the error? If it's anything broken i sure hope it's PSU because i can afford one, if it's a video card then i am in trouble. Please post any tips or info thank you

*the weard thing is sometimes it works just fine, just about an hour ago i was able to play World of Warcraft for an hour with out any problems, then loged out rebooted PC and it started to crash like every time i try to play any game.

 

[mechBgon]

What brand and model is the 500W PSU? Quality matters, some PSUs are complete garbage. Also, try removing the SoundBlaster as a fact-finding test.