Dell C600

[roguerower]

I bought a C600 from someone off of Ebay about a year ago. It was working great for about a month, but then out of the middle of nowhere, the sound cut off. It's no big deal because I dont need sound for word processing, but when I try to play a game it gets pretty annoying. I've asked people and they say that my "sound card" is overheating and shutting down. Could it be a problem between the OS and the hardware or a hardware conflict. It wouldn't worry me but I want to try and sell it in the near future. Please help, specs are as follows: P3 750, 256 Mb Ram, ATI Mobility M3, ESS Maestro 3 sound card, and currently running XP.