games locking up/rebooting

[Dr2GunzOD]

vnf3-250 chaintech
athlon 64 3000+
9800 pro (latest cat drivers)
xp
1 gig ram kingston value ram (2 sticks) (512 recently added)
antec truepower 430 power supply (replaced generic ps last night)

Had no issues with computer until 4 days ago.
increased AA and AF settings = games ran fine.
later in the day, new ram was deliveried. 1 512 kington value ram that matched my original. 10 minutes into playing IL2/pacific fighters, screen locked up and would not respond. rebooted and several minutes later, same thing. on some lockups if i let it sit long enough i will get a vpu recovery error...video card had to be reset

i reset to my original AA AF setting. tried new stick in dimm 2 and 3, no improvement.
removed new stick = lock up/reboot apon game play
tried new stick by itself = same

took off side of case and ran box fan on it = same (case temp consisent over summer at 85 F underload)
cleaned out dust bunnies

updated cat drivers to latest
ran memtest on original stick for a few cycles and no errors.
3dmark05 1 cycle = 2800
when set for several cycles = error in 3dmark05 had to shut down, but computer still responds fine.

had generic power supply since build in Nov 04. replace with antec as above with no improvement.

rainbow six, bf2 demo, IL2 all cause either lockup/black screen or occasional reboot.

overheat was issue in past. installed pci slot exhaust fan and has been stable since.

i do not have much experience doing a differential diagnosis. a few others have indicated my video card was dying on me. i find it very odd that it started after installing ram. i carefull about grounding myself and we have no carpet in the house. just looking for other opinions/suggestions. my wife isnt looking forward to me upgrading my video card right now lol. can post dxdiag is desired.

thx in advance for any help. if any questions on what has been done, pls post and i will try to clarify.
3dmark05

 

[wpshooter]

First thing I would do would be to contact Kingston and make absolutely sure that the modules were an exact match.

That being done, (FIRST, make a notation of BIOS parameters) & then I would consider setting BIOS parameters back to the defaults, let her boot, then restart & then go back into the BIOS and set parameters back to where they were before you started having problems.

 

[Dr2GunzOD]

assuming sticks were not exact match...how would that affect system stability when each stick was used separately?

will give bios settings a try....off hand i dont remember changing any of them.

 

[Dr2GunzOD]

reset bios. no improvement. hangs/crashes seem to be happening faster now in game.
ran memtest 84 for 3 cycles with both sticks ram = no errors.

any other thoughts.....i hate to buy another video card and that not be the issue (have found one tho =) looking at 6600 GT).

if video card is going out, would that make other programs unstable also?

 

[Dr2GunzOD]

bump for the night crew

 

[Dr2GunzOD]

update:
rma'ed video card. installed new ati 9800 pro (cat 5.9) (cleaned out old drivers with driver cleaner pro). still getting vpu recovery error / reboots /lockups.