Getting kicked to desktop or freezing while gaming

[Digitalskull]

I have recently had my computer upgraded:
processor: AMD XP 2000+
MotherBoard: MSI KT3 Ultra
Memory: DDR PC2100 256MB (generic)
Graphics Card: Gainward GeForce3 Ti200/500
Hard Drive: Maxtor 80GB

After upgrading we did a fresh install of Win 98 2nd Ed., and except for a few occasional freezes, the computer runs like a champ....lol.
When playing games Im able to enter in to them and start out but within a few minutes I get kicked out to the desktop or the computer locks.
I have heard some thoughts that say perhaps I need a larger power supply to the computer (now I have 300), or that it could be that Im running generic memory.
If you agree with any of these thought or have some of your own.....please lay them on me.
Its greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[NicColt]

most likely it's heat on either the memory or vid card, what kind of airflow do you have

 

[rob123171]

that power supply is a little weak for yer system...but more often than not if you get crashes to the desktop its a ram issue
what happens is it tries to write to a bad address or one thats in use...like if you have video ram cache enabled in your bios, it will just do a purge and dump the prog
heres a few things to try
disable the video ram cacheable and any video bios shadowing
dont need it with the newer cards that have lots of ram on them
if you have the via chip set on yer mobo get the newest 4in1 drivers for it
also get the latest drivers for yer vid card
put agp on X4 (sometimes its called turbo mode) in the bios
allow for the agp shared texture ram to be half of your system ram...also in the bios
if you have 2 sticks of ram and they are not the very same make they can have differnt timing at times, mostly notable in games thus the crashing
i hope you get it worked out soon...lemme know
cheers

 

[jaybee]

I think your power supply is fine. My guess is your cpu, mem, or vid card is overclocked (too much). What fsb are you running at and what speed is the card running at?

jaybee

 

[MCS]

Crashes to the desktop is usually either a RAM problem, a PSU problem (unlikely in your case), heat or overclocking too far.

If it was just in one particular game then you can put it down to buggy software/drivers but if it is every game you run then I would say it is one of the above problems.

As rob123171 indicated, try lowering all performance settings in the BIOS relating to AGP and RAM. Try using some different RAM if you can.

How good is your cooling? Have you checked your temps/voltages?