PLEASE help. Gateway PII 450 lockups.

[Dolf]

I'm trying to help a friend diagnose game lockups on a Gateway GP 450. He's tried Gateway tech support and I'm sure a lot of you know how frustrating that can be. I've been through everything my limited expertise can think of and zilch. Here's the basics. Most apps work fine, all the problems seem to be with games but not all the same problem. One is the joystick (thrustmaster that's been tested on another system and works fine) calibrates OK in windows but in games (namely Nascar3 and Falcon4.0)is basically unresponsive. In the calibration within both games it just jumps all over. Also in other games that don't use a joystick but just work off the keyboard(Toy Story and FLW Bass Tournament) the game loads fine but locks up about 5-10 seconds into game play. I don't know if they are related problems or 2 separate problems. I've been through everything nearly step by step on Gateways tech support trouble shooting pages. Scandisk did find some errors on the drive and corrected them and then win98 would not even boot in safe mode. Finally had to reinstall windows to get it to boot again but nothing improved. As a last resort I did a fdisk and format and a clean install of WinME. Same result! Joystick OK in Win calibration but not in games. Other games lock up. I've loaded all the latest drivers dowloaded from Gateway and flashed the bios. I've tried all the performance tricks like setting as a network server and setting the virtual memory. Is it a hardware problem? What should I try next?
The system basics are:
PII 450
128 MB Ram
STB Velocity 4400 Video card (under gateway factory software) In Win ME recognized as a Nvidea Riva TNT ?
Sound Blaster "INTEGRATED"
I'll be glad to furnish any other necessary info if anyone would be so kind as to help me! TIA

 

[soulm4tter]

I suggest disabling the integrated sound and trying a sound care with new drivers.

 

[Dameon]

Velocity 4400 cards have horrible heat problems, Dell had several issues with them when they first came out. open the case and look at the video card. Most likely there is only a heatsink and no fan on the video card. Get ahold of an old 486 fan or another video card and try it....

 

[PCAddict]

I agree with Dameon, try cooling down the video card.

I do not believe the problem lies with the integrated Sound Blaster.

 

[Dolf]

Thanks for your replys. I guess I'll try taking the sound and video cards out of my computer and try them in his. Two more questions first. Would a game generate heat that fast to lock it up in 5-10 seconds? Is it possible for the video card to be causing the joystick problem or am I likely looking at two separate issues? Thanks again for your time.