Big problem with my gfx and games....i think.

Fracture

Yo all,

Need a bit of help here, think its my graphics card
I've got an GeForce 8800 GT, i've never had problems like this before and ive had this pc for about a year now.....i think.
Everything works fine until i start a game (counter strike source or L4d) it connects to the server fine but as soon as i join the server my pc just freezes, i cant ctrl+alt+delete, i just had to turn it off and back on again.
I've got everything updated ok. I just took the gfx card out and blew any dust out of it and gave my pc a bit of a dusting out. When i retried to join a server it went ok, was specing other players for about 15 seconds until it crashed again.

My system specs are

Windows XP ultimate Edition by Johnny
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU
E8400 @ 3.00GHz
3.00 GHz, 2.00 GB or RAM
Geforce 8800 GT

I havent been messing with any of the settings on the gfx card or anything.
Im really just out of idea's.

Any help at all would be great!
Thx.
Frac

jonny72

Fracture wrote: »

Yo all,

Need a bit of help here, think its my graphics card
I've got an GeForce 8800 GT, i've never had problems like this before and ive had this pc for about a year now.....i think.
Everything works fine until i start a game (counter strike source or L4d) it connects to the server fine but as soon as i join the server my pc just freezes, i cant ctrl+alt+delete, i just had to turn it off and back on again.
I've got everything updated ok. I just took the gfx card out and blew any dust out of it and gave my pc a bit of a dusting out. When i retried to join a server it went ok, was specing other players for about 15 seconds until it crashed again.

My system specs are

Windows XP ultimate Edition by Johnny
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU
E8400 @ 3.00GHz
3.00 GHz, 2.00 GB or RAM
Geforce 8800 GT

I havent been messing with any of the settings on the gfx card or anything.
Im really just out of idea's.

Any help at all would be great!
Thx.
Frac

Does your PC have onboard graphics, if so, take out the graphics card and plug the monitor into the plug at the back for the onboard graphics

If that works, then the prob is most likely with your graphics card.

Also, open up the box, have a look how many watts your power supply is, if its a 300 watt cheapie power supply it may have run into problems after awhile with the 8800GT card which uses a fair bit of power

Also you can get nVidia software to check the temperature your card runs at, if its been running very high the card could be damaged over time (anything over 70 or 80c)

Update to the latest Nvidia drivers, if that fails, then update to older drivers about 1 year old.

If desperate try a system restore to when the graphics card worked.

Its not uncommon for graphics cards to literally break down after awhile. New, more powerful cards are cheap now, like the 4850 - 90 euros