processor too hot?

Dooom

at first i thought it was just bf1942 but when i booted up u2 today, after about 15mins play, it crashed again. by crash i mean everything power's down and i have to do a hard reboot (press the power button till the led goes off then restart). this is getting really annoying but however, if i put the processor down to 1250mhz (its a amd athlon xp 2600+ runing normally at 2063mhz)
everyhting's grand (i change the external frequency in the bios settings). the fan i have is a GlacialTech CPU coole Socket A/370/FCPGA (Igloo 2320 Pro for 1.4ghz/aXP 2600+). this never happened before, i could play u2 for ages without that ever happening. i recently got bf1942 and it started happening but i've also bought a stick of 512pc 2700 ram. might that have something to do with it? my specs are:
asus a7n8x deluxe
amd athlon xp2600+
radeon 9700 pro 128mb
768 pc 2700 ram (1x 256 twinmos cl2.5 + 1x512 twinmos cl2.5)
1x80gb hdd
windows 200 pro service pack 3

oh and the temp for the cpu is normally 36c and the mobo about 26c. when i rebooted it after a crash and checked the temp it was 38c. so i dont think thats too hot....

conZ

Did you check your graphics card?

Try new graphics drivers, and check if its hot when it crashes next.

Dooom

i have the catalyst 3.4 drivers. and the latest ones for everything else. is there any way to check the temp of the grfx card? aside from putting my hand on it? i tried that and it was hotter than the cpu. but its hard to judge. and if this is the cause, how do i fix it?

Dooom

anyone? is there anyway to cool down my graphics card without having to but another cooler?

Flashman

You could underclock your card using Rage3d, but ati cards run hot anyway, and cpus can operate at very high temp, so the problem may lie somewhere else...
Maybe its faulty ram?

Dooom

i just tested out one stick and vice versa to see if they were faulty but they weren't. it crashed both times....any other possibilties?