arG! :p help me.. help me plz!
 

wat is up my fellow tfpers

I dont know if you all remember that I built my computer a while ago.. prolly about 3-4 weeks.. hrm

MSI Neo Platinum Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1 gig Corsair XMS pc3200
Radeon 9800 Pro (soft modded to xt)
160 gig Seagate SATA hdd

well It wroked fine.. in fact it worked like a charm! :D

and then.. recently I'm playing Warcraft 3 and then I've been playin a while now, maybe 2 hrs?.. no problems, about 4 games later, in the middle of a game, my screen goes black, and everything stops working... I mean, I cant alt-tab out, and I try to talk on my Ventrilo ( a voice chatting program that I have on while im playing games) but it doesnt work, and i hear the fans in the computer going, but the screen is black.. so I reset. and it boots up normally, as if nothing happened.. not even the "windows was shutdown improperly" stuff..

So I thought maybe my video card was overheating, so I reflashed my video card to its original settings.. and I went back, and it worked fine.. and then the next day, (today) I was playing again w/ my friends, and it happened again!.. anyone guess what happened?..

help plz..
and always. Thanks.
:icare:

My guess is the vid card. Pop in another one and see if you get the same effect.

video card may be overheating, it happens to me every once in a while when the house is hot.

open the case up and try again.

my sapphire radeon 9800 pro could be overheating w/ stock heating at stock speeds?... I see.. (btw. one side of my case is already open.

omg.. it happens constantly... now if I'm playing WC3 for like 30 minutes.. it shuts down.. and it ssoooooo annoying!! argakfdka!

phew.. got my anger out.. whats wrong?.. whats wrong?!.. could my processor be overheating?... my motherboard confilicting?.. oy.. T_T

how do I check temperature on my vid card, cpu, mobo etc?

I've seen a few monitors react the same way when they overheat. How old is your monitor? Every shitcan monitor I've seen goes black or fades to black if they get too hot. I think it's a possibility...can you switch monitors?

Other than the monitor, I'm really not sure what it could be. The symptoms point to the videocard, but there's no reason for it to be doing it at stock speeds. I guess you'll have to do what every troubleshooter does: start taking out parts that you don't need until it stops doing it. Try to switch out parts with others if you have them. Good luck!

-Lasereth

about opening the side of the case
 

For maximum airflow, keep your case closed and make sure you have plenty of fans. My case can support 9 fans, and believe me, they're all filled with high intake/outtake fans. Case mfg's design their cases to stay very cool with the case closed, because the door on the side should not be open. There are several articles on the internet, two from Anandtech and Tom's Hardware Guide, that expressly tell users to keep their sides on and their doors closed on their cases. Just make sure you have a good case though.

Recommened Antec (OEM is a place called Chen-Ming, Antec just slaps their label on their cases) and Lian-Li.

but if its my monitors problem (whicih i dont think it is, why would all the other programs stop working?

I checked up on Sapphire's page.. and i found a lot of other people who were having the same problem.. they said either heating or agp speeds problem..

I changed my agp from 8x go 4x and it hasnt happened yet

I dont quite understand the solution, nor do i like the solution...

Do you have a firewall restricting access? Doesn't sound like it but it looks like everything else been addressed.

So does that mean you flashed it to try to overclock it? Because if you did, the card may have overheated too much and broken something. In which case, if you put it back down to stock speeds, it won't change the fact that it is now broken. Just an idea.

did you over clock your card at one point?

and if so how far did you push it and did it end in a crash.

I did the well-known Radeon 9800 Pro flash to an XT bios.. that a lot of people have been doing successfully..

I want to ask docbungle... what do you mean a restricting firewall access? I do have a router.. that has a firewall, and I believe that my mobo has a built in firewall, but i dont think its activated..

If a firewall is set up to ask your permission for certain programs to access the internet, and it has not yet been told that WC3 is allowed to do so, it can cause the screen to freeze. For example, if using a program such as Zone Alarm, you would have to click on "yes, allow wc3 to access the internet." The problem is that when HOSTING a wc3 game online the popup message would appear behind your current screen as opposed to in the foreground. Alt-tabbing won't work and neither will anything else. But it doesn't sound like you're using Zone Alarm so.... anyway it was just a thought. Good luck with that.