How do you know when your video card is crappin out?
 

System: MSI 845pe neo2 motherboard, Intel p4 2.8c, 768 ram, 2 western digital hard drives, Ati Radeon 9800 pro, Windows xp professional, etc...

Alright, so I have been having a weird problem with my computer where it will freeze up and nothing can get me out of the freeze. Then, when i go to restart the computer everything sounds fine and it seems to be booting up but I get nothing on the screen. Also, my monitor activity light flashes as if the monitor is connected but not receiving a signal. The only thing that gets my computer back up and running is to turn it off and let it sit for a while as later on it will magically work again. I have checked all the connections inside my computer and nothing appears to be messed up so I am wondering whether this is just the beginning of my video card going out on me. l was wondering if anyone has had a similar experience or some insight into what they think it might be. Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

Do you have another computer that you could swap the graphics cards in each and see if the problem is graphics card related or not?

More likely the monitor went bad...

The computer freezes first so I don't think it's the monitor.
It might be almost any of the hardware so you really need to remove the video card and try any simple AGP or IDE video card for awhile, like soccerchamp76 says.

If you don't have access to another video card then swap what you do have.

If you have two ram chips installed, remove one. problem still there, put it back and remove the other ram chip.
Run the machine with one hard drive only. no sound card, etc.

Is the cooling ok?

Most likely suspects: motherboard, RAM, video card. Monitor can go at anytime but should cause freeze screen. Have you ever taken the PC out for a "blow job"? - air hose it down thoroughly? Dust can cause all kinds of problem.

Are all the fans running? Is anything getting hot? Freezing and the other symptoms you have including the remedy sound heat related, my guess is something is overheating.

To answer you guys: I am pretty good about cleaning the case and it got a dusting today. The cpu temp is 47c with the system at 33c at idle. I have some ram in the mail from newegg so within a couple days I can discount that. So, I am left with motherboard or video card.

Now what I am wondering is if it is the board wouldnt I see more problems or at least some variation in the problems? Also, this freezing occurs randomly and not necessarily when the computers under load so I can discount the overheating right? Thanks again for the ideas.