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"Crashing problem"

A week ago now i installed 256mb of ram into my computer raising it to 384mb. I then installed a nvidia geforce fx 5200. When trying to play the BETA version of World of Warcraft the game would crash randomly (anytime and at any place in game), either resseting my computer or turning into a black screen with no sound, which i was then forced to turn off by the power button. It would only happen in that game.

I updated all of my drivers (display, sound, network, chipset, etc), removed the game and installed it several times and even completely reformated my computer (it needed it anyway) and the problem still persists.

For a while i thought i was a victim of a bug that some people have been having, named the "Black Screen of Death". However upon playing another 3D game i found that it also gave me the black screen, but after a longer period of time.

So i came up with the idea that heating may be issue. So i took off my case covers and ran the game (World of Warcraft). This time it crashed but ater a much longer period of time and instead to a graphical glitch where the screen turned into a series of pink rectangles. After resseting my computer i tried the game again. Within seconds it had given me the "Black Screen".

My two ideas are: 1. A bug in the game or 2. A heating issue.

I would like to know if it seems likely that heat is the cause? And that if it is what can i do to cool it down (e.g. what fan to buy, etc). If anyone has any advice or ideas i'd be extremely grateful, becase i'd like to have this issue resolved before the European release next friday.

Thanks a lot

Sounds like the graphics card is a dud. Try running the games wit your onboard graphics (if they will run at all) and see if the problem persists.

Processor: AMD Duron(tm) processor, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.2GHz
Memory: 384MB RAM
Windows XP professional
On board sounds
On board graphics (but they are disabled becasue of the new graphics card)
Geforce Fx 5200
Via Km266 chipset

I imagine thats what you wanted.

In terms of cooling i havent touched the pc since it was bought and it is quite an old machine. So i imagine a system fan and a cpu fan. This is the first tme ive ever needed to run high-end applications (im more of a console man) and so, hence no extra cooling needed.

Cheers

What are the rest of your system specs?

And what cooling do you have now?

A week ago now i installed 256mb of ram into my computer raising it to 384mb. I then installed a nvidia geforce fx 5200. When trying to play the BETA version of World of Warcraft the game would crash randomly (anytime and at any place in game), either resseting my computer or turning into a black screen with no sound, which i was then forced to turn off by the power button. It would only happen in that game.

I updated all of my drivers (display, sound, network, chipset, etc), removed the game and installed it several times and even completely reformated my computer (it needed it anyway) and the problem still persists.

For a while i thought i was a victim of a bug that some people have been having, named the "Black Screen of Death". However upon playing another 3D game i found that it also gave me the black screen, but after a longer period of time.

So i came up with the idea that heating may be issue. So i took off my case covers and ran the game (World of Warcraft). This time it crashed but ater a much longer period of time and instead to a graphical glitch where the screen turned into a series of pink rectangles. After resseting my computer i tried the game again. Within seconds it had given me the "Black Screen".

My two ideas are: 1. A bug in the game or 2. A heating issue.

I would like to know if it seems likely that heat is the cause? And that if it is what can i do to cool it down (e.g. what fan to buy, etc). If anyone has any advice or ideas i'd be extremely grateful, becase i'd like to have this issue resolved before the European release next friday.

Thanks a lot