Video Card Locking Up

[Korlas]

My system is:

XFX nforce 750a AMD SOCKET AM2+ DDR2 Motherboard
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad Core Processor (2.2 GHz)
2 - XFX Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT video cards (SLI Enabled)
2560 MB of RAM
650 Watts Power supply
Windows XP Professional

My problem is that every time I try to run a computer game, after running for a few seconds to a few minutes, the screen locks up, with slashes across the screen, and I'm unable to do anything except hit my reset button.

I tried disabling SLI and running the game again, and the same thing happens. I've tried different games, and even formatting my hard drive and reinstalling Windows, but it still locks up. When using Windows normally, surfing the web and such, I have no problems, it seems to only happen when trying to run games.

Any ideas to fix the problem?
Thanks

 

[arges86]

try to update your drivers to the latest version
also w/ you PSU, the wattage is only 1/2 the story.
If its not supplying enough voltage to supply your two video cards that could cause issues.
Is your PSU SLI Certified? or something that just came with your case?
these could be important

 

[EXT64]

You can try other drivers. Also, try physically removing the other card and see if it works then. Try each card separately. It is quite possible one card is bad (or something else. Don't you love computers).

 

[Korlas]

Apparently the one video card was bad. I took out one and used it by itself, and after about 15 minutes of playing a game, it locked up. Then I switched to the other and it worked fine for over and hour, and never locked up.

Now comes the joy of shipping it back and getting a new one.

Thanks for your help.

 

[EXT64]

Well, I have had good luck with returns (especially if back to someone like Newegg). When my first 4850 came with a nice short in it (fortunately the PSU overvolt protector or whatever saved the system) the slowest part was UPS (stupid ground shipping across the US). Good Luck!