Need some help fixing random crashes

[-pete-]

Hey guys, so I'm having a few problems with my PC, it runs great normally for surfing and whatever but when I try to play a game (usually something heavy hitting like half life or F.E.A.R) then I get totally random lock-ups, my rig is as follows:

AMD Opteron 165 (clocked up a little to 2Ghz)

XFX GeForce 8600 XXX 320Mb

2Gb of Crucial PC3200 RAM

Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 Socket 939 Mobo

Black Diamond Power Supply 12cm Fan, 500Watt

Windows Vista Business



So the game runs fine for a while then sometimes (usually about 5 to 10 minutes in) the game crashes, the screen gets cleared to random colour (grey, beige, brown or something else) and my sound is stuck on an infinate loop, I have made a video to better explain it here I don't really know whats causing it cause my temps are pretty normal and I'm running the latest geforce drivers, anyone know what could be wrong?

 

[antikristuseke]

id guess its a vista driver related problem but cant be sure since i have no experience on vista or with 8800 series graphics cards. If possible try with another graphics card and maybe reinstaling your os after a format.

 

[cafuddled]

Nah this problem 99% of the time is related to memory/cpu timings on 939 motherboards.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/games/BF2142-Rebooting-ftopict97694.html

Same thing here.

 

[Jerieth]

I used to get these same problems with an older computer of mine. However, it was not as advanced as yours. My problem was it kept overheating, and the powersupply had problems. What is your pc temperature when you are playing a demanding game, do you have anyway of checking that? It might be Vista giving you issues.

I bet there are some people that have partitions with Vista and Windows XP on them, to switch back and forth. I hear some great things about Vista, then I hear some people having problems with it, so I am not sure if I should make the switch to vista or not. What do you guys think?