My computer wont play any games AGAIN

[PastranA]

hey guys

my computer is:
AMD XP 1800+ Athlon
512 mb DDR Ram
64mb geforce 4 mx440
80 gig Seagate HD
i am running Win XP Pro with service pack 1

when i try to play any games or even run a screen saver my computer just freezes
there is not a thing that i can do
the only way to use it again is manually press the button on the box
i have once had this problem before and all that i did was reinstall the graphics drivers and it was workin all good again

i have reinstalled the graphics drivers now 3 times and i just cant get that too work at all... this is driven me nuts

http://www.techimo.com/forum/showthr...threadid=73509

that is the thread that i posted last time and helped me too fix the prob

please guys any help you can give would be much appreciated

[nukes]

What brand RAM? What size PSU? What temps are you getting?
Try FULLY uninstalling the graphics drivers, reboot, clean them out of DLLcache and reinstall. You should always UNINSTALL first, not install over the top.
For all you about to jump on and say "But it always works fine for me": I know sometimes it works, other times it will cause no end of problems and 90% of those times, you need to reinstall windows (rescue won't work)

[wju425]

Try increasing the graphic aperture size in your bios.

\o/ Billy

do you have proper cooling in your computer?

what are you system temps?

[PastranA]

well thanks for the help guys i did manage to fix the prob by going to nvidias site and luckily there were some later drivers out

but just my luck i can see this happening again, so i will answer those questions,
my RAM is the generic brand
sorry i dont know what a PSU is
my system temps are usually around 42 - 47 at idle and after playing a game sometimes you will see around 51 degrees
that is with a house that is heated to around 21 degrees
are these temps bad?
also i do think that the cooling in my computer is okay, i am using a amd cpu fan that came with my cousins amd 2500+ so surely that should be good enough and i have a case fan that is blowing air out the back of the computer

maybe i should get another case fan?

[draboo]

another case fan in the front of the puter wouldnt hurt.(sucking air in,since you already have one exit fan)

[nukes]

Those temps are kinda high. I have a 1700+ overclocked to 2000+ that runs 36 full load, and that's with a £10 cooler. You using any thermal compound?
The 2500+ fan will only be ok if its a Tbred chip you have, the palominos run a lot hotter and it might not be up to scratch. Go to your local store and buy a $5 cooler, they can normally do a fairly good job.
A PSU is the Power Supply Unit, that box with all the wires coming out of it at the top of your case. Things like the 3.3 and 5v lines need to bhe well within acceptable limits for everything to work right.

[PastranA]

yea i see what ya mean
im not sure about if i have any thermal compound
my power supply is 300 watt if thats what you mean
i will look into getting a better fan for this computer and another case fan
is there any fans to get that you recommend that are not heaps noisy?
cos the computer is in my room and it sometimes stays on overnight and i will never get to sleep

[Zenara25]

I had problems with 2 different nvidia graphics cards myself. The best drivers (actually the only ones that worked) were always the ones that Microsoft installed.

Try that. Uninstall all Nvidia drivers. Then go into add hardware and let it detect your graphics card and install the microsoft drivers.