My Screen goes black when gaming

[kayoz]

Hi. When playing my online game (world of warcraft), my screens turns black and freezes. I will then alt-tab to get out of the game and into the desktop screen. after doing this I will go back in the game and it will run fine until the next time it happens. I have noticed that the fan (not for the processor, but is on a heat sink) is making scratching noise. after hearing that noise I opened the PC and saw that the fan is not spinning as fast.

I have an AMD athlon 1.1g 512RAM. Soyo Dragon kt333 motherboard and ATI 800XT Graphic card. I have recently installed a new Antec powersupply.

I have removed the fan and then installed. and it is still making noise.

anyone know how to solve this? should i buy a new fan?

Thank you all for your help in advance.

[airbornflght]

can you give me temps?

download Motherboard Monitor, and it should give you some temps, let it idle, and write them down, and then put it under a heavy load and write them down.

[kayoz]

can you give me temps?

download Motherboard Monitor, and it should give you some temps, let it idle, and write them down, and then put it under a heavy load and write them down.
I have downloaded "SpeedFan" program that is suppose to tell you the temp. I do not know how to read it in detail but these are the resultes:\
idle gaming
temp1 36c 37c
temp2 27c 27c
temp3 37c 48c
temp4 11c 11c
HD 45c 47c

I think "HD" is harddrive. not too sure what the temps are for.... it seems my processor is temp3 ( but not too sure).

I will check the temp next time my screen goes black. any advice is greatly appricated!

[Thrax]

I would reckon that Temp 1 is the case and Temp 3 is the CPU as you indicated. That ol' 1.1GHz CPU is a Thunderbird, and I know from personal experience that those puppies can still chug right along at 70*C without even flinching.

It's probably not temperature, but it's something to look at. Do you have an upright house fan you can place next to your PC for a while? Just open the side of your case and let the fan blow into it and see if it still black-screens.

[kayoz]

I would reckon that Temp 1 is the case and Temp 3 is the CPU as you indicated. That ol' 1.1GHz CPU is a Thunderbird, and I know from personal experience that those puppies can still chug right along at 70*C without even flinching.

It's probably not temperature, but it's something to look at. Do you have an upright house fan you can place next to your PC for a while? Just open the side of your case and let the fan blow into it and see if it still black-screens.

I also do not think its a temperature poblem. However, i just want to eleminate it as the cause. I'm leaning more towards a video problem. I am not sure how to test the video. if anyone has any ideas on what may be causing this or any tests to cancel out a problem would be great.:confused:

[kayoz]

OK. before I start a new thread I will continue with this one.
My problem has escalated. my PC is now shutting off instead if tge black screen display. When my PC shut down last night I did not power it back on until today. the screen flashed an error message and I sent it to MS. It came back as stop order or something. my video driver told it to shut off or something. I am not sure because I did not take much notice as I did not know it would be an issue.

I believe the driver is up to date but not sure. any suggestions or should i just update the driver? /sigh

[kayoz]

When playing my online game (world of warcraft), my screens turns black and freezes. I will then alt-tab to get out of the game and into the desktop screen. after doing this I will go back in the game and it will run fine until the next time it happens. I have noticed that the fan (not for the processor, but is on a heat sink) is making scratching noise. after hearing that noise I opened the PC and saw that the fan is not spinning as fast. I have opened the case and have a fan cooling it.

My problem has deterriated. My pc recently is shutting down (instead of he black screen) as if it lost power in a middle of a storm. It drains the power from the tv and lamp that are connected to the same surge protector outlit. Sometimes the light flash and dimss a few times in row and then shut down everything. This can be scarey at night.

I have an AMD athlon 1.1g 512RAM. Soyo Dragon kt333 motherboard and ATI Radeon 800XT Graphic card. I have recently installed a new Antec powersupply.

I have downloaded "SpeedFan" program that is suppose to tell you the temp. I do not know how to read it in detail but these are the resultes:
idle gaming
temp1 36c 37c
temp2 27c 27c
temp3 37c 48c
temp4 11c 11c
HD 45c 47c

I think temp3 is for my processor fan and the HD is for my harddrive but i am nt sure what the other temps are for.

I also noticed when rebooting after one of these 'blackouts" that an error has occured. I did not write it down but it was something like "the error ahs occured due to a stop order from a video driver" or something like that.

I had this a simular problem a few months ago but my powersupply unit got fried and that is why I bought a new Antex PS. here is the thread for that problem: http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47068

any help, comments or suggestions are greatly appricated. I do not want to fr my PC.

Thanks in advance....