Spurious Crashes during gameplay

[oggycompton]

I have recently purchased a new computer (Yesterday) from MEsh, it is a2.6Ghz
Quadcore duo with 4GB of RAM and a GeForce 8800GT Graphics card with the
latest drivers.

My problem is that when playing Crysis or Call of Duty 4, the game runs
extremly smoothly and effortlessly on the highest settings, but then from
anything between 15 and 30 minutes into the session, the screen will freeze
up and after 10 seconds the monitor will say 'No sihnal detected' and shut
off. I am unable to get back to the desktop or do anything, and only a system
reset will sort it out.

Anybody have any suggestions, because Mesh technical support have been
uuseless. I suspect a dodgy graphics card or RAM problem, anyone lese have
any ideas?

 

[DP]

This is a Vista machine?

 

[Steve Easton]

Sounds to me like the video card is overheating.
Does the video card have a fan, is it working?

 

[oggycompton]

The video card is a GeForce 8800GT and yes it is a vista 32 bit machine.

Any ideas?

 

[oggycompton]

Tes, 32 bit Vista

This is a Vista machine?

 

[Dwarf]

Hi oggy,

This is a classic example of graphics card failure. The card is overheating
and shutting down. Since you only purchased your system yesterday, then it
should be in full working order. Clearly, it is not. You need to exercise
your warranty. DO NOT, under any circumstances, open your machine to check
for the operational status of your fans, as you will nullify and void your
warranty.
Dwarf

 

[oggycompton]

Unfortunatly I have opened my machine to see if the fan was turning. On
looking inside, I discovered that the cables for the sound card were stuck
in the fan for the graphics card which was stopping it spinning. I loosened
these off and the fan spins now, however, the bearings appear to be knackered
or the fan is mounted lob sided as a few of them are rubbing against the heat
sync and causing a squeaking noise, I hope this doent void my warranty/

 

[Phil Weldon]

Unfortunatly I have opened my machine to see if the fan was turning. On
looking inside, I discovered that the cables for the sound card were
stuck
in the fan for the graphics card which was stopping it spinning. I
loosened
these off and the fan spins now, however, the bearings appear to be
knackered
or the fan is mounted lob sided as a few of them are rubbing against the
heat
sync and causing a squeaking noise, I hope this doent void my warranty/

_____

No, merely looking inside your system should not in any way void your
warranty. Even installing new components should not void your warranty.
You had a problem, diagnosed it with information from this newsgroup, and
found a construction error. If the sequence of event is exactly as you
describe, then consider returning the entire system for a refund for the
following reasons
the system was sloppily put together
the graphics card heatsink/fan is damaged
tech support was 'useless' in helping you diagnose an EXTREMELY simple
problem - don't expect tech support to get any better
4 GBytes of memory is a waste for a 32 bit Vista/Intel Core 2 platform
since not much more than 3 GBytes can be used and 2 GBytes is sufficient.

Phil Weldon