XP Pro Random Freezes / Crashes - Only stable when running a Game????

[TMX]

Hi i have been having this porblem for some time now and its been
driving me crazy. My machine wos working fine for ages, then suddenly
my system froze whilst on the desktop. Rebooted and it was fine for a
while, and then it froze again randomly. Its gradually got worse to
the point where it crashes nearly every time i first turn ont he
computer, and it gets to the kernal load phase and it freezes. The
second time i go in i can usually get to the windows desktop, but if
i
leave her idle for any amount of time she will freeze on me, nothing
responds, i just have to reboot.

Heres the weird part, aslong as i'm playing a game it doesnt freeze,
ever, so its got to the point where i have to load into windows,
quickly run up a game to run the the background whilst i do other
things which is ridiculous!!!


As soon as i close the game, give it 5-10 mins the machine will
freeze
again, i have tried all sorts of things, reformatted my machine
multiple times which has phased out the possiblity that its a windows
issue.


Ive updated all my drivers, my hardware hasnt changed since before
this started happening, but i have tried the graphics card in another
machine and its fine. Same with the PSU. I am currently running a RAM
testing tool to check for errors which ahs been running for the past
night and day.


Has anyone has this problem, or can shed some light on this as you
can
imagine, its slightly annoying!!


Thankyou


TMX

 

[NotMe]

Check to be sure all the fans are working.
I had a machine recently that started acting up like that.
I discovered that one of the mounts on the board that the CPU Fan/heatsink
attaches to has broken.
Once I tied the heatsink down (and replaced the thermal paste whick had
become contaminated) it works fine again.
Most BIOS have a PC Health monitor that will show you the CPU temp.
I noticed the CPU was running at 70°C (almost 160°F) after only a couple
minutes.
With the heatsink secured, it runs at 42° and no more errors.

If that isn't the issue, I would swap the power supply for one that is
'known good'.