Hello everyone I'm encountering a strange issue while playing games with my new graphics card. I recently upgraded my graphics card to a PNY GeForce 8800GT 512MB. Since I've installed the card I've been having the following problem. I would start up a game (usually Team Fortress 2), and everything would seem to be running fine. After a certain amount of time (from what I've noticed it starts anywhere from 30mins to an hour and a half later) the game will start freezing for about 4-6 seconds every few minutes. I've updated all my drivers, and currently downloaded all the recent Windows Updates. I've even run a PC diagnostic over at PC Pitstop: Free PC Diagnostics, computer help and Tuneups. So far everything checks out ok. I've checked to see if the graphics card was possibly sitting incorrectly in the PCI Express slot, or if the supplemental power connecter was connected improperly and that was ok as well. Here are my computers specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 2200 MHz
2048MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT
Windows XP Pro SP2

I've only noticed this so far with games. Dvds, and online videos are working fine. The only games I've tried playing are Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2. Thank you to anyone who is taking the time to read this! I really appreciate it. I've searched the forums but didn't see any threads concerning a similar issue. Any help is most appreciated.

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Klaatu Barada Nikto

Thank you for responding! I already have CCleaner, and use it regularly. When this problem first starting happening the first thing I did was run a virus scan, a spy ware scan, and ran CCleaner as well.

Hi, 2 things to think about, how hot does it get inside your Pc case and how powerful is your power supply?

Because of the time delay of about 30 minutes makes me think that it could either be getting a bit hot inside or the power supply could be too small

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I have a 430w power supply is that to low for my graphics card? Ok just checked the temps with Everest Home Edition here are the results:


CPU 33 °C (91 °F)

Aux 10 °C (50 °F)

GPU 53 °C (127 °F)

GPU Ambient 37 °C (99 °F)

Maxtor 6L120P0 30 °C (86 °F)

Wow really wasn't expecting the GPU temp to be so high..is that normal? That was just on the desktop not running the game...from this info is there a way to determine if its the power supply, or the temps? Thanks!

thats not so high for that card actually, the gt gets even hotter than that, i think i saw one at around 90 degrees celcius before- in a game i think. if you have the nvidia ntune control panel you could try raising the fan speed to 100% in your games. If you dont have the nvidia ntune control panel you can get it here - NVIDIA nTune.

ALSO: Make sure you have adequite case cooling. If you have a rear fan, check if it has a switch attached,you could have a notched speed control switch, so when playing a game you can notch the fan rpm up. Unrelated to fans, you should, if you have not already, run a defrag to tidy up your hard drive and make files more easily accesed, which means less loading times for textures and what not - start/all programs/accesories/system tools/disk defragmenter

Im not sure of the stock temps of an 8800 but my gpu idles around 55-60degrees so i would imagine that your temps are OK...

One way to test the stress temps is to keep everest running then start a game, play it til you start getting the problem then Alt+Tab out of the game quickly to check the temps, or if you have dual monitors put the everest display in the 2nd monitor ( That what i do)

Also what Wattage is your power supply, i believe the recommended for an 8800 is 450watts or higher

Edit: Thanks DJ

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Hey D__ I just ran that test, and the GPU temp only went from 53C to 58C. Which I don't think is much of an issue. This was while running Team Fortress 2 on a full 30 player map. This time it took about an hour for it to happen. The rest of the temps were pretty much the same...I have a 430W power supply could this be the main problem at hand?

You could be pushing your Power Supply Unit



thats the MINIMUM required, so its entirely feasable that after a period of gaming your Power Supply Unit might not quite be up to whats being asked of it

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The recommended power supply is a 450w so you shouldnt be experiencing major problems like freezing, although this depends if its a cheap power supply or not.

I had this problem once, it was simply to do with the fans not operating properly, and would only happen during gameplay, which is when the fans are at their fastest.

Well the power supply that I have came with the case I bought its a Thermaltake 430W power supply (model number is XP550 NP). As for the fans how do I increase their speed with NVidia nTune so that they will only run faster when playing a game as opposed to all the time.