[wolfling]

I'm using Radeon X800 3D card and have exactly the same problem - spontaneous restarts, sometimes the computer even turns off on its own, at best I end up with graphics getting messed up, then blank black screen and then finally blank blue screen too.

It seem to happen with 3d games as well, my experience is the guild 2 and world of warcraft. Once the crash occurs, even starting these games is impossible, they crash immediately, so maybe it has something to do with overheating, but I've cleaned my GPU cooler and as far as I can say, it's not insanely hot when the computer goes down (can't give numbers, but I could touch the fan shield and it wasn't overly hot on touch). Furthemore I never had any problem with WoW before and I was playing it on this configuration for more then a year.
I'm planning to try buying a new power source today and will see if it helps anything.

I admit I have no idea how to take/get the dumps similar to ones posted here, so if someone can tell me how to get them, I can supply them for reference.
One more but of information I got is - sometimes I got machine_check_exception blue screen. I ran some beta version of memory diagnostics by MS, found no errors though.

[Rollin' Rog]

I can run a debugging utility on the dump files if you do this:

1 > create a new folder on the desktop and call it "dumpcheck" or whatever you like
2 > navigate to c:\windows\minidump and copy the last 2 or 3 minidump files to that folder. They are numbered by date.
3 > close the folder and right click on it and select "Send to (folder name).zip"
4 > use the "manage attachments" in the "advanced" reply window to upload that zip file here as an attachment.

This might point us to a 3rd party driver causing the error, if one exists for it.

[wolfling]

Heh, maybe I should change my level to intermediate then, I just didn't know which directory to look for the dumps at ;>

Anyway, there's just one and rather old dump, so I guess that wouldn't help you much. I -seem- to be through the problems (well, it's hard to say, as you never know if it's ok now, or if it just hasn't happened yet). I made three changes - bought new power source, new GPU and CPU cooler. I don't think it's GPU cooler, because in my opinion, the card is hotter then it was with the original one (gods, I hate handling hw without expert aid), similary with CPU cooler, because I think that original one was quite good (just made one hell of noise). So if I was to bet, I'd go for the power source. Try replacing it if you can and see if it helps.

[Brorin]

I have been having the same kind of issue with the blank blue screen. Although mine is not always a blue screen. The only game I play (world of warcraft) will start up ok but when typing my username and password the type gets laggy. I log into the game and the screen lags and so does my type and then usually within about 10 minutes or so the game either shuts down with a error message (no codes, just a small box in the middle of the screen with the word 'error' in it) or I get a blue screen and I have to restart I don't really know what else to do.

[mgbadboyz]

Ok im having the same problem running 3d games and i think i have found a solution. It seems that most ati cards witout fans tend to overheat quiet a bit. I have tested my cpu/ram/mobo/hard drive for errors. Nothing is wrong with none of them. I am used a x800 pro ati agp card with 1gb ddr400 ram amd athlon xp 3000+. 20 gb hard drive *sux* lol. But its the only possible explenation .. overheating. BUT. I have ran water cooling through my computer keeping video card at 30-40c monitored by Speed fan and still happens.. so it cant be over heating. If you have had to card for awhile it could give during stress or hitting a bad sector on the video card somewhere. Im getting a x850 platnum hopeing this will fix my problem. So all i can think of is the video card being old?