Computer Freezing/Locking up when playing a Video Game

[duffz]

Hey,

I Recently had a computer made for me and have had it for about 2 weeks now. Everything works great in it and haven't had any problems except for when i play World of Warcraft, my computer decides to freeze up after a random amount of time.. Sometimes it lasts for 2 hours, sometimes only for 5 minutes. And i must manually turn it off by pressing and holding the power button.

My Specs are:

- Intel Celeron D Processer
- Windows Xp Home Service Pack 2
- 250 GB Hard Drive
- 2 GB Ram
- Nvidia Geforce 7300GS Video Card

I Thought it could be overheating of my graphics card (I'm not the best with computer hardware, though i know how to take it out and put it in), so i opened both side panels up and even put a mini fan blowing inside it to see if it would cool it down, but it still froze up.

I felt the inside of my computer and it does get pretty hot without the mini fan i use, but my computer acts the same way if i have the mini fan On or Off. is it possible that i still wasn't able to cool down the video card with the fan i put blowing on the inside?

Or what other possibilities do you think could be causing this problem?

Its very frustrating because i run a program with World of Warcraft that i need to run most of the day awhile im away, and when i come back to it and see it was only active for 30 minutes before freezing sucks because i lose a lot of time.

My computer doesn't freeze unless i am running this game (haven't tested any other games to see if it froze also), but it never freezes just idling.

 

[lurtz555]

The exact same thing happens to me. My computer runs perfectly on anything else and my graphics card is great but at any random times it will freeze wen i play games. Its weird because the first day that i play it works perfect but the next day and all the next days when i play games ( I have only tried with LOTR battle for middle earth 2 and demo for quake wars) it always freezes. i know that its not lagg because even when i play single player it does it too. Exept, for me i only get about 3 to 6 mins at a time with the games but my computer isent at all hot.

HELP ME PLEASE

 

[Goldfish92]

Well, sounds like something overheating.... But if you are SURE that it isn't then try updating the drivers and see what happens.