Member Avatar for redmeansgo82

I have a brand new PC, AMD Athlon 3000+, Geforce 6200, Gforce ATX? motherboard, 1gb of ram, yada yada yada, but whenever I load up a game (Quake4, Doom3, F.E.A.R., Half Life 2), I can play for like 5-10 minutes then the computer screen freezes replaying the same sound over and over again. I'm guessing some of the hardware was damaged shipping, can anybody pinpoint what? (my guess is the hard drive was roughed up, so thats why I posted it in here). All help would be great.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by nizzy1115

Dani AI

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Short summary and structured troubleshooting to narrow this down quickly.

The symptom — playing any 3D game for 5–10 minutes, then the screen freezing while audio loops — usually points to a GPU/graphics-driver hang, a power problem (PSU), or thermal stress. Since already reinstalled Windows and drivers, focus on hardware isolation while using suggestions from the thread: ’s software angle, ’s onboard‑GPU test, and ’s heat suggestion are all useful starting points.

Try these steps in order (simplest first):

  1. Reproduce with minimal setup: remove extra drives, unplug USB devices, boot using onboard video (as @^^! recommended) or a different card if available. If the freeze goes away, the discrete GPU or its power is suspect.
  2. Check temps and fans: watch CPU and GPU temps at idle and under load (BIOS readings or a monitoring utility). Look for fans that stop or spin slowly, and check that the GPU cooler is seated. Overheating will often produce exactly this behavior.
  3. Test memory and motherboard: run Memtest86+ (overnight or several passes). Try one RAM stick at a time in different slots. Visually inspect the motherboard for bulging/leaking capacitors.
  4. Power supply: a weak or failing PSU can cause hangs under GPU load. If possible, swap in a known‑good PSU or use a PSU tester/multimeter to check rail voltages under load.
  5. Hard drive checks (to address your shipping concern): listen for clicks, run CHKDSK /r and a SMART check. HDD problems typically cause slow I/O or crashes, but they’re less likely to cause a frozen display with looping audio than GPU/PSU/thermal faults.

Extra notes: after a freeze, check Windows Event Viewer for driver or disk errors. Don’t flash BIOS unless you have a confirmed incompatibility. If hardware fails these tests, document temperatures, test results, and photos of the board/caps and contact the seller/manufacturer for RMA — include the reproduction steps so they can validate shipping damage.

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All 5 Replies

Member Avatar for darctones

nice box ! do you have any other problems with it ? cause it sounds like a software error . actually it sounds like a directX error . have you tried to uninstall all versions of directX then reinstall the most current version .

Member Avatar for ^^!

There also may be Driver conflicts try reinstalling the latest Drivers for Gfx Cards etc...

Member Avatar for redmeansgo82

it's not a software issue, because i recently reinstalled everything, windows, drivers and all, so its got to be a hardware issue, does anybody know what hardware could've been affected?

Member Avatar for ^^!

The Graphics Card if you have an onboard one as well as a normal one disconnect the Normal one from the motherboard and use the onboard one to see if it is the gfx card.

Member Avatar for nizzy1115

possibly a heat issue of the graphics card and/or processor overheating?

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