Having a weird problem.

Lately my computer has been having a weird problem, I am not sure if it is a video card problem but it could be. Sometimes while playing games my computer will sudenly freeze up and my screen turns to verticles lines of color, usually all close to the same one, but sometimes I get a rainbow of color. Anyways it only seems to happen while in games. I do not think it has anything to do with heay because I have let it sit for about 30 mins bafore after crashing, started it up and started up the program that crashed it and is has froze right up before, but it often lets me go on as if nothing has happened. It might be a failing video card or maybe a driver issue. It also seems to happen more frequent with certain games. A roomate tried to get me to play command and conquer: generals online with him once and it would not stay running for more than 5 mins. It has been botherig me more and more recently because I play WOW and it has been crashing more lately. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks

99% sure this is heat related.. Run with your case open, start one of the games that makes it crash. Play until crashed, and touch the heatsink and the ram chips. Hot?

Have you actually checked your temperatures or are you just going on the general feeling that it has nothing to do with heavy use?

Quite frankly, even if it is a driver issue, the fact is that you are seeing the issue when you are seeing it. In such a case, I would start by looking at the simple and fairly common problems that any of us run into when over clocking. Even if they turn out not to be the problem, it is better to know certainly that you have ruled an idea out on a semi-scientific basis.

There is a good tool that we use to check hardware out and see what is going on called MBM5. You can get it here. Try that and let us know when we can ask more specific questions. One way or another, I am sure that we will sort this out.

same idea as the other two...check for heat problems.