PC Freezes while playing games??

Games will work perfect on my PC for a varied amount of time before the screen goes black and the sound continues for about 3-5 seconds before stuttering completely into a machine gun like loop. I need to hard reboot after this. This has happened recently with different games such as Bad Company 2, Borderlands and even Beat Hazard. I just bought a bunch of games from the Steam sale and I'd like to get this ironed out before I invest time into them. Usually when I restart the computer it doesn't say anything but this past time it said "Windows has recovered from an error" and these are the details:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 117
BCP1: FFFFFA8005A474E0
BCP2: FFFFFA600247967C
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_0_6001
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini070510-01.dmp
C:\Users\Mikey\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-54631-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Users\Mikey\AppData\Local\Temp\WERDA09.tmp.version.txt


My system specs:

q9400 2.66 quad, 4gb ram, ati 4850, vista 64 bit

Any help is greatly appreciated.

my guess is overheating. Have you opened those "files that help describe the problem?"

could be overheating, maybe driver issues... Make sure you're up to date

Does it freeze under any other instances? You could be looking at a number of different causes here.

Have you installed any new "critical updates"? Any new video drivers installed? Sometimes these updates can cause your system to be unstable. I've had to stop windows from applying certain updates because it would blue screen me at boot.

I would do a system restore/format (save all your game saves and important files) and start from scratch given that you might not know what was installed and when. Then I would install all the most up to date hardware drivers and then reinstall your games. If the problem persists then you might have a hardware problem. Clean out your rig if it's dusty as hell. I would reseat the memory and run some memtests just incase. I'm being very general here, but we can help isolate the problem by starting with a clean install.

Hope that helps. Keep us updated.

I'll just throw out there for those helping him that the error he produced is a video card related error in case none of you knew already.

I'm pretty much convinced it is a video card issue, either overheating or a driver problem. You should be able to control the fan speed on your card through the ATI control panel, or similar ATI program. I don't really know where that setting would be located for ATI cards, as I only use Nvidia. Most cards are set at extremely low fan speeds, so bumping their speeds up can make a world difference. You should update the drivers...though if it is happening after a certain interval, it is more than likely a overheating problem.

Could also be an issue with an insufficient power supply. Are you sure you have enough power to juice everything?

more than likely overheating, you can purchase many CHEAP cooling products at www.tigerdirect.com and newegg.com

I guess overheating...

Try this...

Get a household fan. Open up your computer case. Put the fan on full blast and point it into the case to keep things nice and cool. Play games as normal. See if you can play longer or if the problem goes away completely. If so, you have a heating problem.

Wouldn't surprise me with the heat the nation has been having the last few days.

seems to me like overheating..

Excellent help potato.

Anyways get bluescreenview and use this http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc750081.aspx

or this http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Windows-XP-Blue-Screen-Death-STOP-Codes-t43519.html

there was another website that had like every single code, I think the bookmark is on my W7 partition though..so if you still can't find out I'll get it ( if I even did bm it..D: )

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I haven't really had much time to play around with it lately because I've been busy but I'm going to toy with the fan speeds and see if it's an overheating issue. I ran a stress test on the system a few weeks ago and the temperatures were normal though. My drivers are all up to date. The odd part is the duration in which the error will occur. I fired up the Starcraft 2 beta and it froze within 3 minutes. But a few nights ago I played Borderlands for 2 hours straight with no problems.

The fan control was set to automatic, do you suggest that I put it on manual fan control while I'm gaming and then set it to automatic while doing other tasks? I have had no problems with freezing otherwise than with gaming. I can set it from 1-100 percent. Would running the fan at 100 percent while gaming be inadvisable?

70-ish, imo, should be good.

back when the ati card's auto fan thing didn't work i just kept it set at a constant 65 and it kept everything cool enough. this was on a 4870.

i never did hear if they got it fixed since i still keep it on 65 all the time, but your card is one of the ones that was affected.