StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I've got an issue somewhere, and I'm not sure how to determine what it is, but I'm sure it's a driver error. The OS is stable, but whenever I play a certain few graphically intensive games, it'll crash on me. Since this is a driver crash, it's usually bluescreen or worse--right to reboot.

What's probably causing this? I assume it has to be a graphics driver somewhere, but DirectX seems fine and my X850's drivers are updated. Is there any way for me to tell?

I figured it might be ram, but when I work with Maya and Photoshop open at the same time, I'm using a lot more ram and processor power than games do, and I never get an issue or a crash. Is it buggy software? I'm trying to get a version of HoMM5 stable enough to play, and it seems to keep causing these crashes that windows claims to be driver related. How can my drivers be up to date, but selectively and occasionally broken?

Check your airflow and GPU temperature. Also see if the GPU fan is spinning and the ducts aren't blocked.

Yeah, I have that problem. I'm not careful, the damn thing hits 80c and boom. I've been meaning to upgrade the cooling solution, but I haven't really known what to do besides some PCI fan that'll maybe give me an extra 5 degrees, which isn't enough on its own. Replacing the heat sink on the card seems like the only option, but I can't figure out what to replace it with.

My GPU fan is going, but I've had problems before with it spazzing out. It's an older design of a Mobo, and the graphics card's fan faces down towards another card. I actually have the case opened up with the side exposed just to keep it extra cooled down. I had an actual little desk fan hooked to it for extra cooling, and I'll stick that back on. The whole contraption makes an awful racket though!

Still, excellent responses! I should go get some canned air and clean my computer out, I presume.

Also, while looking for the drivers, I discovered I can't find a system32 directory. Isn't that bad?

Possibly, but I've occasionally had issues with folders moving their icons into the middle of nowhere. Type %Windir%\system32 into the address bar, then hit enter and see if it takes you to the system32 folder.