I have a 128MB GeForce 6700 XL Graphics Card and games keep locking up and freezing - Can Anyone Help Me???

Question

Recently I've noticed certain games are conflicting, at first I thought it was just new titles that were realesed in the last few months, but even older games like Just Cause or even small indie games are hving problems now, I have no idea what the problem is, I have latest versions of Direct X and the drivers for my graphics card. On very rare occasions they do work, on others they dont, Im just so confused I have Intel Dual Core and its easily dast enough to run the software, enough HDD space and memory so Im just so confused as to why things that used to work perfectly are starting to screw up... is the card not compatibal with something?? Or is there a common fault on these things, I've looked everywhere and cant find any answers, please can someone try and help me??

thanks in advance
Steve

Just thought I'd add that the first few times I play games they are fine then after a few playts they either start to lock up and freeze or I get lots of like tiny tiny orange boxes on the screen. Now when this happens (and thus locks the machine up) the mouse is locked too, but the games sound isn't stuck that is still playing so Im fairnly sure that rules out most other things other than the graphics card.

Answer 1

Your aging card might be heating up. Try opening your case and run a game with an electric fan pointed towards the graphics card. If freezing stops, then you just need better case ventialtion.

Try cleaning heatsink and fan of your graphics card first. Then consider options like better air intake and exhaust fans like these:
http://www.silenx.com/index.asp

Answer 2

first steve go to this link ...http://www.soft32.com/download_185364.html...and download the 6700xl drivers,and make sure you download them using the normal i.e download method,dont use a download manager,these have known to corrupt certain driver downloads
and when you install the drivers first make sure you remove the current nvidia drivers and restart the p.c,when it starts again press f8 to enter safe mode
the reason for entering safe mode is to use a program called "driver cleaner" from http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745,used in safe mode,this will clean any reminense of old driver files from previous versions as these may cause problems with future drivers,please read the "read me" before you use driver cleaner,after using the driver cleaner restart the p.c and boot back into windows normally
then install the latest forceware nvidia drivers,and make sure you disable any anti-virus software while installing nvidia drivers as this can affect the correct installation of the nvidia drivers
also make sure you have a adequate power supply for your card,most cards will run fine with a 350watt psu however a 400watt is best
however steve ,it may be just a bad or faulty core in your card,remember nvidia cards such as the geforce 6600gt are really 6800 cards that didnt make the grade,for example the 6800 has 16 pixel pipelines and the 6600 has between 8 and 12,these 6600 cards were originally destined to be 6800 cards bit when tested they were found to be a few piplines short,so were put in the 6600 production line,some enthusiasts developed a way to activate the disabled pipelines and make their cards faster but nvidia have placed safeguards on the cards to stop this
check the card on another p.c and see if the same problems occur,as i had a similar problem a few years ago with a geforce 6200,it was crashing and i had it on a amd64 p.c,when i transfered it to a intel motherboard with a pentium 4 it was fine
apparently the problem was a conflict with the chipset,would you beleive the chipset in question was a nvidia nforce 3,you would think a geforce card should work fine with a nvidia chipset,however with a intel 848p chipset it worked great
other reasons could be overheating,or a corrupt driver,allways download the drivers from the nvidia driver download site(http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp),however the only reason i give you another link is its a specific geforce 6700xl driver download
however all nvidia drivers are unified,so each should work with the other(apart from the 8 series drivers)
give nvidia a e-mail at http://www.nvidia.com/page/support.html,i contacted nvidia this way and they are very helpful
hope this helps
good luck mate!

Answer 3

Could be you're having a software/hardware conflict. Your best bet is to go to the site for the games that you're having problems with. Most will have a compatibility comparison program/list that you can check your system against. Start with Nvidea, they will tell you if your system is up to scratch for their cards. :)

Answer 4

is some of the game meet your specs on your video card ?

Answer 5

how much computer ram do you have? you should have at least 1 gig in there to do games and things like that...