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[Fossaman]

So, I don't often ask much of my graphics card, which is good, because it's several years old. But I do like to play some of Valve's games: Portal, Team Fortress 2, etc. Unfortunately, every time I try and open one of these lovely graphics intensive programs lately, a fan inside my computer case starts spinning up to a very high pitch, and then the computer freezes and the screen starts displaying odd graphic artifacts, like white areas splitting into out of sync red, green, and blue patches, and regular patterns of off color pixels all over the screen. These will flash around a little bit, and eventually the computer will give an error-beep from the tower and restart.

So, am I right in thinking that this is the graphics card spazzing out? I don't get this sort of problem with just processor loading. And I only hear that fan when I'm playing graphics-rich games.

[smjjames]

Whats your comp stats (including the graphics card) and when was the last update to the graphics card?

[smigenboger]

Some newer graphic cards have a screen interface where you can manually control the fan speed, or the max processing output. It may be factory set to start gushing out max performance once a program demands even a little output. How are your drivers?

[Hyperturtle]

Every ATI model card I've had, I needed to alter the fan speed manually or the system would crash within minutes if playing any of the games you mentioned.  I typically have to set it to at least 70% fan speed.  The automatic-based-on-temperature never worked well for me.

[Blacken]

++ to overheating. Check your case's airflow, and see if you can adjust fan speed.

[sneakey pete]

unplug your PC, take it to your shed/back yard/whatever, and clean all of the crap out of it. Dust, mainly, hopefully.

[zchris13]

I had a rabbit in there one time.

[Nikov]

Dust, airflow and heat. Touch the back of your graphics card next time you have a crash like this. Too hot to touch? Too hot to play.

[Fossaman]

Dust, airflow and heat. Touch the back of your graphics card next time you have a crash like this. Too hot to touch? Too hot to play.

This seems probable to me. I live in a dusty area and my computer is unavoidably situated in a low-airflow spot. I'll see if I can get my hands on some compressed air and give things a going over, maybe it'll help.

[Nikov]

Compressed air is a gimmick, just very lightly wipe parts down with a light cotton rag and some Q-tips.

[DJ]

I use a hair dryer to blow dust out of my computer case.

[NoctisVampire]

Or just use paintbrushes if no compressed air is available.
Heat can be a very serious problem to computers.
But when it starts to display various graphic artifacts...then it's probably already half-fried.
Clean up the fan, and if necessary, install a couple additional fan on the case to improve airflow.
And make sure to replace the thermal paste/pad if you removed the fan and heatsink in the progress.
Check CPU fan as well! If the graphic card fan got all that dusty...Good luck with that.

[Fossaman]

Or just use paintbrushes if no compressed air is available.
Heat can be a very serious problem to computers.
But when it starts to display various graphic artifacts...then it's probably already half-fried.
Clean up the fan, and if necessary, install a couple additional fan on the case to improve airflow.
And make sure to replace the thermal paste/pad if you removed the fan and heatsink in the progress.
Check CPU fan as well! If the graphic card fan got all that dusty...Good luck with that.

Yeah, I'm not going to mess around with fan installations and thermal paste. About the most I'm comfortable messing around with inside a computer is removing dust and reseating RAM.

[eerr]

have you tried updating the drivers?