Hey, I recently bought a new monitor about 1-2 weeks ago 22" widescreen...

ever since then my pc has been having random crashes whilst playing a game...
it will randomly just crash, sound freezes. random colour covers the whole screen and everything freezes...

i have to restart the pc but my ethernet adaptor stays frozen and i have to unplug the whole power to everything and plug it back in. im kind of confused to what it could be..

when it freezes i can hear the noise of my pc kind of sharpen up as if fans are going on overload and running REALLY fast like getting louder.

And im pretty sure its only when im inside my game.

any help would be great as im completely clueless

P.S my new hardware is

GeForce 8800 GTS
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750
2GB DDR2 RAM
160GB SATA-300 HDD
MSI motherboard that fits the stuff i bought.

The freezing and fast fans suggest a heat problem.

Are you saying you played these same games on another monitor and all was well?

yeah i did play them on the other monitor and everything was fine (1240x1024 or whatever the resolution was) and now i have this new monitor (16##x1050) widescreen and it seems to have started from when i got that, also.

i checked to see if it was a heating problem when it froze, i went into BIOS after i restarted up the whole pc etc and it was on around 65C

and the fans dont get louder slowly..its like, it will freeze and the fans will then increase straight away (dont know if it is the fans as i said but it sounds like it, or HDD)

The fan increase is either your CPU fan or perhaps the graphics fan.

They go faster as the heat increases.

Does this only happen during games?

If so try lowering your resolution.

If you are saying the BIOS detects the CPU at 65C (idle) that is very hot for an idle CPU even a dual core.

8800's also run fairly hot.

How large is the PSU (Watts)?

2nd line) yeah but it doesnt increase slowly, its a sudden (like 1 second) increase only when it freezes

3rd line) yeah as far as i have seen

4th line) i tried lowering it to 12##x1024 like my old monitor, i came back 6 hours later and it had froze in that time.

5th line) yeah well, is there any program i can use to check it when im on a game? cause i only know how to check through BIOS.

and i dont know how large my PSU is, that was my initial thought, there wasnt enough power to it but i dont know.

and, also one time i came home when the pc was on through the day (a game was on) and it was froze, so i rebooted etc but when i turned on my pc it sounded like a mini chainsaw so to speak, and i immediatly turned off my pc, tried again, same noise, left it for like 5 mins, then it was fine.

it happened the other day aswell. but it still made the sound for like 30 minutes and i had to leave, got back after about 7 hours and turned it on, everything was fine..

by the way, thanks for the quick replies

Also, if i put my hand on the side casing of my pc (metal side casing) its HOT.

like..anymore and i would have to pull my hand away after a minute or two

CoreTemp is a good monitor but you still cannot see it during games.

However you can see it running Prime95 aka Torture Test. This will run your system harder than any game known to man.

I would open it up and check your fans.

Such a noise (the clicking) indicates a fan hitting something.

Clean the CPU fan and watch it work. It might need replacing.

I would go back to your other monitor just to test if it is a monitor issue.

The wide screen could be drawing more power from both the 8800 and the CPU.

Anyway I think it is pretty certain that heat is the basic issue.

aight thanks alot man, im gonna go off to bed now but i will try out the temp programs tomorrow,

thanks again, speak to you tomorrow :P

No problem. We will be here.

aight, nevermind, curiosity killed me, downloaded Core Temp,

its on core#1 around 66C same as core2,

i then launched the game in window mode, moved it over and bit so i could see core temp and its going up slowly it seems, it hit 70C after about 5 mins, gonna leave it up for 30mins with the game up just to see, so i will report back then,

then go to bed :P