Crackling noise, performance drop, then lockup.

I recently bout a new gaming computer form ibuypower about 4-5 months ago. Since ive had it, randomly during gameplay (typically Arma 2 and Empire Total war) distortion such as a crackling, noise would slowly develop though the speakers, the game perfomance would begin to plummit, and eventually completely lock up the entire computer within a period of roughly 1-3 minutes. The only way to get the computer working again would be to swith the power off and on again. This has been occuring more frequently during the past couple of weeks.

Things I have tried:
Uninstalling, reinstalling the games.
Cleaning up files, defrag, ect.
virus/maleware checks.

System specs:
Vista 64-bit
Intiel i-7 920 2.67GHz
Nvidia GTX 260 x2
500GB hard drive
6 GB RAM

I have temperature monitors installed, the highest teamperature usually reaches 47C during gaming. When the computer is freshly rebooted, it runs fine until I run a game or somewhat stressing application.
Since the rig is still somewhat new, I'm hoping it isnt a hardware issue.

Any advice would be great. Just want to figue out what is causing this. My next step is to just go purchase windows 7 and hopefully it will be the magic fix.

I recently bout a new gaming computer form ibuypower about 4-5 months ago. Since ive had it, randomly during gameplay (typically Arma 2 and Empire Total war) distortion such as a crackling, noise would slowly develop though the speakers, the game perfomance would begin to plummit, and eventually completely lock up the entire computer within a period of roughly 1-3 minutes. The only way to get the computer working again would be to swith the power off and on again. This has been occuring more frequently during the past couple of weeks.

Things I have tried:
Uninstalling, reinstalling the games.
Cleaning up files, defrag, ect.
virus/maleware checks.

System specs:
Vista 64-bit
Intiel i-7 920 2.67GHz
Nvidia GTX 260 x2
500GB hard drive
6 GB RAM

I have temperature monitors installed, the highest teamperature usually reaches 47C during gaming. When the computer is freshly rebooted, it runs fine until I run a game or somewhat stressing application.
Since the rig is still somewhat new, I'm hoping it isnt a hardware issue.

Any advice would be great. Just want to figue out what is causing this. My next step is to just go purchase windows 7 and hopefully it will be the magic fix.

According to another forum and it was a heat Sink issue, but I don't know if that is causing the problem. You can go buy a can of air (Electrical Air can't be any other kind) and try blowing out your system to see if that helps. You can also put a fan blowing into the computer or if it is a laptop you can those Cooling pads that you set your laptop on!!

Check this thread out for information on 47C and Heat Sink problem!!!
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/254100-28-temp-normal

I'll try checking it again, I clean out my computer components regularly, the fan is in working order. It could possibly be the thermal paste since that does have a tendancy to wear. Idling, speedfan gives at the highest the GPU's 44C and 40C with the cores. During intense gameplay the temperature readings for the GPU's hit 70C and the cores hit around 60C. I'm not sure if that is overheated or not. Not much can be done about the GPU's other than blow the dust out, which I did a week ago.

I'll try checking it again, I clean out my computer components regularly, the fan is in working order. It could possibly be the thermal paste since that does have a tendancy to wear. Idling, speedfan gives at the highest the GPU's 44C and 40C with the cores. During intense gameplay the temperature readings for the GPU's hit 70C and the cores hit around 60C. I'm not sure if that is overheated or not. Not much can be done about the GPU's other than blow the dust out, which I did a week ago.

Does the GPU have a fan also if not you can go buy a heat sink fan and attach to the GPU!! I did that once for an old computer and it really helped!!

Edited by GamerX, 01 January 2010 - 06:39 AM.