Computer Crisis

So I was doing what I do at 5 am on a Saturday: Listening to Winamp, browsing TNL, and playing WoW at the same time, when....
I use Alt-Tap to go back into WoW (which is lagging badly) and I dunno.

Instantly it seems, the whole computer locks up which has never happened since I put more RAM in, and simultaneously a bunch of fucked up pixels appear onscreen, quivering. It almost looked like when an NES cartridge is only partly running on an NES, with a lot of the picture distorted with little fuxed up pixels.

I thought my vid card was melting or something, so I turned off the comp, but booted it back up in safe mode. The distortion was still there. I did a system restore (for whatever reason) and it's still there. When I boot up in normal mode the system pretty much locks up.

So, prognosis? Did my video card melt? What do you think is broken? I need to fix it...NOW because I'm going back to school in like 7 hours and I need my parents' money.

OK.

I gave it some time and turned it back on. System restoration complete, and there are no display glitches.

Do you think I overheated or WoW did something nasty?

that definately sounds like an overheating issue on the gpu.

That happened to me while playing WoW... only once though... actually it was funny because it was running fine while I was playing and I kinda bumped the computer by accident and it did that. And I was only playing it for like, an hour. I rebooted and it was fine.

I was kinda concerned for my PC but Ive played FEAR, Half-Life 2, Battlefield 2, Civ 4, for hours and hours and never have had a problem, and I have played WoW for hours after that without a problem. Ive even hit my computer to replicate it. I really dont know what the answer is, but its funny we've both encountered it with WoW, but of course your situation is much worse. Hang in there.

edit: do you have an nvidia card? It could be an obscure incompatibility between WoW and the drivers.

You should check out more the ventilation in your case and consider getting some more fans.

diffs problem sounds like a failing/clogged gpu fan. get some compressed air and blow that bitch out.

You know I need to do that to my comp too...during the last semester one of my fans was rattling like it was clogged or dying. I should check it out. Thanks guys.

I have periodic crashes with WoW, I'd say once about every 2 weeks, except mine just hangs, repeating over and over again whatever sound clip was playing at the time. Up until a few months ago I used to overheat all the time playing BF2. I just thought it was my shitty case until I took a look at the CPU fan and heatsinks, which were completely filled with what I can only assume was the copious amounts of cigarette smoke that used to fill my room at the old CvC house. It had a complete death grip on the heatsinks especially. Popped that fucker off and cleaned out an unbelievable amount of somewhat gooey debris. New case and a clean fan = no overheats since.

yeah it really is amazing how much crap can get into a case. thats why fan filters are a godsend.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dragonmaster Dyne

yeah it really is amazing how much crap can get into a case. thats why fan filters are a godsend.

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That wouldn't have helped me though, since I had removed the sides of the case due to, you guessed it, overheating problems, so the cpu fan was just sucking ambient air from the room, rather than getting it from the case fans. In this case the heatsinks were the fan filters. Not good.