need opinion re: blue screen + restarting prob

System Athon 64 3000+ on Asus K8VSE deluxe, geforce 6800GT (other: 1 Gig
ram, 120GB IDE and 250GB SATA, 1 DVD-R/W drive, 1 HDTV card, drivers not
currently installed)

My system had been working pretty damn fine for a year or more up until a
couple of months ago, when I started getting the odd blue screen of death,
IRQL_NOT_LESS etc with ***nv4_disp.dll***. Quite infrequent, every couple
of days or so, and only while using intensive 3D games (like HalfLife2).
Never too much to bother me. Went on 4 week holiday. Came back, bought
TES4:Oblivion and the same problem was occuring, this time frequently.
every 15 mins to an hour or so I'd get blue screen, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
with nv4_disp.dll .... and once (only once) with portcls.sys.

I tried driver upgrade, rollbacks, driver reinstall, defragging hard drive,
cleaning up the system, turning off all background apps etc. Nothing solved
the problem. I eventually hit the bullet and completely wiped Windows XP
and reinstalled from scratch with the 84.21 drivers.

No more blue screen of death, but now my computer will randomly restart
(like pressing restart switch) whilst playing the game, not as frquently but
still after like 30 mins to 2 hours or so. Until last night this had ONLY
happened whilst playing 3D games ... when it - out of the blue - happened at
the desktop (I had powerDVD up at a DVD menu - not playing, firefox, Windows
Media player playing MP3's, MSN going, not much else).

This has almost convinced me that its a power supply problem, and not a
graphics card related issue (with all the blue screens being nv4_disp). I
had already ditched the nasty power supply out of my case not long after I
bought the machine in 2004 and have a 430W silent PSU running - forget the
brand but it wasn't el-cheapo (its now about 18 months old).

Before I outlay the AU$100 or so bucks on a good Antec (or similar) PSU I
just wanted an informed second (or third) opinion on the situation and
anything else (easy) I could try, or that it might be.

Thanks,

Graham.

"G" <nospam DeleteThis @nothanks.com> wrote in message
news:VzpWf.19148$dy4.11956@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> System Athon 64 3000+ on Asus K8VSE deluxe, geforce 6800GT (other: 1 Gig
> ram, 120GB IDE and 250GB SATA, 1 DVD-R/W drive, 1 HDTV card, drivers not
> currently installed)
>
> My system had been working pretty damn fine for a year or more up until a
> couple of months ago, when I started getting the odd blue screen of death,
> IRQL_NOT_LESS etc with ***nv4_disp.dll***. Quite infrequent, every couple
> of days or so, and only while using intensive 3D games (like HalfLife2).
> Never too much to bother me. Went on 4 week holiday. Came back, bought
> TES4:Oblivion and the same problem was occuring, this time frequently.
> every 15 mins to an hour or so I'd get blue screen, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
> with nv4_disp.dll .... and once (only once) with portcls.sys.
>
> I tried driver upgrade, rollbacks, driver reinstall, defragging hard
> drive, cleaning up the system, turning off all background apps etc.
> Nothing solved the problem. I eventually hit the bullet and completely
> wiped Windows XP and reinstalled from scratch with the 84.21 drivers.
>
> No more blue screen of death, but now my computer will randomly restart
> (like pressing restart switch) whilst playing the game, not as frquently
> but still after like 30 mins to 2 hours or so. Until last night this had
> ONLY happened whilst playing 3D games ... when it - out of the blue -
> happened at the desktop (I had powerDVD up at a DVD menu - not playing,
> firefox, Windows Media player playing MP3's, MSN going, not much else).
>
> This has almost convinced me that its a power supply problem, and not a
> graphics card related issue (with all the blue screens being nv4_disp). I
> had already ditched the nasty power supply out of my case not long after I
> bought the machine in 2004 and have a 430W silent PSU running - forget the
> brand but it wasn't el-cheapo (its now about 18 months old).
>
> Before I outlay the AU$100 or so bucks on a good Antec (or similar) PSU I
> just wanted an informed second (or third) opinion on the situation and
> anything else (easy) I could try, or that it might be.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Graham.
>

I can't say for sure, but before shelling out for a power supply, check out
that 6800GT by installing rivatuner and using its hardware monitor function
to run in the background while you run a 3d application for a while. Check
those GPU temperatures out, an overheating card could be the problem. Those
fans tend to clog up sometimes and slowly degenerate, explaining the decline
in reliability you describe. From there it would be a relatively simple
matter of cleaning the fan and perhaps oiling it.
Power supplies tend to die suddenly, graphics chip fans get poorly over
time, and can cause the problem you describe.

Regards,
Dr.White.