Forking up computer, help?

Deadwing

Argh. Okay ive a slight problem with my P.C. Heres some brief specs
AMD XP 2400
512MB PC2100 ram
Win XP pro
Radeon 9800pro
Okay, well the problem basically is:
This only ever happens while playing games online.
The game freezes dead, and whatever sound was playing at the time of the crash loops over, and over. I can usually press ctrl+alt+del, but after about 30 seconds (before i have time to end task on the game) my comp lets out one long beeeeeeeeeeeeeep, and i have to reboot. Computer works fine on reboot.

I thought it could be my gfx card getting over heated or something, but if it was, the card wouldnt work on reboot. ditto cpu overheating.
At first it was only call of duty, so i thought it was just this games problem (CoD never liked ATI cards), until it happened in enemy territory last night.
Ive tried both playing behind a firewall, and without a firewall, same problem. Im out of ideas, ive looked in tak manager, no dodgy programs running i can see, have latest ati catalyst drivers etc etc. Im out of ideas!! Any help?

C Fodder

How are you connected online i.e. USB modem or so forth as it sounds like some form of chipset overheating while online. ( or network driver problem )

Deadwing

Ive a BB connection, using a dsl modem.
I thought it might be overheating at first too, but it fthat was the case id get the same problem on reboot, cause it wouldnt have had time to cool down, however it runs fine when reboot

C Fodder

Do you have any problems, ever, online or when downloading large files?
also what are your error rates on connections?
I have heard of people having problems with networking in XP Pro namely where the error rate keeps increasing the longer a connection is open until the connection becomes unuseable due to error rate. Only cure I know of so far is reinstall XP

From you description hardware is the most likely cause although if the problem doesn't recur after reboot then it could be software. (all clear for spyware, virus etc ?)

OfflerCrocGod

I believe that your problem may be down to buggy unmature network code in the game - let's say there are some network problems the game may not actually be design to cope with it (exception handling not there etc...). I also have these problems on two different computers when playing ET Nvidia/ATI cards; my only problem with the above theory is the fact that Win2K/XP should be able to cope with a crashing program - but windows seems to freeze aswell.......:dunno:.

Deadwing

C. Fodder: Yeah ive checked for spyware, its clean, ill run a virus check and do the old reliable defrag later too, i really dont think (hope) its a hardware problem, thanks for the help :cool:

OCG: Yeah i remember CoD crashed the living shit out of my 9800pro at first til i got updated drivers, and ET being an add on that the developers released for free cause they thought it sucked (which it obviously doesnt ) might not be optimised the best. So far theyre the only games to give me trouble too.

Thanks anyway everyone