Possible problem with new gaming PC, need help

[MacNukem]

I think something is wrong with my new gaming PC. I can run games perfectly on it, but after about an hour or so of playing Oblivion, the screen goes black and the whole PC freezes up (while the sound repeats constantly), then I'm forced to manually reboot. I read that this was a problem to do with the game itself, but then I noticed the same thing happens with TF2 after about an hour started. I have no idea what's going on, and I'm pretty sure my PC isn't overheating. Funnily enough, this never happens with crysis or sins of a solar empire.

Any advice?

My specs are:
Point of view 8800GT 512MB
core 2 duo E8200
4GB corsair ram
windows vista 32 bit home premium

If you need to know any other information I can get it

Any help would be greatly appreciated

EDIT: some additional info. My CPU temp is about 40 degrees celcius on average while playing games and between 30 and 40 while idle. I disabled the sound and music in oblivion and tried playing, as soon as I entered and outdoor area, the fan on my 8800GT got louder and after about 3 minutes my screen went black and I had to reboot manually. This doesn't happen in other games, for example in TF2 or other source games, it takes about 30 minutes - 1 hour for the same thing to happen

So the problem isn't overheating and probably isn't related to my onboard sound codec


I also don't understand why crysis and other games aren't affected though

[Cornholio]

Do you have the latest gfx drivers installed ?

[Lucio]

Have you checked the error logs? There should be events recorded for both of these issues.

Now, in my experience Oblivion has one or two issues with newer hardware, mostly upon loading or upon quiting. Make sure it's fully patched, and also get the Unofficial Patches. One possibly suspect in Oblivion is the memory register issue, that caused a buffer overflow after a while of playing.

Oh and as a side note, the 8800GT is *NOT* capable of running Oblivion on maxed settings outdoors. Make sure grass is set to between 25 and 50%, and whilst the view distances can be increased to max, it doesn't work with any of the larger texture packs.

[MacNukem]

Have you checked the error logs? There should be events recorded for both of these issues.

Now, in my experience Oblivion has one or two issues with newer hardware, mostly upon loading or upon quiting. Make sure it's fully patched, and also get the Unofficial Patches. One possibly suspect in Oblivion is the memory register issue, that caused a buffer overflow after a while of playing.

Oh and as a side note, the 8800GT is *NOT* capable of running Oblivion on maxed settings outdoors. Make sure grass is set to between 25 and 50%, and whilst the view distances can be increased to max, it doesn't work with any of the larger texture packs.

Checked the error logs, just said the application failed. No hardware or system errors though, thank god.

I just tried out some other newer games there as well, playing them for a good while and nothing crashes. 3dmark vantage works ok as well, so I'm guessing the problem is isolated to these two cases and the problem isn't hardware related (I hope).

I found this as well, which might be a bit helpful although I'm not too sure support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5034-EIPV-6426

I also spoke to my brother about it and he said there are a few driver related issues with nvidia and vista.

Do you have the latest gfx drivers installed ?

Yep, 175.1

[Lucio]

Interestingly enough, that indicates both games you have a problem with, have an issue with memory being allocated.

Try taking out one stick of RAM to see if it helps, after all Windows isn't using it and the speed differences between Single and Duel channel are something that you can only normally notice in benchmarking software.

[MacNukem]

I might give the RAM thing a shot.

[MacNukem]

FINALLY problem solved. It seemed it was a problem with the newest nvidia driver I was using, so I uninstalled that and installed the old 169.xx version. Everything works perfectly now

[Uriel]

Oh and as a side note, the 8800GT is *NOT* capable of running Oblivion on maxed settings outdoors. Make sure grass is set to between 25 and 50%, and whilst the view distances can be increased to max, it doesn't work with any of the larger texture packs.

Really? I'm running Oblivion with everything maxed at 1920x1200 noAA, including grass and shadows on grass. Smooth enough for me. The only time it drops frames is when it's loading new map tiles.

I have noticed a marked improvement in framerates for certain sections with the latest patch.