PC crashes while playing

I've had this issue for a while now, and after getting no help from NC support, I figured I'd ask around here for a solution. A few months ago, shortly after they began doing the weekend events, my system would freeze when I would zone, forcing me to reboot. This would happen a few times, then disappear and I would be able to play. After Nightfall was released, the problem escalated to freezing while in battle. After freezing over a dozen times in the last two days, annoying my guildmates running missions with me, I'm about ready to give up on this entirely. Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this issue, and how to fix it.

Everest Specs:
Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name PYRO
User Name Administrator

Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 2100 MHz (12.5 x 168) 2600+
Motherboard Name ASRock K7S41GX (2 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 AMR, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN)
Motherboard Chipset SiS 741GX
System Memory 1024 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type AMI (07/19/04)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (128 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Monitor EPI EnVision EN-775e [17" CRT] (1249679116)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device

overclocked overheating gpu/cpu ? old drivers ...

This problem is relatively recent, and my temp is the same as it has been since I built the system. And all my drivers are updated. That's the first thing they asked me to do.

Steps I've taken to resolve the issue: 1)reinstall GW, 2) defrag and scan drive, 3)update all drivers and WinXP, 4) run -diag, 5) scanned net connection for data loss. Everything is updated and running smoothly, except of course for GW.

can u run other games without crashing ?

I play on my notebook pc, but I run the game on my old desktop for swapping stuff to mules on other accounts. At first, I could run the game in a fairly large window on my desktop w/out trouble, but eventually it got to where the entire system would reboot upon loading the guild hall. On the desktop, I run the game in a much smaller window now and haven't had any more rebooting troubles. I think it must be an overheating issue forcing the reboots.

Your symptoms sound like a similar situation. Have you tried playing in window mode (as opposed to full screen) or with lower graphics quality? If so, are there fewer reboots? At worst, it may be that you need new hardware, but perhaps you might fix it by simply cleaning the heat sinks or something. The way it worked fine at first and degraded leaves me thinking it might be something fixable with a little cleaning. Thankfully, I haven't needed the game in a large window on my desktop, so I haven't investigated further.

I'm not an expert, but an overheating issue that causes a reboot could be a very localized event ... and maybe not close enough to the temp monitors you're reading for the increase to register. I never saw spikes on my desktop's reported temps either, but I'm not sure that rules out an overheating issue somewhere.

Good luck to you!
Luny

I clean my case regularly, so I'm fairly certain dust isn't a problem. I can run other games without a problem. I can even limp through Oblivion without problems like this. I've tried turning down my graphics settings to the absolute lowest, and still have frozen like this.

And for the record, it's not just rebooting. It's freezing the entire system, with zero mouse movement, forcing me to reboot it.