Computer... Dying?

Hi,

Since a couple of weeks I've been having some problems with my computer. Whenever I'm playing a game, it'll freeze and after 2/3 seconds the screen will go completely black. It's probably something to do with my graphics card, because whenever I have Windows Media Player on, the music will just keep playing. It's been getting worse lately, it now freezes every 3 minutes or so.

Also, sometimes it will start stinking like something is burning in there.

I do not know my specs, unfortunately, and don't know how I can look them up if you need them.

Does anyone have an idea what's going on, if I can fix it, or do I just need to get me a new computer? :\

I've never ever tried to lend techon-info before, I'm always on the receiving end, but I had an urge.

To show us your specs, go Start->Run, input dxdiag this will bring something up which gives your computers spec. Click 'save all information' and attach the resultant file to a post.

When it comes to graphics the first thing to do is make sure your driver is updated. This is fairly simple once you know how. Go to the homepage of whoever it is that made your graphics card (most likely, Nvidia), click download or drivers or something like it, find the latest driver for your card. Download it, go to add/remove programs (I usually find this by trying to delete a program at which point it will normally give me the option to go to add/remove programs - i.e. I'm not sure where it is ). Remove your current driver, reboot, install the new one.

Ta da.

That might not solve it, but don't worry I can't imagine you need a new computer!

Did you ever think of opening the dam thing up and blowing out the dust?

Overheating. Dust has prob clogged up one or more of your fans.

Thanks - I've just opened it up and guess what? One of my fans is completely full of dust. Glad that's it, will blow it out tonight.

Thanks guys!

Or it might be dust!

You don't happen to have a trial code do you?

After blowing out all of the dust etc. it's still crashing, but now "only" after 10 minutes. I can't think of anything else that can be it. Think it's time for a new computer? x.x

The dust may have already done the damage to your hardware and now it's slowly degrading.. Would probably recommend sometime soon so you can save all of your data before your hard drive could possibly die with something else...

Do you get any error messages?

Sounds like the video card slowly letting out its death wail. With that much dust trapping heat over the long term, it probably did its damage. Back up all your important data and get your purse ready most likely. And from now on, pay attention to your innards and use some compressed air on the poor thing!

No, my screen just goes black, it starts to smell and no matter what I do, it won't show up anymore, if that makes any sense.

Pretty sure it's not the monitor, it's only 3 months old. And ofcourse, the smell isn't coming from there

EDIT: I just felt a wee bit with my hand, and it seems that the vent isn't blowing out anything, even though it's working :\