Sorry for the odd post. Wrote up my post in Word then the copy/paste seems to do something odd and I can't figure out how to fix it.

yeh i just tried editing it for you aswell....no luck

For the problems errmmm try getting rid of any dust in the system (rule out shorting). Re-install drivers or the video card and run a few tests on your memory and cpu. Memtest86 and Prime95 are good examples. Also try removing any non essential hardware. 6 case fans could be taken off temorarily.

It seemed to have chopped off a bit of text also. Just noticed that. I was suppose to mention that Casper sent me here to post.

The system is brand new so there is absolutly zero dust inside of it. Will blow it out again.

I have did a memory test and it passed everything.

I have also uninstalled the drivers and did a fresh install of them. I will try it again though once I go home, just to rule that out.

Thanks for the quick reply.

The PSU was a good place to start, but you should also check for virii & other malware - I'd suggest getting the latest updates for your A/V s/w & running a full scan, and also check for other nasties with Spybot S&D & Ad-Aware

I'm not sure about Win2k ... I gave up on it because of all the driver issues I was having ... maybe someone else here has tried WoW with he same GPU & can tell you if it worked for them?

check the admin tools and see if there is anything fishy in the event viewer, if there is to much junk in the event viewer clear it out and run the computer till it crashes and see if anything goes into the event viewer, if there is something that is causing a problem it is often in there. If nothing shows up then I would try a different stick of ram to rule that out and if that is not the problem I would try and find a old crappy vid card or a friend that has one. Then you could just test to see if there are still random lock ups. It is possible this system is pushing the vid card allot harder as the bottleneck and causing the random freezes that would not show up on your old machine.

My checklist so far:
Dust = Cleaned (wasn't any really)
Reinstall Drivers = Saturday morning
Prime95 = Saturday morning
Memory = Checks out fine
Disconnect fans = No change
Virus's = Auto updating McAfee, none found
Ad-aware = System cleaned daily
Try new video card = Still searching for one to use
Try another stick of RAM = no extra RAM to attempt test
I have never seen the following in event viewer before the recent Windows installation. Definetly seems to be something odd going on though.

I am getting:

Event ID 62470 - Invalid pixel format ati2mtag
The invalid pixel format seems to get spammed in event viewer every 20+ second, up to 2 minutes, within the time frame of a black screen of death.

Thankyou for all the help.

I have had a similar problem with my computer but not with that particular video card. (fx5900xt) I ended up having to rma the card. Never had the problem again. Try a different video card in the system to see if that changes anything.

yeah the system error your getting has to do with vid card screwing up, try new drivers, but it may be that the video card being the bottle neck(the slowest part of the computer now) is causing it to work harder and show flaws that where not obvious before when it didn't have to run at full power. If problems continue I would RMA the card.

It's possible that it's a hardware problem, perhaps a damaged board. I use a 9800 Pro and they are solid cards, but ESD can do bad things and nothing lasts forever.

On the other hand, I strongly suspect a software issue. Drivers, DX9, the game, the OS, or the video card's firmware even. Sometimes it's just a bad combo of this software that will cause an issue.

The first place to start is to make sure the OS is up to data.
Make sure DX is up to date.
Check the manufacturer's website for your video card and see if there is new firmware, (BIOS), for it.
Sometimes the latest and greatest drivers for a video card are not the best to use, if these other items don't fix it, try installing some older drivers for the card.
Check your BIOS, turn off some of the special video related features like Video Shadow, and I forget where it is, but turn off AGP Fast Writes and set your Video Card up for V-Sync enabled in the video drivers.

Thanks for all the replies. I will go through each and hopefully narrow the issue down to find the problem. I am rather busy this week, but hopefully I'll be able to get some time to get started.


Thanks again. I will post once I come to a conclusion from the suggestions you all have given me.

May sound a little dumb, but have you tried to reseat the video card? I know my 6800GT has a hard time going in right.

I had a little time last night to try some options requested. Right as I was about to start, i checked event viewer and noticed that the ati2mtag error was happening while the computer was idle with just screensaver running. I know this because the computer was booted up and left for about 15 minutes. During those 15 minutes or so I had about 20 events with "ati2mtag"

ATI came out with a new version of the cadalyst drivers. (i believe 05-17-05) I tried those and still had two hard locks during gameplay. VPU recovery caught both lock ups though.

I have reset the video card twice with the problem still occuring. It locks down pretty easily compared to old PC.

I am still working on finding an extra video card. I think that is how i am going to find out where the problem is.

I am also going to install XP and try that also.

Well it seems i have fixed the problem by installing XP pro. No problems at all since I installed it Friday.