So I have had a problem the last 4-5 months. Sometimes it happens once and then not again for over a month, other times it'll happen 3x in a week. I will be playing a game on my computer and suddenly I lock up... no response when I move the mouse or use the keyboard, and a few seconds later I get a single beep from the tower. Sometimes when I'm playing the game, the game itself freezes but I can still move the mouse and I can Alt+F4 or Ctrl+Alt+Del to exit the program, but this is different.

I figured maybe I was having some kind of video card problem or something like that, but a few people have been telling me it sounds like I have bad RAM. I have never experienced the problem outside of playing the game, but surely that is because I don't use anywhere near as many system resources to check email or go on message boards as I do to play a full screen game.

I tried running memtest86+ and one other diagnostics tool (can't remember what it is at the moment, I'm at work...). I let one of them complete 4 passes and the other complete 2 passes. I didn't get an error at any time, but I'm consistently being told that my problem sounds like bad RAM.

Going under this assumption, I am looking to buy some new RAM for my PC. I have a ASUS P5N-e SLI motherboard. I doubt the rest of the details matter, but I have a Q6600 processor, nVidia 9800GTX+ video card, etc. I currently have 4x1GB of some kind of Corsair memory. I have been looking at Newegg and will probably either stick with Corsair or maybe OCZ, and plan on getting 2x2GB instead of 4x1GB. I looked at my manual and I should try to keep the voltage below 2V and I shouldn't go beyond DDR2 800 (PC2 6200) (though a Crucial scan said I'd be fine with DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500)), but I don't know a whole lot about things like timing and such. Do I need to find out what timing and voltage (etc..) my current RAM has, or do I not need to buy RAM with the exact same specs like that. I don't try to overclock things or do anything special like that.

I have tried doing a few searches to make sure nobody seems to have compatibility issues between the motherboard I have and the RAM I am looking to get, but was hoping someone who knows more about this than me may be able to let me know if what I'm looking at should be fine, or if there's some reason why these wouldn't be good. I am mostly looking at the following ones:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820145184
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820145241
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820227248

All the DOA reviews for all the RAM I've looked at everywhere is scaring me

Take out all but one stick of ram and see if the problem disappears.

If it still appears, swap out for another single ram stick that you already have.

If it still appears, maybe it's not the ram.

Yes I know you want all four sticks, the idea is to find out if it is indeed bad, and the box will still run on one stick, just slower.

Otherwise, when is the last time you checked if your GPU has a dirty fan? Or is your power supply sufficient?

I got wierd computer actions when the power supply was bad/computer getting hot.

Check all connections and look for burnt/melted cables, is everything seated ok? Is it dirty inside?

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It doesn't happen often, and ONLY happens when I'm playing the game, and I doubt that I could run the game with 1GB of RAM in at a time. Since I posted this 2 weeks ago, it has only happened once.

The GPU fan is clean for sure, and the power supply is sufficient for my current setup... I have about 100 more watts than I actually need.

I'll check the cables and stuff though and to make sure everything's seated okay, but I've already checked the seating on everything before. Doesn't hurt to look again though.

Two words:

Case. Cooling.

Sounds like a heat issue.

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"Some people are like Slinkies. They don't really serve a purpose, but you can't help but smile when you see them tumble down the stairs" - Anon.

I have read that gaming really works out a processor, so I agree that heat is a likely culprit.

I played FreeCell once.

I got a new case a few months ago though and I will need to look to see what temps I'm running at when I get home (can't remember at the moment) but I know it was about 12-15*C cooler than I was running before and SpeedFan seemed happy with all the temps. I'm thinking I'm running somewhere in the neighborhood of 40*C not gaming and around 47-48*C while gaming, which I would think is plenty cool.

I got the new case because of temperature problems in the past with my old one that used to make the monitor suddenly black out and I'd have to shut down and start back up again to get it back and the video card eventually crapped out... besides the fact that the fans were spinning so hard that it sounded like the computer was ready to leave the runway any moment.

If it really is running those temps, then could cooling still potentially be the problem? Or probably not?

Those temperatures are quite reasonable. I wonder if your graphics card is messing up because of high temperatures?

I'd make sure that all the fans are installed properly i.e. make sure the airflow is going in the right direction. It's probably not that, but worth checking anyway.

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I checked again and all temperatures indeed are running between 40-50*C...

any other ideas?

maybe the heat sink.

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