Advice on lockup problem

I've had a lockup problem for awhile that is heat related. I am guessing
that my video card has a heat failure based on the fact that for some period
of time it ran without a working fan. PLus I need a better card anyway.
However my heat related problem (definitely heat related since a fan aimed
at the open case cures the lockups every 15 or so minutes in games like
GTA3) could be a bad solder anywhere in my system or a failing component. My
Athlon 800 never gets above 55C in even hot weather and my mobo is never
above 35 C at the max. This is well within the specs. Anyway other than
methodically switching out components with others that are somewhat
equivalent I have given up hope of ever curing this problem unless it is the
video card. Therefore I'm wondering is it a good time to switch to newer
hardware. Here's what I got now.



Asus A7V with 800 MHZ Athlon
256 Crucial SDRAM PC133
Geforce 2 GTS with 64 meg (being replaced with ATI Radeon 9700 non pro)
All the latest Nvidia and 4 in 1 drivers and BIOS
Antec 300 W PS


I only play Half-Life based games plus GTA3. I never buy new games until
they are low priced. Basically a year or 2 after they come out. Therefore I
don't see a real need to upgrade because of performance. I think the ATI
9700 will cure all of my jerky video in GTA3 but this may be a CPU intensive
game. If this is the case I can upgrade to a Athlon 1400 at max. However if
I am gonna upgrade the whole thing I will upgrade to:

Genuine Intel 865 PERL board
512 M DDR 400
2.4 Pentium 4 with 800 FSB


I never overclock and I don't a real need for it. I want stability. I hear
and I expect Intel to have the best chipsets and mobos stability wise.
Companies like Asus make these great mobos that are "great" because they are
pushing things too much.

Opinions?

"grendel" wrote in message
...
I've had a lockup problem for awhile that is heat related. I am guessing
that my video card has a heat failure based on the fact that for some
period
of time it ran without a working fan. PLus I need a better card anyway.
However my heat related problem (definitely heat related since a fan aimed
at the open case cures the lockups every 15 or so minutes in games like
GTA3) could be a bad solder anywhere in my system or a failing component.
My
Athlon 800 never gets above 55C in even hot weather and my mobo is never
above 35 C at the max. This is well within the specs. Anyway other than
methodically switching out components with others that are somewhat
equivalent I have given up hope of ever curing this problem unless it is
the
video card. Therefore I'm wondering is it a good time to switch to newer
hardware. Here's what I got now.



Asus A7V with 800 MHZ Athlon
256 Crucial SDRAM PC133
Geforce 2 GTS with 64 meg (being replaced with ATI Radeon 9700 non pro)
All the latest Nvidia and 4 in 1 drivers and BIOS
Antec 300 W PS


I only play Half-Life based games plus GTA3. I never buy new games until
they are low priced. Basically a year or 2 after they come out. Therefore
I
don't see a real need to upgrade because of performance. I think the ATI
9700 will cure all of my jerky video in GTA3 but this may be a CPU
intensive
game. If this is the case I can upgrade to a Athlon 1400 at max. However
if
I am gonna upgrade the whole thing I will upgrade to:

Genuine Intel 865 PERL board
512 M DDR 400
2.4 Pentium 4 with 800 FSB


I never overclock and I don't a real need for it. I want stability. I hear
and I expect Intel to have the best chipsets and mobos stability wise.
Companies like Asus make these great mobos that are "great" because they
are
pushing things too much.

Opinions?

There's nothing worthwhile going on with the AMD side of things right now. I
think you are wise to switch to Intel.