Have some questions about my PC.

I've had my computer for ~4 years, if I recall correctly, and am not quite sure if the problems I'm getting are hardware or software related. I don't know if I should just get a new computer because it's outdated or if I need to fix something.

I'll post my computer specs to start things off.

AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ 3ghz
2gb ram (it started with 1gb of ram and I added another stick about 5 months ago; no problems from it to my knowledge)
Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT 512mb

If there's any more that needs to be known, I'll post that.

But the problem is I keep blue screening for no reason whatsoever that I can see. There's times where I think it may be from overheating because I'm running a game on high settings thinking I can handle it, and then blue screening. I feel the computer afterwards and it's noticeably warm but not scorching as far as I can tell.

I've had a wide variety of blue screen errors; a lot of which I can't remember now or use as a reference because now instead of waiting at the blue screen for me to do something, my computer just restarts the second it blue screens so I can't read it.

If you have any suggestions to help me pinpoint the problem, that'd be good. If it turns out I need to just buy a more modern computer because the hardware might just be shorting out/going bad, then what would be the equivalent to my computer specs now? I don't need anything better and don't want worse than what I already have.

Thanks!

 

Which OS are you using? Try to disable automatic restart for blue screen. Right-click Computer>Properties>Advanced>Start up and Repair>uncheck the box for "restart automatically on error". [Vista/Win7 I think it is Right-click Computer>Properties>System Protection>Advanced ...]

See if there are any files listed on the next Blue Screen.

 

I'm using XP SP3. I did that for next time. So if it happens again anytime soon, I'll post what I find.

 

I cleaned what I could get out with simple tools about a month ago, if that. I should invest in one of those cans with a little nozzle to get in every nook and cranny, I suppose. It's just that I never had these problems in the past when I played the same games.

 

Have you updated any drivers in those four years?

 

Yeah it's a desktop. I just opened it while it was running and everything is running smoothly. I only have a small fan in the middle like attached to the motherboard or whatever and then a big fan in the back.

I constantly update my video drivers and a week ago someone told me I could update my motherboard driver or something. I download some chipset and installed that. I've updated all smaller drivers to my knowledge as well. I had a driver updater for awhile that should have taken care of all the smaller, lesser important drivers. If there's anything I'm missing that I should check to update, that'd be good to know.