Vista Gaming Crash

Now, I am not sure if this is software or maybe even bordering a hardware issue, but seeing how the problem first came after a clean format of my computer, Im assuming it is software related:

When I launch games (League of Legends) I can play for a while just fine, but suddenly and without warning, my monitor will die (I got a digital and analog monitor, and it starts looking for signals), checking error logs shows that everything stopped responding, so it seems not to be just a monitor issue.

The only solution once this happens is to kill the power (hold in the power buttom), nothing else makes the computer jump back to life.

My setup is:

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6420 @ 2.13Ghz 2.13Ghz
4,00 GB of Ram
2 SLI connected Geforce 8600GT gfx cards
SB Audigy Soundblaster soundcard

Running Vista Home Premium 32-bit(original, if anyone is wondering) with Service Pack 2

There seems to be some error in it allocating the 4GB of Ram and the GFX card (32 bit shouldn't be able to allocated that much memory?)


Anyway, the crashing problem happened in the past, when I first got the computer with Vista about 3 years ago now

Then a clean format and install of XP fixed the issue, and a clean revealed a cable was stuck in the fan of one of the GFX cards from poor assembly by the shop that sold it, which I thought was the reason of the crashes then, as that card would have been overheating quite quickly.

Fortunately, while running XP, both GFX cards worked without error for over a year.



Then recently, my computer got slow, it had built up over time, and I figured a clean install would be in order.

I found my vista CD and formatted my computer yesterday.

Absolutely clean install.

After the install of Windows Vista 32-bit, the following has been done on the system:

Before internet connection was made:
Fatal1ty Drivers
ASUS VGA Drivers
ASUS Graphic Card Drivers (Nvidia)
SyncMaster 2032BW drivers (for my Samsung widescreen)
SB Audio Soundblasters Drivers

I used networking and got in League of Legends from my laptop.

I plugged to the internet and did the following:

Download + Install Microsoft Security Essentials
Download + Install Windows Live Messenger
Patched League of Legends
Download/Install Adobe Reader
Download/Install Adobe AIR
Download/Install Service Pack 1 + Service Pack 2 for Windows Vista directly from Microsoft
Download/Install newest video card driver from Nvidia for my Geforce 8600

Ran Windows Update = no new updates aviable for my computer

I also opened my computer, so I can see all fans are working as they should be.


I cannot pinpoint any errors that has happened during this, except minor ones:

I installed, uninstalled and re-installed Realtek Audio Drivers, me and a friend had trouble with voice communication on MSN/Skype, so tried this to help the issue, finally it randomly seemed to start working

Uninstalled Syncmaster for my screen, as I expected it was the cause of the errors.

I suspect the graphic card is involved, as the crash only happens during high graphic situations, as noted until now.

Anyone has any ideas of what could be causing this?

EDIT:

I forgot to mention, i did some other things too, in order to make my system faster, like disabling services that I do not use and such, but all that was done AFTER the first crash did occur, also in an effort to try taking some load off from the computer, in case it happened due to overheating.

Besides that, I also gave the computer a good clean inside, but that also was done after the initial crash had occured.

That crash happens almost everytime the game is run on the computer, and never outside of gaming (so far); So it is not a random crash every 10-20 game, it crashed maybe 4 out of 6 games or so this far.

The crashing did not to happen prior to installing the lastest drivers for my GFX card (unless Im mistaken), and I am currently going to uninstall the latest driver, run a test game and see if it then runs without crashes

 

Alright, had another crash after having uninstalled the offical latest Nvidia drivers for my GFX cards, so I am going to re-install the latest driver, as my entire computer has been slower since the uninstall.

I thought as much as it shouldn't be able to use 4GB of memory, but what I am wondering is why windows is showing it as 4GB of ram (which is what my PC have) when I do have 512MB of graphic card ram as well; Does Windows displaying the 4GB of system ram mean it is not using any of the RAM located on my GFX cards perhaps?
I could surely see how that could become a problem quickly.

Not sure, so far the only application I have that is really demanding on the system is my only game on the system, which is League og Legends.

Less than 48 hours since format of the computer and clean re-install of windows, not had time to acquire much more system demanding applications.

Not entirely, cleaned out a lot of it, but I do unfortunately not have access to compressed air at the moment, and I am unsure if there is any other safe ways to remove dust from fans, cards and heatsinks except air and very gentle manual removal with non-conduction material (I used a plastic comb actually).

If there is any safe (and relatively easy) way to clean it up good, I am all ears?

I am going to download that right now and check out the temparatures, will post back here when I got further temp information for you.

Nothing to see in the event log, a few errors but those are unrelated to the crashes (or at least, they dont seem to happen at a time related to the crashes)

I do not have any graphic cards laying aorund, but maybe I can find a friend who does, but will take some time.

 

Just ran a practice game, and it did not crash this time (ofc, when you are testing for temp, it wont crash )

Anyway, here are some temps:

Unit/Min/Max

SYSTIN/103/107
CPUTIN/100/118
AUXTIN/124/131

THRM/100/118

Core#0/96/118
Core#1/94/114

GPU Core 1/157/210
GPU Core 2/150/154

Assembly/116/120


I don't like the temp difference on one of the GPU cores, going from 157 to 210, increasing by 53 while the other only go up by 4 in total, sounds like something is wrong there?

 

Im an idiot, I think! :-o

Seems I didn't just have to install drivers for the two graphic cards, I also had to manually activate the SLI.

With that activated now, there has been no crashes.

The GPU's still gets dangerously high in temp, but if there are no more crashes, then consider my problem solved