Fairly Serious crashes

[Akeldema]

Greetings
Recently My computer has started Locking up in a fairly nasty way, It happens Most often when Multiboxing but has happened while just idling.
The it locks up and displays this weired patten on the monitor
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9343/picture003f.th.jpg (http://img23.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture003f.jpg)
Then sound also sometimes loops and sometimes dose not.

Any ideas about what may be causing this?
thanks

[Ferrea]

Ill preempt this with, I know nothing about serious hardware issues...

I had a that very issue and it ended up being my video card. I thought that was weird, cause I got the infinite loop sound as well. If you're using a graphics card, you can try to pull it and load of the on board graphics.

Ew... the phrase 'on board graphics' just makes me want to punch kittens...

[Akeldema]

No onboard graphics, and the lockup has been happening since before i got my new card

[alcattle]

did you remove all the old video drivers before installing the new one. Or was the new card working then the problem started?

[Akeldema]

Yes i did all that, formatted the hdd a little while after getting the card as well

[alcattle]

next thing I would check is how hot the card is getting. make sure the fan is cooling,maybe turn it up for a while and just check everything inside the case is working. I sometimes run without the side on.

[Akeldema]

video card was only hitting 68 celsius with 3x wow running.

[Jafula]

Looks like a graphics card with dodgy ram to me...

You might need some professional help with that; I'd say one of your hardware components is a dud. If you just got the lockup and stuttering sound without the weird pattern on the monitor I would probably say that you had ram timing issues (usually solved by motherboard bios updates or getting compatible ram). But since you also have the weird pattern on the monitor I'd say graphics card is not working too well.

I hate diagnosing these things as it is so hard to tell what has actually gone wrong and guessimates by random people like me are no where near as useful as they should be!

Hope you get it sorted soon!

[Akeldema]

Looks like a graphics card with dodgy ram to me...

You might need some professional help with that; I'd say one of your hardware components is a dud. If you just got the lockup and stuttering sound without the weird pattern on the monitor I would probably say that you had ram timing issues (usually solved by motherboard bios updates or getting compatible ram). But since you also have the weird pattern on the monitor I'd say graphics card is not working too well.

I hate diagnosing these things as it is so hard to tell what has actually gone wrong and guessimates by random people like me are no where near as useful as they should be!

Hope you get it sorted soon!Hmm If I can find my old 8600gts around I could swap that in and see if i still get the lockups and looping sound might let me rule out video card if i still get it

[alcattle]

there you go, but the old card won't run 5 WoWs, probably not even 3

[Akeldema]

Used to run 3 fine, and I only 3 box anyway: :P, shouldnt take to long for a crash to happen/not happen i give it, probaly 6 hours without a crash till im 90% sure the card caused it

[Zappy]

Not knowing too much about your setup, so this may not even be close. :)

I run an i7 extreme with 3 280GTXs on a corsair 1000 watt. I had random lock ups, and video garbage displayed similar to that screenshot, and after taking some time going through everything, I found that I was crossing rails from the power supply. Once I wired everything properly, all appears to be well. So if your video card requires multiple power inputs, make sure they are on the same rail.

[Akeldema]

just ran a stress test overnight not a single crash, so i believe the video card was faulty, contacting my supplier today to see about a warranty claim.