Need help with my system

[ronin17]

First my system specs:
AMD 1800+
512mb ram
Abit KR7A-Raid mb
Geforce 3 ti 500 overclocked to 243core/510mem
43.51 det drivers
updated mb drivers, including via drivers
lastest directx 9.0a
optimized settings on everything

lately my computer has been hanging in ANY game. I'll be playing for maybe 3 seconds and the game will just freeze for 10 seconds, it will resume play but freeze again after a few seconds. I've tried reinstalling directx, det drivers, etc. This is while playing online or singleplayer. My computer is fine as long as i'm not in a game.

My computer has never done this before and I haven't touched any settings on my computer. If anyone could give me some suggestions on things to try I'd really appreciate it. I'm stumped on what the problem could be :confused:.

Thanks for any help you guys can give me!

[jAkUp]

maybe your card is overheating... have you tried downclocking?

[ronin17]

I just tried not overclocking the video card and it kinda helped I think. Instead of freezing as soon as I got into the game, it took a min or so to start freezing up on me. I guess I better look into cooling things down...

[jAkUp]

yes... im thinking that its definetely overheating... maybe you can throw in some fans... or clock it real low just to see if the problem really is from heat

[ronin17]

I'll give it a shot. definitely couldn't hurt. I think I need to turn the ac up alittle. lol