New PC - Freezing!

[Clash]

I just put together my new pc... its a p3 550 w/ 128 mb pc133 corsair ram. 32mb Gf2 prophet w/ det3 drivers. Im running windows 98 se. It seems to work fine and the det3 drivers are installed, but everytime i run a game (quake3) i get really low frames per second as well as the whole pc freezes after about 5 minutes of game play. I have no clue to what the problem is. Might someone have a suggestion?

 

[RAiL]

its windows 98 se ive had/heard of NOTHING BUT PROBLEMS WITH IT.
but seriousley, windows98 se has caused several problems for me and my friends after installing it. like random freezes/crashes/blue screens of death...(more than with regular windows ) and for q3 FPS, (dont remember console commands) but change your max fps and play around with the lighting/texture quality etc. that might help a little. i dont see why it would be low fps with a geforce2 but 98se could be a problem there too.. wouldnt surprise me...damn microsoft! :|
if none of that helps, try installing WinMe or win98osr2 or somthing. i would suggest WinMe, very stable anyway hope this helps.

 

[Stembolt]

The first thing that comes to mind is heat, either the CPU or vid card. Are they both running at spec? Monitor the temp if possible.

The other possibility that comes to mind is a driver or resource conflict. Check for hardware IRQ conflicts and try removing completely then reinstalling the video drivers. These don't seem too likely, since you can run quake3 for 5 minutes before crashing. Good luck.

 

[kami]

Make sure the CPU's being cooled properly, and that the heatsink is seated properly if it's a coppermine.

 

[Lupen]

I heard from other forums that the det3 driver for the nvidia makes the video card run hotter. Alot of people are having problems with it causing the freeze ups. Try reinstalling previous version of the video driver