Random Freezing-Blue Screens

[bobert]

Specs:
Vista Home Premium
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2gb RAM
GeForce 7950 GT 256mb
MSI RS480M2 motherboard

The computer usually locks up during video gaming (bf2142 and guildwars), but it also has happened when I'm not in game. There are very rare occasions when the computer will recover and tell me that my video drivers have failed and successfully recovered, however, most of the time it will just blue screen and poop. So it seems like it's a compatibility between either the nVidia drivers/cards, motherboard, and/or vista. I have tried three different sets of drivers and all suffer from the same problem. It's not my processor or specific video card because I've recently replaced those and the exact same problem has occurred on a 3000+ and 6600GT. The three nVidia drivers I've tested are: 158.18, 158.24, and the beta drivers 160.04

Any ideas on what the specific problem is or what I should try next?

edit: I've also updated all my motherboard BIOS and drivers, no improvement.

 

[Slugbait]

I would check my temps. I think you have an airflow problem in the case.

 

[worthless085]

cant be an airflow problem cause its not in a case
(i know that cause I'm his brother)

His max cpu temps are like 36c
and his GPU barely gets warm to the touch

 

[Azimuth40]

I had the same problem with Vista and a 6800GT. I thought it was the mouse driver because it always seemed to happen when I used the scroll wheel to zoom. Replaced 2 gigs of Corsair memory with 2 Gigs of Crucial Ballistix and the problem magically disappeared. This was even after running the usual memory tests on the Corsair memory with no errors.

 

[PurdueRy]

What's your power supply and what do you have your motherboard sitting on if its not in a case?

 

[worthless085]

Its an Antec smartpower 2.0 450watt
The problem also occurred on a generic 420watt psp

The problem still occurs with 2 sticks of 512mb we tried or the 2 sticks of 1gb he is currently using. (and the problem hasn't occured with the 512 sticks in a different computer).

And the mobo is mounted on a removable mobo tray.

For more info:
RAM is Corsair Value Select ddr400 2 x 1gb
Vid card is a BFG 7950gt OC
and the previous one was a winfast 6600gt which the problem also occurred on.