Vista - pz freezing ingame, needs hard reboot

hey guys, im sure theres been a few others with this problem but i cant find a solution anywhere so ill try here, pc runs fine untill i load a game up pretty much WOW it effects the most, could be after 5 mins of loadin the game up i can get a freeze unable to ctl/alt/del etc only way to get out of the freeze is by a hard reboot, but sometimes it can go a day or 2 without a lock up.

ive had this exact same problem since i bought this pc around 9 months ago, originally it had a 8800 gfx what i blamed for the random freezes ingame so i switched to an ATI 3870HD and it seemed fine for a while but the problem started to reacure again about 2 months ago, only solvable by a hard reboot, i also tried everything to fix this ie: new drivers, new hardware formatting partioning the drives etc and still the problem persists even after buying 4 gig of new corsair too.

is there a way i can check the heat sync on the mobo? to see if its overheating as before i replaced the 8800 nvidia the shop i bought it from said thats what was causing the problem

system specs are

intel core duo e6750 2.66GH.z 2.66GH.z
3327 memory
650w psu
3870hd gfx
300 gig hd

any insight would be mucho appriciated thx

You can check the temps with this piece of software http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

thx for posting, ill try that now cheers

both cores are running at 43 degrees, is that about right?
forgot to mention my bro bought the same pc me as me 2 days after, and he suffered the same freezes also

I am assuming that both your video and audio drivers are up to date? I am not talking about the drivers that came from your CD but the latest drivers from each manufacturer?

i updated the gfx drivers yeah, i have no 3rd party sound card atm tho, the audigy 4 i had didnt seem compatible with vista, i aint the brightest tho when it comes to pcs so dare i ask how i update the sound drivers? my motherboard is a gigabyte S-series N650SLI-DS4 thx in advance

OK, here's the Bios update if you feel comfortable flashing your bios. Latest Version is F8F. Reboot your PC and check to see what version you are running at the moment as you may not have to update.

GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - BIOS - GA-N650SLI-DS4 (rev. 1.0)

Here you will find drivers for your chipset, audio and Sata... download those that you need. I was going to assume you are in the US but I rather you choose where to download from

GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver - GA-N650SLI-DS4 (rev. 1.0)

thx alot ill check them now mate

i think that solved it mate thanks, d loaded the new audio drivers and i aint had a lock up for almost 2 days now...cheers i owe u a pint