Screen going blank and system freezing?

With increasing frequency, something is happening when I am playing games or watching movies. The screen suddenly goes blank and displays the message that it is not connected to any source, but the audio continues for a few seconds before it freezes in a quick loop and the only thing I can do is restart the computer. Obviously this is incredibly disruptive to a gameplay/movie experience -- what is happening, is my video card dying?


Windows XP SP3

AMD Radeon HD 6850 - 1024MB

MotherBoard:
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5K SE Rev 1.xx
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 0401 07/19/2007
Realtek Onboard Audio

3328 Megabytes DDR2 RAM

Processor:
2.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium Dual
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

 

could be graphics card. does it only happen when you play movies/gaming? Any errors or warnings in event viewer logs?

 

Check the GPU temperature via the control centre. Mine averages 35. If yours is going high on simple operations, it points to a likely cooling issue. The cards fan/cooler could be clogged with dust.

You could also downclock the GPU settings via the control center, and see if stability improves.

 

Microsoft Answers is always a good bet with these sorts of queries. Best of luck.

 

One of my XP, SP3 machines just had a power supply that went bad.
They say the same thing is true about power supplies as with hard drives... it's not a question of IF they will go bad, it's a question of WHEN.
Mine was intermittently shutting down, leaving just a blinking light on the front of the tower.
Reboot worked, but run time between shutdowns was growing shorter.
I nursed it along for a day or two until I could swap out the power supply.
All is well once again.