Howdy all,

I'm finding myself having a rather terrible time trying to get my computer to run some of the more high end games that it *should* be able to handle. Let's start with my specs:
-Windows XP Pro w/ SP2
-Pentium 4 2.4ghz
-Available HD space ~50 gb / 67 total
-nVidia Geforce 6600 256mb (with latest drivers from their site)
-1024 mb DDR2700 RAM

I've been finding myself with problems running a number of games lately. I just reformatted over the weekend to try and fix my hangup bug in Dungeon Siege 2 and just installed Starwars Republic Commando, and both games have been getting frozen on random frames at various times during gameplay. I got lucky this morning, in a way. I ran SWRC in a window and when it crashed, instead of my screen blacking out and having to reboot, I got a BSOD!

The BSOD was actually quite helpful. It said that the nv4_disp driver was causing the problem. to quote:
"The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly.

Please check with your hardware vendor for any driver updates.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000EA (0x857F66E0, 0x85CL22D0, 0xF7C61CB4, 0x00000001)"

Then it said something about performing a physical memory dump and I had to reboot.

Anyhow, I can't seem to find much support on nVidia's site and I've gotten help here before. Any advice, mates?

In the past most people were able to link this error to "weak" power supplies. I would start there!!

hmm.. a new power supply probably couldn't hurt anything... except for my wallet that is. Any suggestions on a good one that won't cost too much? I don't want to get one of those horribly cheap ones that lack all the nice filters to keep a good power flow, but I also don't need one that's all insanorator awesome, and it doesn't have to look spiff for lan parties or anything.

Recent test of power supplies.

One power supply I've used quite a bit in the past couple of years has been the Channel Well ISO-500D model.

The problem is that these are not easy to find, except perhaps etailers.

Since I work for a system builder, we sell these as an upgrade to most standard 300Watt PS units. It has dual cooling fans and they are pretty darn quiet, also they are both thermally controlled too

Now I do beleive that Channel Well is the OEM/ODM for many other so-called manufacturers, like Antec for instance and nSpire. However, I'm sure they make them according to the spec that their clients want.

This then leads me to Antec as well, they also have a good track record too, so does Enermax.

Hmm.. I got my new power supply in. It's an Achieve 550W power supply. I slapped it in and my computer works.. but it's still having some problems with the forementioned games. Granted, they'll actually run for longer now before experiencing the graphics burps, but it's still a problem nonetheless. Any further advice?

edit: It also may be worth mentioning that I haven't gotten an actual BSOD again yet, but I have gotten the screen-blacking-out crashes that I was getting before I got the "helpful" BSOD.