MSI Neo4 Platinum with MSI GF6600GT PCI-e Freezes on games

Question

I'm having this serious problem that my new build system freezes on games. Sometimes I can play for a few hours and sometimes I can play only a few minutes before the system freezes completely. Only a hardware reset helps in this case.
This is my hardware setup:
MSI Neo4 Platinum
MSI GF6600GT PCI-e
2 x 512MB DDR400 memory(in dual mode)
AMD 3200+ 64-bit processor
Sound Blaster Audigy
DVD Writer
Floppy
I'm using Windows XP SP2
What I tryd:
Tested with other RAM modules, same trouble
Reinstalled windows xp, same trouble
Tryd all kind of driver versions, same trouble
Flashed bios to 1.9, same trouble
Put a Zalman Cooler on the Video card (temperature now between 40 and 60 degrees in games instead of 80-100 degrees), same trouble
This is where my questions come:
There are two hardware components I cannot switch to try:
The mainboard and the Video card. Whitch one is most likely to be broken??
I have read in the manual of the mainboard that the PSU should have at least 18A on the 12+ signal. My PSU only haves 15A there. While I doubt this results in problems like this I still like to know if it does!
Please help me out on this one! 

Answer 1

Have tried older drivers for you GFX, I find the late 6XXX work better for most games. You mite want to check the system is stable with:
Prime95, Memtest86, 3D mark 03 & 05.
You mite be having the same problems as "easlern", his games would lock up. This was due to to a problem with onboard sound Sound Blaster.
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84328.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=84328.msg603340#msg603340
Quote
At that moment I didn't even know what was actually on my board, but I knew it was a generic card I was probably never going to use anyway, and I didn't recall getting any sound card updates for this board. So I looked in device manager, and bingo: AC97 device under multimedia devices.      I immediately did two things to completely eliminate the rascal: updated the driver for it and promptly went to BIOS and disabled the sucker. Also disabled SATA group 2 (slots 3 and 4), the Marvell LAN because I only use one ethernet anyway (the nVidia one, which from what I was reading, was probably the more robust of the two), both RAID controllers (actually I had disabled them earlier to skip the annoying RAID setup screen), and put the PCIe bus back to 100MHz (rogue: I was wondering about possible damage over time with this too high too, so I was glad to try setting it back to normal!) Also ran Driver Cleaner to rip out the detonators even though I was putting in another nVidia, and then put in the 6800GT and installed drivers. (In case you were interested, my 3dMark05 score went from 3511 under the 6600GT to 4939 under the 6800GT! I now run in 1280x1024 at max effects and I'm completely spoiled in one night already!   )
Anyway, one of these myriad, desperate attempts must have worked because I get neither audio stutters (should have been a freaking clue in the first place, duh!) nor lock ups.
Since this is the first PC I've built, I was certain I had to have screwed something up hardware-wise or found some combination that had incompatibilities. If it WAS just the freaking sound card driver I'm going to leave this place in shame and never post again!    In my defense, the MSI Update utility didn't show any updated sound drivers for me, and I had assumed it was being pre-empted by my SB Live in any case.
I was convinced this problem was (if it is indeed gone) a video card issue but I can't say it ever was without putting the 6600 back in and running for several hours. I'm going to bet it was the AC97 though because nVidia boards have always been fantastic for me, I haven't had any actual motherboard issues, my RAM and CPU are just fine, and Win2k has never let me down.   
Don't assume anything, though, I've learned.   
One thing to note: when I was checking out the AC97, I noticed it was *sharing* IRQ 20 with the nForce NIC detector (might have a different name, I can't remember right now). Apparently this is a capability of Win2k to share IRQs but it kind of added to my suspicions anyway.
I'll let you know how the next few sessions go and whether this issue is still an issue