Need help with computer..

So i got this year and a half old dell xps..well about 3 months ago my nvidia 8800 burnt out. dell replaced it for me and now i just got my computer shipped down to me from my parents house. well it works just fine until i play any game. Then it freezes with white dotted lines running up and down. When the video car burnt out it was doing the same thing.(except red lines) im lost on what to do now...anyone?

 

how much RAM is it running?

 

Can you confirm that the fan is working on the video card? Also do you have the latest drivers installed?

 

yea i popped open the side and the fan is running..im running 4 gigs of ram

 

Are the latest video card drivers installed? I always like to start simple and work my way up.

 

well i think its safe to say RAM is not your problem

 

you say it works fine until you play a game, and then the video goes crazy? does it stay messed up when you quit the game?

either install the latest video drivers or try downgrading the driver to a previous version if it's already the latest.

 

yeah the game freezes like it gets dotted lines through the whole screen and freezes the whole computer. i just downloaded the latest driver and it did the same thing....

 

When the game freezes do you hear any audible noises coming from the speakers? Hissing or buzzing? When a computer freezes during a game its not always the video card messing up. Can you ctrl alt delete out of it or is it a hard crash?

 

no its a hard crash and the sound that i hear is the music just screwing up from the game