My game will instantly minimize at seemingly random times. It will stay on my task bar and when I click it, it pops up but to a blank screen. Audio is working. If I hit con/alt/del I get the graphics back most times, not always, but I also have the mouse cursor for the desk top on the screen. Its more of a distraction than anything else.
Any thoughts?
I'm wondering if the graphics card is running hot and shutting down to cool off...will they do that?

Clean boot: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/929135

Something is causing focus to revert to the desktop, likely some other program or anti-virus software. If it was a GPU problem you would be getting visual artifacts, inconsistent frame-rates and your system might crash entirely, not what you are describing.

Follow the troubleshooting steps in the link in the post above (i.e turn on background services/programs on a few at a time) to determine what is causing the issue.

The black screen when returning focus/persistent desktop cursor are common problems when switching away from the program and returning such as when alt-tabbing.

Yeah...a clean boot would help, i guess, to determine if another program (process) interferes with your game.

Here is another link for a clean boot: http://support.turbine.com/link/portal/24001/24001/Article/88/How-do-I-perform-a-Clean-Boot-of-Windows

> I'm wondering if the graphics card is running hot and shutting down to cool off...will they do that? <

Nope, the GPU is not that smart...you know. !!! lol