hey guys, ive come here for help a few times before and it has worked so i come once again, but this time about my video card. Recently while playing games (oblivion) my computer will be running fine and then just restart. I think it could either be conflicting drivers due to a mobo switch i did but didnt do a clean install, i just reinstalled the drivers over previous ones, or my Video card is over heating. I have an x800xt and idle temp is aroud 46-48 celcius and noticed immediatley after i exceted oblivion after about 15 minutes of playing it was at 83 celcius. Are my temps approaching dangerously high temps or not? anyfeed back is more than appreciated

83 celsius is going to be a big problem very soon if this continues. around 70 celsisus, card starts to show artifacting, and at 75, its ready to crash. I suggest either putting more fans in surrounding the card, taking the case off and/or putting a box fan on your desk near the tower, if you have room. Also, if you want, buy a zalman vga fan and replace the stock gpu fan with a zalman(not sure what kind of zalman fan you need off the top of my head, any electronic store if they carry it, can surely help you out) That should stop the card from overheating.

alright then. I just got some compressed air and im gonna clean the card out as well as the rest of the case and see if that helps. i am also gonnna put the side of the case back on. is it better to have teh case sides off or on? Depending on how that does my next step will be to buy the aftermarket hs and fan for it. So does this definetly sound like a gpu problem then?

Did you try cleaning your Video Card recently? It might be dirty.
Check your fan RPM if it's on automatic sensing or at preset speed. Try using ATITool if you haven't done yet. Other wise that may be the issue.

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

it says my fan speed is at 67 percent. It allows to overide and ramp up to 100 percent under certain temps. I did clean the card and it droped like a degree but nothing big. however i did fine something that make me think this could be a mobo problem even tho the temp is high. I used mobo monitor to detect my cpu temp and it said 84c. However when i switch to mobo to the previous one i had been using it read a far more corrent temp of 32c, which is what mine has read in the past on the old mobo and what it starts up at. any opinions on that?

Don't freak out about the temps too much. With stock cooling 85C is normal. I have an x800 with stock cooling, too and it gets to 95C, so 85 is nothing to worry about, unless you're seeing artifacting on screen. To confirm that the temps are the problem try pointing a big fan right at your video card with the case open, should drop the temps. If it still crashes, then I would guess it's either a power problem or an overheating northbridge.

alright that sounds good, im doing it now and gonna fire up oblivion and see if it helps. ill let u guys know how it turns out. If it still crashes i think its problem the mobo driver problems i mention earlier

I run my cace wide open with my x800xl (xt inside)

I have one house fan on its side inside the case pointing air at the card and towards the back of the case... from under the card (fan blades are close to touching it)

I also have another house fan at the front of my case with the case panel removed to aid air flow....

I also have an Enermax which has a 120mm exhaust fan

And a 80mm exhaust fan just above the card.


I see little to no difference in the temperature of my GPU by doing this as opposed to having the case closed with some case fans. I suggest going Zalman or Artic whatever. Cooling the memory is probably all I am doing.

Which after market cooler should this lad buy? :?:
Secondly, if he, lets say were to have an AIW version of the x800xl, which should he buy?

this lad is thinking about getting this one ...........http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835186128

Yeah, the ATI silencers have a pretty good rep. Also the zalman kits tend to rock. I have a passive zalman sink on my AIW xt and it actually lowered the idle and load temps by 5-10C, and it got rid of that annoying fan noise. Good luck!

empower, mang get after market cooling. A Zalman, even the cheaper $30-40 ones, will work awesome-like.

I have a Zalman Fata1ity and my 6600 Geforce went from 75C load to 45C. Idle went from 50-52C to 38C.

It's worth the $ trust me. Your card will last longer and you will be able to probably overclock it a lil bit to get an extra 10-15% performance increase.

Word.

well i did reinstall windows and the crash errors seemed to have cleared up but then suddenly last night it happened again. when i restarted my video card temp was like 75 so im guessing that thing got pretty hot and thats what made it crash. I am gonna get the zalman one probably and some heatsinks for the ram aswell, hopefully a diffrence will be seen. this crash was diffrent than others before tho, this one i saw the screen go blue first and then it crashed.

just changing some settings in ATiTool should sort it out... you could try setting the fan to 100% at anything over 70C.

any particular settings you could suggest dr?

I got a lot of blue screens when I overclocked my 6600 to 500/550 and left the crappy stock cooler on it. I eventually had to go back to stock speeds because of the annoyance.

With the Zalman Fata1ity cooler I can run 500/550 all day without problems. I ran a game in loopback with full settings for 2 days without touching the PC and not one crash. Also, the temp never reached over 45C.

Best part is this Fata1ity is compatible with my x850pro (whenever ATI decides to ship it!)

alright guys i got the zalman vf7000 and just installed on bootup im 14degrees lower...34C....hope it holds up

woot 53 on load!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awesome. Zalman makes some good shit. 53C under load isn't even "hot". Your card will last forever.

NOW OVERCLOCK IT !!!

Did the lower temps fix the restarting problems you were having when playing games?

???? 8)

yes it did . the only problem i have now seems to be sound ones, atleast when im playing wc3, but supposedly alot of people have sound problems with that, im using onboard realtek stuff, but as far as every other game its doing great. i did oc to 550/550...6400 3dmark05