HELPP!! GPU is idling at 87C

i have ati x1900 512mb
i downloaded atitools because i couldnt play cod4 because my gpu kept overheating, hitting 95-105C
using atitools and the catalyst software it showed that my idle temp was at about 85-87
i messed around wit atitools and changed my fan control and increased it to 50%, unless it exceeds 85C, to run at all times but its still idling at about 74C, which is still too high to idle. can someone help me please

+1 for thogrom. That should solve your problem if you raise the fan speed.

When you cleaned the dust did you make sure you got the fins on the video card? those temps are too high for idle. I have a X1900XT and if i remember it was in the 90's when playing games.

I also had a fan failure(software related) and the card got up to about 118c but still did not crash or artifact.

If you are interested in a aftermarket cooler the there is a accelero X2 made for those cards and works extremely well and is silent at %100(i mean silent)

The entire range of Ati cards do tend to run somewhat hotter than the nvidia counterparts, whilst its concerning when you see the raw numbers, and 85+ is a high temp, these gpu's can run successfully and quite safely at that rate and higher day after day. Apart from bios mods and specialised drivers their is little you can do about it, apart from considering water cooling. I have had the same issue and concern regarding the new ATI 4870. I was hitting 100c in benchmarks and gaming, which worried me. As my cpu is overclocked (core 2 E8400 running at 4.2ghz) and fitted with an excellent Thermaltake 735 watercooler, I decided to add a gpu water block. The problem was, nothing is available here for the 4870 (Australia). I noticed that the Gigabyte blue eye is recommended for 'up to' the ati X1900 and did some research. The die size of the 1900 and 4870 is almost identical, but the bracket for the heatsink is identical in size. I took a punt. Not only did it fit perfectly with the default mount, but it made one hell of a difference in the card. Temps dropped at idle from 78C to 23C! In 3d mark vantage @890mhz core, 1270mhz ram, it peaked at 70C!, well UNDER stock idle. Seriously consider water cooling, despite overclocking this chip will run for years at these temps. Gigabyte need to update their compatability tables. The best benefit? Serious and stable overclockability!
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sorry for the late reply, i was outta town for a while. i run the fan at 100% and its idling at 61C which is good. but whenever i play a game, bioshock for example, it jumps to over 100C and after playing for 10-15 minutes, the gpu crashes, the screen turns black, and i have to restart my computer. i use atitool, and even when i underclock it, down as much as 500/594 mhz, down from the default 648/774 mhz. i dont know what to do, i dont remember having this problem last year. is there something i can do to allow me to play any game?

i hear it spin to full. and i have never messed with computer hardware, so how easy is reinstalling the heatsink with new thermal paste?

Ideally 20C but if not 30-40. Really powerful cards 50-60. Get a new fan?

i can't, or at least dont know how to, remove the card to clean it. i have a dell xps 400. i cant get to all the little screws to take it out. however, a new, and much bigger, problem at hand now. now when i turn on my computer, weird lines begin to appear all over the startup screen, before i get to the welcome screen. same thing in safe mode. its practically impossible to use my computer now. im pretty sure it has something to do with my video card. is it fried? is there a way i can make my pc work? i need help!! thank you for all ur help btw.

i pulled down the blue holder thing, but then i dont know what to do. theres also like a big plastic thing that the card is attached to, or is that also part of the card. theres also some blue thing in the back, but theres also screws in it. im soooooo confused lol. also, as far as the actual system, i can work on it and do stuff. i opened up atitools, and it reads my temp and detects my gpu, so does that mean that its not fried/dead?? also, i can do work on it. however, it seems like the screen is broken up into parts, like i see identical copies of some shortcuts on my desktop and two mouse pointers. theres also small rectangles all over the screen. but it seems to run ok, just very hard to read. i also clocked the card down further, as a precaution. will cleaning the heatsink and fan get rid of the rectangles and mirror image??

When a video card does that, in most cases it means the cards memory or core have been damaged(my first Geforce 4 ti did this) OR are overheating. You will not know until you clean the heatsink(its up to you if you want to try to redo the thermal paste, but if cleaning does not work its likley the card has already suffered damage).

This seems like bad luck. I have seriously abused a X1900XT and its still going.

Fan error(it was off even when set to 100% i hardwired that bastard to my power supply after, it was an aftermarket cooler so it is not loud at full speed) and hours of games before my girlfriend noticed that the numbers in the start menu(vga temp) where overlapping because it was over 100c,

Alright did a little looking into it.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xps400/

Make sure to lay the computer of its side when doing this as the card is heavy and will fall out. Do not loose that power cable for the card, your next one may need it too. Make sure all the slot covers are lines up before closing the holder after too.

As for video card selection. It will depend allot on what you do. Most cards will hardware accelerate DVD's and even blueray now. Do you have vista? my guess is no, but i have to ask

Any card should fit within a limit. You only have 1 PCI-E power cable, that said an 8800GTX would not work(can you get some numbers off the power supply?). Look in the case and see how much clear room you have in front of your current card. this will give an idea of what to get. Most cards are around the same length as your X1900XT.

One way to ensure heatsink clogging is not a issue is to get a card that has no fan. Without air forcing through a heatsink it collects much less dust. You have to make sure your case has decent airflow for such a card to work. Since your card is upside down, you have an advantage that your heatsink is close to the rear vent.

Another option is to make sure the card is cleaned at least every 6 months or so.

If you look in my sig(under the funny windows error) you will see a link to a video card power listing. try to find something that does NOT exceed your current card. Low idle power is a good thing as it will run cooler.

Remember if you are not gaming even something like an 7600GT(old but good, and some are passive), 8500 ,8600 from Nvidia or a 2400's and 2600's from ati.

thank you for all your help. i bought an nvidia 8600 gt gpu. what should i do with my old card? just throw it out?

I'm sure that just tossing your old card isn't the brightest idea. I thought about it when i fried my x800gto, however then you're just adding to the large amount of electronic waste going into the landfills. If you can, I would recommend either finding a place online or locally that will take old/broken computer parts.

I heard that Best Buy was going to try an electronics recycling program, however i do not know if the program is running right now or not.

I still have my x800gto sitting in it's box waiting for a day to be recycled

A passive card is one without a fan(instead they use a larger heatsink). Since it has no fan pushing air into the heatsink it does not collect nearly as much dust. This makes it almost never need to be cleaned.