Asus 4850 1GB overheating

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This is my system:
ATI 4850 1GB
Intel (R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9300 @ 2.50 GHz (4 CPUs)
Win XP 32 Bit
3 GB RAM
2 Harddrives @ 7200 rpm
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Dear TH community,

I am writing here today because my 4850 is overheating and I am (obviously) very desperate for help.

The crash
This has never happened outside graphical applications, such as games. When playing, my screen suddenly turns black, or is filled with horizontal lines of color, and the sound played the last ½ second before the crash starts looping like a machine gun. My computer does not respond at all at this point, so I have to reboot it by holding the power button down.

I've had the crashes happen at anywhere from 69 degrees. Mostly happening 69-80 (because it doesn't have time to get hotter).


How can I tell it's overheating?
Actually I'm not even sure it's overheating, but I am 99% sure it is.
I recently tried doing a stability test via Furmark. My pc did the weird crash after one minute and eighteen seconds. Which didn't surprise me, so to be sure I did a stability test again, but this time with my case open to let the card get colder. It took 1:21 for the second test.
In the first test, my starting temperature was 57 degrees.
In the second test, my starting temperature was 62 degrees.

And just as the computer crashed during the second test, I noticed the upper LED on my card was lighting red. Now, I googled a bit, and I discovered that the first led (which has some special name starting with D) lighting up means critical overheat / shut down to prevent overheating.

Oh, and the airflow in my case is pretty bad; the case is small and filled with cables (I can install an extra fan if needed though)


So, is this a bad card or just a bad case in need of an extra fan / misc?

Thanks for taking time to read my post, any help, or tips, are greatly appreciated. I also apologise for any spelling or grammatical errors if found.

I have a corsair 520hx which should be more than fine I believe.

I'll boot up my main pc (writing from laptop) and test HWmonitor now.

is your CPU temp 57c at idle?

your CPU is overheating
check your heat sink and fans make sure they are connected and seated properly
if that does not fix the issue
look into better cooling upgrades (better heatsink, more fans, better case)

a temporary solution is to remove a side panel and place a desktop fan next to your PC

67c is considered hot for a CPU under load and yours idles at that temp

anything under 60c for load would be good, under 50c great

try the side panel and fan fix, it could be your 4850 is heating up the case too much. The card itself seems to be running under normal temps.

I just read that when the CPU crashes, you get a blue screen, which I've never got.
I'm confused now :\

correct on your first question

I can't answer the second question without actually looking into your case but it's a possibility. Like i stated before and Cozzie stated, you need to get into your case and check out your heatsink and fans.

Hi.

First of all, thanks for your answers.
I'm about to install an extra fan that will cool down both the CPU and the card. I'm just curious on why the LED, that only lights up when critical errors occour, lights up on my graphics card when it crashes.

If anyone could answer that I will be even more grateful than I am right now, and then the topic could be closed as solved.

So yeah again, thanks deeply for your replies, I'm hoping the fan will do the trick!