- Aug 4, 2010
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- 18,510
About a year & a half ago, I bought a new computer (Inspiron 518). I installed a Sapphire HD Radeon 4850 as well as upgraded the power supply from the 330W that was in there to a Rosewill 550W. It turns out that the best that PSU could do was actually 500W. I believe this is what caused the problem I'm having now.
Everything's been fine up until this week. Certain games I start (ie. Starcraft 2, Portal, etc.) will work for 10-30 minutes & then my computer just shuts off; other games (ie Sims 2, etc) are fine. I figured it was time to actually upgrade my PSU so I did. I bought a Corsair TX650W which is more than enough to run my computer along with the video card. Unfortunately, the problem has continued to happen. I'm thinking the weak PSU has caused my GPU to overwork all this time & it had enough of that (if you think it could be anything else, please let me know).
To my actual question. If it is the video card, I'm going to need a new one. I really like my HD Radeon 4850 & was looking into just buying another one of those, but there are two things dissuading me from that. I feel like that card is two years old & should be cheaper than it's listed at. If I'm going to pay that much. I feel like I should be upgrading. Also, I've read that it's normal for that card to run at 80c, which I was always worried about when looking at the information from CCC. Apparently, that's normal, which I don't think is good.
Should I just get a 4850 again & not worry about the temp? Is there something similar that would work for me? Thanks for any information.
PS: The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 blows the hot air directly into the case. Is this a terrible thing & something I should stay away from? I don't have any extra means of cooling. I've never looked into adding additional cooling options so I'm not sure how I would do that, but I don't have a lot of room in the case as it is. Getting the PSU in there was a pain because I have fat hands.
Everything's been fine up until this week. Certain games I start (ie. Starcraft 2, Portal, etc.) will work for 10-30 minutes & then my computer just shuts off; other games (ie Sims 2, etc) are fine. I figured it was time to actually upgrade my PSU so I did. I bought a Corsair TX650W which is more than enough to run my computer along with the video card. Unfortunately, the problem has continued to happen. I'm thinking the weak PSU has caused my GPU to overwork all this time & it had enough of that (if you think it could be anything else, please let me know).
To my actual question. If it is the video card, I'm going to need a new one. I really like my HD Radeon 4850 & was looking into just buying another one of those, but there are two things dissuading me from that. I feel like that card is two years old & should be cheaper than it's listed at. If I'm going to pay that much. I feel like I should be upgrading. Also, I've read that it's normal for that card to run at 80c, which I was always worried about when looking at the information from CCC. Apparently, that's normal, which I don't think is good.
Should I just get a 4850 again & not worry about the temp? Is there something similar that would work for me? Thanks for any information.
PS: The Sapphire Radeon HD 4850 blows the hot air directly into the case. Is this a terrible thing & something I should stay away from? I don't have any extra means of cooling. I've never looked into adding additional cooling options so I'm not sure how I would do that, but I don't have a lot of room in the case as it is. Getting the PSU in there was a pain because I have fat hands.
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