Graphics card dying?

[Guest]

I bought an ATi Radeon 5670 512mb card like few months ago. It has been working perfectly since approx a week ago. It doesn't provide the full capability what it used to in games such as CoD4 & L4D. I used to have almost stable 250 fps in CoD4 @ 1280x1024 resolution, but after a while it's more like 140 fps on wide areas, and hops to 250 inside houses etc. The fan is working perfectly and the temperature while gaming is around 45-50. When I boot up the computer it's usually 39 and it keeps on growing.


If I join a game and play for 10 mins or something like that fps just keeps dropping and dropping...
When I come back to desktop and shut the game my temps stay at 46 cels and doesn't go higher or lower. These days it's 44 (at the moment) and I haven't even joined a game. I've tried opening the case and removing the card and cleaning it up. Even cleaned the whole inside, but still this happens.

Specs:
AMD Phenom X4 9550 @ 2,2GHz
Asus M2N68-LA (Narra3)
ATi Radeon VRTX3D 5670 512mb
4GB Mem @ 800MHz
300W PSU (Yes, I know it's not good, but has been working for many months so dunno if it's the problem)
Windows Vista 64bit

Please help.

 

[g00fysmiley]

try pulling the card and the heatsink/fan and applying new thermal paste?

 

[Guest]

So removing the fan, and adding thermal paste would work? I may have tried overclocking a bit, but with good head in mind (as in not too much and using auto-tune)

 

[g00fysmiley]

yea. usually the thermal paster oems use is crap. get some new stuff for better conductivity. as you overclocked this may help. if its still running hot i'd try reducing the overclock back to closer to stock settings to see if that allows it to run cooler

 

[Guest]

Well, I removed the oc right after I noticed my fps dropped.

 

[Guest]

What kind of thermal paste could you recommend?

Was watching some Arctic Matrix and Pro-grade+ Silicone-tech evolution 5022 .

Any good?

 

[g00fysmiley]

either of those would do fine

 

[Guest]

So all I have to do is remove the fan, and put exactly how much on top of the chip I mean the thermal paste. And after putting it on the chip just put the fan back on ?
Photo of the card:

http://content.hwigroup.net/images/news/Vertex3D_Radeon_HD_5670_1GB_01.jpg

 

[g00fysmiley]

remove the fan and heat sinnk, wipe off the old thermal paste from the chip, add a small amount of thermal paste liek a baby pea sized drop then press on the heatsink/fan

 

[Guest]

So theres a chance this might help, or is it just going to die slowly?

 

[Guest]

As this is a brand new card I couldn't afford another one so quickly..

 

[g00fysmiley]

think of it like a cautrising a wound. if you really damaged it nothign is going to fix the burnt out portions. but this will help prevent further damage. if it isn't actually damaged and the performance drop was simply from droppign clocks back to stock settings on the other hand this will help dissipate heat generated and help prevent it from beign damaged.

i make it a rule of thumb to re paste any card i am doing on a build cause even some of the best thermal paste is still cheap and will be more than worth it over the whole life of the system in the long run

adding a note*

if you're serious about overclocking a card they do make aftermarket gpu coolers which usually do a pretty good job frozencpu.com has some as do most computer parts retailors

 

[Guest]

But the thing with the card is, ALWAYS when I boot it, it usually recovers for a bit that I have like 1-5 mins of 250 fps and when I rejoin the server it's dropping off.

 

[Guest]

Just tested, it's 250, but when I press a button FPS drops like 20 (not in to 20 fps, but a single drop) and then recovers back to the same.

 

[Guest]

bump

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey