Graphic Card Overheating?

[Guest]

I recently reformatted my pc to windows 7 ultimate hoping to solve the multiple error messages. The error messages only happen when I’m playing 3d games.

I checked with the systems requirement lab to see if my pc could run the game the sims 3. The result was fast. When I play the sims 3 or any other 3d games like call of duty, the graphic flickers and then artifacts appear and a reboot happens.

My pc case has a fan in the front to suck air in and a fan at the back to pull the air out. I changed that fan thinking that it was an overheating problem and the new fan would solve this. Later, I had the power supply unit changed. It was the same brand and same voltage.

I noticed that the graphic card issues happen a lot quicker when running on win 7 compared to win xp(my previous os). My graphic card is Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT.

Yesterday, I played the sims 3 for about 30 minutes and then the graphic flickered, went a little brighter and then complete distortion and then it showed the BSOD and then restarted before I got to read the error message. When windows booted up, I read the message telling me that the graphic card had stopped working and that caused the restart.

When my pc was new, I played the sims 3 as well and there was no such problem.

 

[hell_storm2004]

You have written the issue in a whole lot of detail. But you missed out the most critical thing. Your complete config.

 

[KaKkaR0T]

Is the error somewhat like this - "Graphics Driver has stopped responding and has recovered successfully"??

 

[Guest]

You have written the issue in a whole lot of detail. But you missed out the most critical thing. Your complete config.

Sorry bout that. I’m not very good at this. What do you want to know? My current pc’s os is Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600). The processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor

 

[Guest]

Is the error somewhat like this - "Graphics Driver has stopped responding and has recovered successfully"??

I guess so. Didn’t really get a good look at it. Sorry, bad memory.

 

[hell_storm2004]

Sorry bout that. I’m not very good at this. What do you want to know? My current pc’s os is Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (6.1, Build 7600). The processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor

Let me see
Fill this out:
CPU:
Motherboard:
RAMs:
PSU:
Monitor:
Case:

Mention model, brand and specification of each.

 

[Guest]

Let me see
Fill this out:
CPU:
Motherboard:
RAMs:
PSU:
Monitor:
Case:

Mention model, brand and specification of each.

ok, i tried to fill it out

CPU: i don't know
Motherboard: Gigabyte M57SLI-S4
RAMs: 2.00 GB
PSU: Cooler Master, RS-460-PCAR, 460W
Monitor: Dell Computer DELL M782
Case: it's a black metal case

there's no brand on the pc as it is a custom built pc.

 

[hell_storm2004]

Download CPU-Z and you can see all the details needed. Also do download HWMonitor and see the temps inside your PC and see if its heating up on the inside or not.

Anyways, your PSU is quite crappy enough. So my initial hunch is that the PSU has gone bad or the GPU. If you can find an alternate PSU and try it out you would find out, if you do get the BSOD's again then you could probably guess that the PSU is not providing the required power or is heating up the inside. On the other hand if you can find an alternate GPU then you can see if the GPU has gone bad or not. Either one, would do. If you could note down the BSOD error code, and mention it here, it would be nice.

 

[try2help]

If you are getting artifacting, it is going to be your GPU, almost without a doubt. Try taking the side of the case off and aiming a small fan at the graphics card...play for awhile and see if that fixes it...if it does, you need a better way to cool that card, or a better card in general. I wouldn't mess with the power supply unless it is making noise itself or sounds like it is straining..whit from what you have in there, 460 should be pleanty fine.

 

[Guest]

Download CPU-Z and you can see all the details needed. Also do download HWMonitor and see the temps inside your PC and see if its heating up on the inside or not.

Anyways, your PSU is quite crappy enough. So my initial hunch is that the PSU has gone bad or the GPU. If you can find an alternate PSU and try it out you would find out, if you do get the BSOD's again then you could probably guess that the PSU is not providing the required power or is heating up the inside. On the other hand if you can find an alternate GPU then you can see if the GPU has gone bad or not. Either one, would do. If you could note down the BSOD error code, and mention it here, it would be nice.

Thank you for all your ideas and opinions. I'll get on it when I have the time. Meanwhile, I managed to do what trying to help mentioned by putting a fan to the pc, it worked. I played for an hour and a half. So is this considered an overheating problem? By the way, I can't get an alternate psu as my other pc is even older and using a lower psu.

 

[Guest]

If you are getting artifacting, it is going to be your GPU, almost without a doubt. Try taking the side of the case off and aiming a small fan at the graphics card...play for awhile and see if that fixes it...if it does, you need a better way to cool that card, or a better card in general. I wouldn't mess with the power supply unless it is making noise itself or sounds like it is straining..whit from what you have in there, 460 should be pleanty fine.

I did what you said by taking off the side and using a table fan. It does fixes the artifacts problems. I will try to get another pc fan to blow the graphic card. So is it conclusive to say that I have an overheating graphic card problem?

 

[hell_storm2004]

A bad PSU like that can even end up damaging other components without even you realizing it. So its better you get a nice new one and start using it. If you want to upgrade in the future and go for a bigger/meaner config you can even get big wattage PSU from some decent brand. We can help you out with that. A bad PSU leads to high temperatures due to the uneven/bad power provided to the PC components.

 

[try2help]

I've seen this a lot with upgrades to Windows 7. Win 7 seems to be more taxing in the graphics area, which means..your card, even though

it did play Sims 3 fine before, will now have to eventually be upgraded. The fan on the card working, proves that the card is overheating...it's

taking more for the card to do it's job. This is a temporary fix...eventually you will need to upgrade your grapics card, and your psu.

depending on what you choose to buy as a graphics card will determine what you want in a power supply. Personally, for a home PC using

one monitor, I thing anything over 750 is a waste of money. Corsair makes a pretty good power supply if you are going to stay with Nvidia

GPU, which I personally prefer. All depends on what you want to spend.

 

[try2help]

ok, i tried to fill it out

CPU: i don't know
Motherboard: Gigabyte M57SLI-S4
RAMs: 2.00 GB
PSU: Cooler Master, RS-460-PCAR, 460W
Monitor: Dell Computer DELL M782
Case: it's a black metal case

there's no brand on the pc as it is a custom built pc.

Just a side note..er...question..

Your board will hold up to 16GB of RAM...have you thought about upgrading to at least 4?

And why 32bit Win7? Why not 64?

 

[VGKitov]

Offtopic

If he has only 2GB of RAM why would he need a 64bit Windows?

 

[VGKitov]

A bad PSU like that can even end up damaging other components without even you realizing it. So its better you get a nice new one and start using it. If you want to upgrade in the future and go for a bigger/meaner config you can even get big wattage PSU from some decent brand. We can help you out with that. A bad PSU leads to high temperatures due to the uneven/bad power provided to the PC components.

+1 CM PSU's, especialy the Extreme Power (how ironic) seem to be pretty bad.

You could instal a Fan on the the GPU heatsink, or something like that, but it isn't a permanent solution (atleast to me)

PS I\m running Win 7 32 bit with 3GB of RAM 1 HDD, Athlon X2 4400+ and a GeForce PoV 8400GS, no problems with Win 7. And a 400W noname

I know it's wrong but Im building a new system soon so i don't have the money to change it.

My PC used to crash, but I suppose the CPU was overheating, because once I installed a Hyper 101 (the cheapest cooler I could find) I have had just 1 crash for about a month.

With stock cooling CPU was 54C with CM it's 46C. The problem I think was, that at 65C (which it used to reach) the CPU starts lowering the multiplier and the CPU's speed decreces from 2.3 GHz to 1.3GHz, I think thats what caused the crashes (not sure).

Maybe my PSU is messing with my CPU and that is why I got suck high temps on the stock cooler.

 

[try2help]

Offtopic

If he has only 2GB of RAM why would he need a 64bit Windows?

I agree...if he were to stay at that 2GB...he upgrades to 4 or more some day and he'll have to get 64bit to take advantage of the RAM.

 

[VGKitov]

I agree...if he were to stay at that 2GB...he upgrades to 4 or more some day and he'll have to get 64bit to take advantage of the RAM.

Agreed.

Im now running 32bit on the limit with 3GB, but when I buid my new rig 65 bit here I come

 

[Guest]

Just a side note..er...question..

Your board will hold up to 16GB of RAM...have you thought about upgrading to at least 4?

And why 32bit Win7? Why not 64?

Well, first of all, I didn't even know that the motherboard can hold 16GB of RAM so no, I never thought of it.

And um, the thing about using Win 7 32-bit was because I had the disk already while I was still using win xp.

 

[Guest]

A bad PSU like that can even end up damaging other components without even you realizing it. So its better you get a nice new one and start using it. If you want to upgrade in the future and go for a bigger/meaner config you can even get big wattage PSU from some decent brand. We can help you out with that. A bad PSU leads to high temperatures due to the uneven/bad power provided to the PC components.

Ok, I will try to get another PSU some day when I get the chance. Just by curiosity, what brand and how much power do you think a pc like mine will need?

 

[Guest]

Since we're all talking about PSUs, I wanted to know this for a long time. Say, with my pc specs the same, I buy a PSU of 750W. This would obviously mean that there's more power than my pc needs, right? Are there any side effects when supplying the pc with more power than it requires? Would it like fry anything inside of my pc?

 

[VGKitov]

Since we're all talking about PSUs, I wanted to know this for a long time. Say, with my pc specs the same, I buy a PSU of 750W. This would obviously mean that there's more power than my pc needs, right? Are there any side effects when supplying the pc with more power than it requires? Would it like fry anything inside of my pc?

No it will not

If you want you could get a 1000W PSU and pair it with a HD5450 .

 

[hell_storm2004]

Your PC would need only 300W of constant, clean and stable power at the most. 750W is way to overkill for this one. Corsair VX450W would do the job.

Stick to brands like Corsair, Seasonic or Antec.

But if you are looking for a heavy duty rig in the future, a good solid 750W would see through for the next 4-5 years. I would say go for Seasonic X750W or X850W Gold Certified one. Its a bit expensive, but its worth it. Would give you enough power for a heavy duty SLI/CF setup in the future.

 

[Guest]

I would like to thank all of you for your time and effort for trying to solve my pc problems. I really appreciate it. Thank you all and take care

 

[VGKitov]

I would like to thank all of you for your time and effort for trying to solve my pc problems. I really appreciate it. Thank you all and take care

You are welcome.

Good luck with the new PSU.