Monitoring Temp, Output, Overclocking

Hello,

I own an HP a6203w Desktop, with 4 gigs of ram, a Thermaltake TR2 430W PSU, and an ATI Radeon 5450 1Gig graphics card. The card is fanless and operates off of the PCI slots power. I am curious as to what free software/apps I can get for my computer/desktop that I can use to watch/monitor the temperature of the card, output of it, and possible what I need to know about the catalyst control center, I'm completely new to this and this is my first video card setup.

Can I overclock it at all?
Also, how about monitor for CPU temp?
Any other key components of my PC that I should have a monitoring system for temperature and output setup?
If so where to download?

Thanks for all the help.

You can download MSI afterburner. It will probably support your GPU and will show you the temperatures and Clocks control. Download here: http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/download.htm

Good Luck .

Your temps should at idle should be around 30c to 35c for GPU and CPU. Now depending on the size of your case you should have one fan blowing out hot air and a fan putting in cold.

I have 7 case fan's to run in my rig 3 of them to exspell hot air out and 4 to bring cold air in. My Temps on cpu and gpu run idle at 25c but I also have water cooling for my CPU. When I game My GPU Temps get up to 60c to 70c My CPU gets 50c to 60c max.

I would be thinking about getting a expanston fan that plugs in to a slot like your card is now and it will just blow on your card or up grade your card to something better. And if you want to do that we can adress that later.

Okay, I did the software and it comes out at 50 to 53 C at idle, I haven't tested the load yet. Isn't that a bit high? I know I'm getting a fan for the rear of the case, what else can I do? Considering cost is a problem and I only have this PSU and GPU because I got them for christmas. Sigh. I don't want this stuff to overheat or die when I just got them. Is there anyway to rig a failsafe for my comp to shutdown under high heat?

Yeah i am going to take time today to redo the idle and load test. I will do a test under load with WoW on max, and then Duke Nukem Forever on max, and see where that gets me. On testing at idle, check it at PC startup, after it has been idling for how long? Also, why the 80mm fan? besides that one fan for the expansion slot, what else can I do that is cheap? How much power will that draw from my PSU? (sorry about all the questions I'm just trying to cover ALL my bases because I can't have this thing burn up.

There is also another thing with MSI afterburner it is called MSI Kombustor. You can go back to there web site and down load it to help benchmark and test your GPU. I use it all the time and it gives you the numbers more right on.

K, with Kombustor it never rose above 68, with the burn in, and full test with AA full on and post effects full on with full screen at 1680 by 1050.

okay but what fan? my card has a metal heat sink, no fan...

This is my card if you were curious http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814129189

here are some links that will help you put air on your GPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835119097

http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-SP-FC [...] 06&sr=1-15

http://www.amazon.com/Antec-Cyclon [...] gy_e_img_b

I don't know for sure on that but your rig should throttle down when is peaks out but you should be able to watch your temps on any gaming you do, when you are surfing it does not get hot enough to worry about

There isn't much more you can do. To get a card that you can OC you need a better PSU and CPU. But for what you have a 6570 or a 6670 would be the most but I am not sure about the bottlenecking and OC.

If you are going to do all the changes maybe you should look into a new build. Any bigger cards will bottleneck and burn your system up. I have three links you can look at. Maybe they might be of some help

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 925-2.html

http://www.amd.com/us/products/des [...] iew.aspx#3

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 067-7.html

I would be worried to. Get the 12.00 dollar expantion fan I linked you to but you can take the side of your case off and put a desk fan and point it at your GPU that should help you bring dowm the Temps. Your GPU wasn't ment to play those types of games but it can and Is done all the time.

Also, how good of a job would it do to get a small oscilating fan or something and turn it on the side of my pc case with case open and turn it on full blast, would that help more than that PCI expansion slot fan ya think?

Okay, a direct fan, that wont hurt anything will it? Dust or anything? Also, my PC tower is in a computer desk, kinda like this | 0 | the 0 is my computer and the | are walls of desk, the front and rear are open, I could push it to one side like |0 | and have the fan blowing in at an angle at the open side, that has to help some right?

Yeah Thanks for all the help man, you've been a lifesaver.

okay just real quick, case open, it hasn't moved from 76 and 77. under load. suppose that is good.

Okay, got an 80mm case fan and ran it in Kombuster at max settings, with the demo mode, for an hour, and it peaked at 68C, no higher. stayed at around 60 to 63, how is that?

That is very good When I play Shogun 2 everything max out my highest temp with high FPS gets to about 59c and on the campain map my temps are about 64c. So you are good to go