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[Honkycat]

Hello,
My Dell Dimension 9100 has been freezing with pink stripes and windows shutting with blue screen. I've researched this a bit and it looks like my graphics card may be overheating. I've noticed the fan running louder than normal recently. It's a geForce 6800 and the idling temperature is 107C (ambient 68C).
Any thoughts on what I should do.... replace the fan maybe? Is this easy to do?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve.

 

[Sunius]

If I were you, I'd buy a new graphics card altogether. It's less hassle than replacing the fan and it will be cheaper too. I'd like to know what you use computer for so I could recommend a suitable card. It would cost £30 for a similar performance card and around £50-£70 if you want noticeable performance boost (if you play games).

 

[Honkycat]

Thanks. I suppose if I'm doing it I might as well have a boost! What do you suggest? I don't play games, but the kids do sometimes so it's good to have the potential, although not extreme! (I'm assuming that this IS the root of the problem.... but I think it is).

 

[Sunius]

I'd go for HD 6670. That would be much more powerful card, and its price/performance ratio is very decent at its price range. When going down in price, the performance diminishes much faster. For twice as cheap, you'll be able to get a card that has 20% performance (that's 80% less performance!).

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-258-AS

 

[Honkycat]

Great, and that should be compatible with my PC? Do you just basically plug it in where the old one was and the computer sees it?

 

[Sunius]

Yes, it is compatible. What you need to do before putting it in your PC is to uninstall NVIDIA drivers. Otherwise you'd get a blackscreen with new card because it tries to use driver for totally different card, and obviously that does not work. When you uninstall driver, windows will use their generic driver, which (somewhat) fits for all cards.

Once drivers are uninstalled, shut down the machine, plug the power cable out. Then switch out the graphics card, boot up the PC. Make sure to connect monitor to the new card.

Once PC is booted, download drivers from http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

That's it!

 

[Honkycat]

Thanks. What do you mean by connect monitor to new card?
Also by the way, my blue screen message this afternoon said File: nv4_disp which I think relates to the card so that reassures me. I don't think it's just the drivers though because of the temperature thing?

Thanks again!

 

[Sunius]

Yes, it must be the card. No other computer part (except faulty cable, but you wouldn't get bluescreens then) could cause such video distortion.

By connect monitor to the card, I meant that when the card is installed, it will have video outputs on the outside of your case. You must connect the monitor cable to one of those outputs, and not the outputs which are on something else (like TV card or motherboard). I don't know, your PC might not have any other video outputs, but it may, so I just wrote that to be sure.

 

[Rustyy117]

Hi Steve

I would be looking to improve your case airflow, I'm assuming the ambient temp was taken from within the case, 68C is ridiculous, the temperature inside your case should be as close to the ambient in your room as possible.

If you buy a new graphics card its likely to suffer the same issue due to its environment ( E.G your case).

 

[Sunius]

omgitzfatal is right, somehow I missed the ambient part. When was the last time you cleaned your case?

 

[Honkycat]

Umm...never. I suppose I should try that first!
Thanks guys, you are being really helpful!

 

[Sunius]

That explains a lot! Cleaning should bring back low temperatures, but I cannot guarantee your card will start acting good again, because it might be fried. Just for future reference, it's adviced to clean PC every month .

 

[Honkycat]

Well, I opened it up and did the clean. The card's fan is not working at all so I'll order that new one.. I can't see how it comes out though... it seems fairly fixed!Also, I was going to download the drivers and save to desktop in preparation. Would my Windows XP be 32 or 64bit? Its home edition 2002 SP3?

Thanks.

 

[Rustyy117]

Yeah the graphics card will most likely be screwed in place via two screws at the back of the case, there's plenty of videos on youtube that show how to uninstall a graphics card if you need any help.

Click Start, and then click Run.
Type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
Click the General tab. The operating system is displayed as follows:
For a 64-bit version operating system: Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Version < Year> appears under System.
For a 32-bit version operating system: Windows XP Professional Version <Year> appears under System.
Note <Year> is a placeholder for a year.

 

[Sunius]

It's 32 bit. Windows XP weren't really made with proper 64 bit versions, and even those were mostly reserved for corporations. And it was called Windows XP professional x64 edition.

 

[Honkycat]

All done and installed and working at 37 C!
Thank you all so much for your help.

Steve.

 

[Sunius]

Glad you fixed it! How's gaming performance?

 

[Honkycat]

Weel I'm not really a gamer and the kids haven't tried it yet. I'm sure it will be great though.

 

[Sunius]

I see, good luck then!

 

[Honkycat]

By the way, while I'm in upgrading mode, is there much to be gained by upgrading the processor? Mine is Pentium 4 3.2gHz? If it's hassle and expensive to do for not much return, I wouldn't bother.

 

[Sunius]

Upgrading the processor would require replacing motherboard and memory. Probably hard drive too, because newer motherboards only support SATA hard drives, while yours, I bet, is IDE. All in all, it would cost around £160-170, but would give a tremendous performance boost (5-6 times faster).

Intel Pentium G620 - £46.99
MSI H61M-P31-G3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - £33.90
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit - £22.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB - £56.99

Total: £160.87

Prices taken from www.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Yup, you are on a single core chip atm, going to even a lower end quad is going to blow you away
but the dualcore Sunius linked is going to be a wakener as it is **Edit, as in eyeopener, aka good
Moto

 

[Sunius]

The dual core I linked is actually a very decent CPU. I built a system for my grandparents on friday using that CPU. I can tell you, the difference between my old quad core Phenom and this dual core is tremendous - the pentium is way faster. It's based on sandy bridge architecture, it even was recommended for budget gaming PCs on tom's article.

 

[Honkycat]

Thanks. My hard drive is a SATA so maybe it would be ok? Replacing a motherboard sounds tricky though... is it doable by an "amatuer"?

 

[Sunius]

If your hard drive is SATA, then it will be okay. Just make sure to check it, because afaik they started making SATA Hard drives in 2006, while Pentium 4 were made in 2000-2003.

Well, changing motherboard is pretty simple. All you have to do is take out graphics card, then unscrew 6-7 screws. And then take it out of course .