• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

x1950xtx Fan Failure

Flapper

Flapper

Flapper

Associate
Joined
28 Feb 2008
Posts
34
It seems the fan on my ATI Radeon X1950XTX has failed.

I fired up Gothic 3 earlier and it was running stuttery then locked-up my PC. Strange, I thought, but it was the first time I’d run it and it’s a notoriously buggy game. Later, after a bit of 2d surfing I fired up Team Fortress 2 and the catalyst centre kicked in informing me that the video card was running hot and that it would reduce the clock speed. It has never done this before.

I fired up ATI Tool and, sure enough, temps of 105. I went to fan control and tried to force 100% fan speed. Normally this sounds very loud but I heard nothing. So I took off the side and restarted the PC. Sure enough the fan had failed and wouldn’t start at all even during POSTING.

So to my dilemma. Is it worth replacing the fan & cooler on the X1950XTX? Do I run the risk that I’ll put a new cooler on it and find that I’ve already damaged my card by running it for a short time in 3d, and a long time in 2d, when the fan was dead? I’m also worried that maybe the card has failed and wouldn’t drive any new fan? (In all likelihood a new fan & cooler should work though, shouldn’t it?)

The other option is to buy a new card. I’m running an ASROCK 4CoreDual VSTA motherboard. This means I can’t run a 8800GT (incompatible). I think the best cards I could run would be a 3850 or a 3870.

I’m a bit skint so the new aftermarket cooler is perhaps the best route. Is the X1950XTX cooler particularly hard to replace – it certainly looks it. I want to avoid throwing good money after bad.

Any advice gratefully received..
 
Arctic Cooling Accelero X2 VGA Cooler (X1800/X1900 Series)
Only 4 screws, its easy to put on.
 
I would Bet the core is still OK, There is thermal overload protection encoded into the cards Bios, from memory something like 120c :eek:
 
Thanks for the replies chaps.

Hey Baked. Was your card an x1950xtx? It's just that I'm reading that the accelero x2 and the zalman vf900 can both have problems dealing with the sheer amount of heat that the x1950xtx throws out.

I don't want to spend £35 on a top range cooler like the Thermalright HR03 as then I'm getting toward the tipping point where I'd be better off buying a 3850.

I think I'll probably go for a cheap X2 and hope that it cools sufficiently..
 
Ran the same card with an AcceleroX2 for ages no fuss.

Great coolers, dirt cheap, silent, and dead easy to install.

But ya, if the card is under warrenty i'd RMA it you might get soemthing better in return ^_^
 
Good news - thanks Hex.

I bought the card 2nd-hand off of ebay about 6 months ago - so no warranty.

It's been great up until now - powers through everything I've thrown at it.
 
Flapper said:
Thanks for the replies chaps.

Hey Baked. Was your card an x1950xtx? It's just that I'm reading that the accelero x2 and the zalman vf900 can both have problems dealing with the sheer amount of heat that the x1950xtx throws out.

QUOTE]

I had the X1950XTX with the VF900 installed and there was no problems with heat , it was about 55-60C temp when the GPU was loaded.

Lusty
Click to expand...
 
Flapper said:
Thanks for the replies chaps.

Hey Baked. Was your card an x1950xtx? It's just that I'm reading that the accelero x2 and the zalman vf900 can both have problems dealing with the sheer amount of heat that the x1950xtx throws out.

I don't want to spend £35 on a top range cooler like the Thermalright HR03 as then I'm getting toward the tipping point where I'd be better off buying a 3850.

I think I'll probably go for a cheap X2 and hope that it cools sufficiently..
Click to expand...

Had no probs with temps, its sitting at 43degrees right now and under load only goes up to 48, it has a fan controller attached so you can alter the speed yourself.

(yeah, x1950)
 
I ended up buying a Zalman VF1000
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article769-page1.html

And boy is it one tasty cooler. With my old stock HSF (a little dusty, and with old TIM) I would idle at about 60c with 85 under load. Now I idle at 45c and hit 65c at load :)

Very happy as I've got a bit of headroom to overclock the card now if I want.

The new fan runs off the Motherboard so I'll probably never know whether the fan on the stock cooler failed, or the card's ability to power a fan failed.
 
Got a Accelero S1 on a 1900XT, 12cm fan. 30 idle, just under 50 under load. 688 core. Stock 41 idle, 85 load, stock GPU speeds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom