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GFX card on it's way out?

Dogboy73

Dogboy73

Dogboy73

Associate
Joined
27 May 2004
Posts
693
Location
UK
Twice when I've been laying TF2 over the last couple of weeks I've had a system crash. It starts with the graphics fracturing & breaking up badly. Then the machine locks up. Is my GFX card on it's way out? This has only happened twice & when I reset the machine everything is fine. I was thinking maybe it's overheating? It has been hot lately. Maybe the game pushing it a bit is causing this? I don't overclock anything.
 
What cooling you got for case/gpu?

Running Sonata (1st Edition) case with 8800gt and 2 x120 fans. (one at back sucking air out of case and one attached to hd mounts sucking air from front , over hd's and into case). Combo does appear to work - no overheating , as yet anyway.

P.S. Was concerned last year that heat was a problem so invested in a fan controller and instead of running case fans at 5v approx they now run a little faster ; still quiet though
 
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I've got the standard fan that came with the card & a single 120mm fan on the back. Never really had a problem with heat before. As I said I don't overclock. When I posted a screen grab of my temps after I built my current PC everyone thought my temps were amazing! This is what I'm getting currently with CoreTemp monitor;

38394496vm3.jpg
 
TheRedZealot said:
the temperature of your card at load would be better.
Click to expand...
I don't have a monitor for the GFX card temp. But the CPU temps are going up to the high 40's in this weather (it gets a bit hot in the rooms the computer is in when it's been hot outside) whilst playing TF2. Not tried any other games. TF2 is the only thing I play at the moment.
 
Dogboy73 said:
I don't have a monitor for the GFX card temp. But the CPU temps are going up to the high 40's in this weather (it gets a bit hot in the rooms the computer is in when it's been hot outside) whilst playing TF2. Not tried any other games. TF2 is the only thing I play at the moment.
Click to expand...

Try ATI tool for GFX temps.
 
My thoughts - it may or may not be a overheating problem although it does sound as though it might be .
(why , until you find out what actual problem was, is there never a simple answer??)

What would I do :-

1. Clean graphics card - make sure fan is running as it should - clean inside of case at same time.

If clean already/fan working properly but still a problem; then

2. Try the graphics card in another computer

If you still cannot bottom problem & you still think it may be heat then you could install the 2nd internal fan so that it sucks air through the hd section and blows air onto the gpu - this should cool the gpu a bit.

Or as a temporary/test measure, to see if it has an effect, you could take the side panel off and set up a fan to blow onto the gpu - just be carefull (force nine gales , dust in air etc not a good thing)

Hope some of the above is of use.
 
Cheers for the links. I installed the program but it's not showing me the temps like it does on screen grab from the first link. Instead of the temp chart I just get an ATi logo & there are no temps shown in the bottom right of the tool window either. It does say that it supports all NVIDIA & ATi cards except the X1950, which is what I have. Maybe that's why?

Any other suggestions? Is it maybe not possible to mnitor the temps of the card/chipset that I have? In the mean time I think I'll order a second 120MM case fan to help suck cool air into the case. They tend to be very quiet anyway & I could just disconnect it in the cooler months.
 
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thegoonden said:
If riva tuner works on your card, it can run a temperature graph while you game for a few minutes, then you can see the results all at once.
Click to expand...
Okay I've DL'd & installed Riva tuner. I can't find anything relating to temperature though. Where do I see this temperature graph?
 
Still not managed to find a way to monitor gfx card temps. I did some research & found other people with X1950 cards that have the same problem. But most people with these cards were able to monitor temps with the tools that have been suggested above & which I have tried myself without success. I guess it culd come down to the card manufacturer as to whether it's posssible to monitor temps or not.

It's been much cooler over the last couple of days. Just been playing TF2 for about 40 minutes without any problems. It's pointing to a heat issue so being able to monitor temps might only confirm what I already suspect. The bottom line is that I need to get another 120MM case fan & do a bit of maintenance to help keep things cooler.
 
Had a couple more problems recently. Recently bought a 20" widescreen & I've been happily playing TF2 in 1600x1050. It runs sweet. Same with Crysis although a little way into the game (just after the frozen ship) the game crashed. There were no graphical problems up until then. But I was playing Episode 2 last night to see how that came across in widescreen. Looked great except just after the message comes in from Kliener & Eli (right near the start) I started getting problems. The best way I can describe it is that it looked like it was snowing! There were little glitches appearing everywhere & some of the textures started going a bit weird as if they were warping. Never seen this before on any HL/Source game.

BTW I never did get the GPU monitor thing going. I don't think my gfx card can be monitored. I tried several of the apps people mentioned above but none of them showed up the GPU temps.

Think I might order myself a second 120mm case fan tp suck in a bit of extra air. That should help if temps are the problem. I should just mention again that I don't overclock. CPU core temps at load (just after a big TF2 session) jump up to around 45C. Normal operation they are around 32-35C.
 
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..... Was playing Crysis last night & I started getting the weird snow like problem & the textures going bandy! It was exactly the same as what happened in EP2. Everything seems fine after I quit the game. Does it sound like the GPU is overheating?
 
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