Heating Issue with Radeon x1950 Pro

Neeklus

Neeklus

Neeklus

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Joined
16 Mar 2004
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45
Okay, I've recently been having some problems with my graphics card. About a year old - I've pretty much narrowed it down to a heating issue. Basically it keeps running extremely hot when I'm doing even non-demanding things (about 60 degree's on boot up). I've done a number of new things like opening the sides, keeping a desk fan on it etc. I downloaded the ATI tool and, by setting the fan power up to 100%, it seemed to have rectified itself.

Until today alas.

After two burn outs I just unplugged it all and had a good luck at it. Thanks (lol) to the encased cooling system on the underside I pretty much couldn't look at anything. Using some anti-dust remover spray, I gave it as good a clean as I could.

I resinserted it and within five minutes the same problem. I feel sorry for the little fan because it's whiring around like a whippet. It's extremely noisy.

Now I'm at the end of my tether with it. If it bombs out during another raid, I'll probably need to buy a new machine after I smash this one to pieces. What else can I do to aid this pathetic card?

Failing that, and with a budget of say £150-£200, what kind of card could I get to replace it for this motherboard specification?

ASUSTek K8V-X SE
754-pin socket supports AMD Sempron CPU or Athlon 64 processor
VIA K8T800
VIA VT8237

Currently running a poor AMD Sempron 2800+ at about 1.7.

Thanks
 
I had this happen to my 800gto2, i wasnt impressed with my new ati card (admitedly i did flash the bios to make it an x850 which was cool), but anyway i ebayed it n got a Nvidia card :s which isnt much use (unless you like the looks of an 8800 gts with its big dual slot cooler).

First thing is to look at the airflow though the case (with mine half the problem was i was using a case that cost £12 and had no fans...) you might find placing some more fans into the case to create airflow though it will help.

The other thing i came across was my pc was under my desk in a corner which ment it heated up a corner of my room opposed to had airflow from the rest of the house. S you could test it open case by a windows and fan or something.

If its still doing it probably best to head for a new card... (is you system agp or pci-e though?)
 
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You could get pretty much any gfx card on the market with that money.

TBH i would look at building a new pc altogether. What is your full system spec at the moment (inc case, psu etc)?

If you don't want to build a new pc, reseat the HSF on the gfx card or buy a new cooler for it.
 
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Okay, update:

I've pretty much isolated the problem to the fan. It stopped turning today, so i took the gcard to bits to see if I could actually get to the root of the problem. Taking off all the various panelling I'm left with the fan attached to a base. The fan turns around but with resistance. I'm pretty sure it should flow around freely. I cannot see where the resistance is coming from - I can only access so much. As far as I can see there is no dust, no hair or anything in the internal mechanism of the fan itself.

So the question remains - can this individual component be replaced, or is the entire graphics card compromised?

The machine itself isn't anything special. 1GB ram, 1.7ghz CPU, okay case, plently of HD. The CPU really is the bottleneck. But I'm also on a tight budget and I don't want to spend £500 when I can just fix this problem for less than £150. I can save up for a monster machine some other time.

So what gcard recommendations are there? Something cheap, around the same power level, and something I can get quickly.

Even another x1950 pro wouldn't be amiss at this point.

Basically I don't want to get preyed upon by some PC world vulture, but at this stage I feel I have little choice.
 
gfx cards are good value at the mo, do you need agp or pcie ?

also your cpu will certainly bottleneck a lot of the most powerfull cards. you can get a 3870xt for £110 and up that is certainly faster then yoru cpu can handle. allthough if you on agp thats different
 
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