Performance Drop after 10mins playing games

[Xellos]

Recently installed a new motherboard and hard drive after the old motherboard died

Did a clean install of Windows XP and all drivers, but for the last few days my framerate in games is dropping by 70-80%

Do you think my graphics card is on its way out?

Specs in sig

 

[OzZie]

Could well be due to the heat. Best advice would be to check temps and wait for this hot weather to cool down.

Also, take note of the CPU temps as well. Overheating causes a lot of issues.

 

[Xellos]

Temps while playing games

Motherboard - 43 °C
CPU - 31 °C
GPU - 54 °C
GPU Memory - 56 °C
Seagate ST3160021A - 49 °C
Seagate ST3320620AS - 48 °C

 

[Meatball]

Temps while playing games

Motherboard - 43 °C
CPU - 31 °C
GPU - 54 °C
GPU Memory - 56 °C
Seagate ST3160021A - 49 °C
Seagate ST3320620AS - 48 °C

Temps seem fine to me?

 

[Well Splattered]

Personally i think your PSU is struggling to sustain power. Which one is it? and do you get voltage dips?

Its warm, a warm PSU is not as stable as a cool one!

 

[Boogle]

Temp drops exceedingly quickly once you quit a game - you need to monitor GPU temps in the background while playing a game

 

[Cyber-Mav]

use ati tool to monitor gpu temps. also with this added heat its harder for a psu to regulate its power at higher temps so a high quality psu is a must.

 

[titaniumx3]

Is it just me or are the hard disk a little too hot, about 10C hotter than usual. Though I don't see how that would affect things.

What PSU do you have?

 

[Xellos]

I think my PSU is a Thermaltake 480W+ (cant remember the exact number), but ive turned the fan right up and it hasnt slowed down as of yet.

Oh and the GPU is now hitting 87 °C

 

[fish99]

Just been reading a review of the Asus X800 XL where they mention temperatures under heavy load of between 50 and 70 depending on the fan speed. Does that mean there's some Asus software to vary the speed of the GPU fan then? If there is you could try increasing it. 87 does seem very hot. You got any case fans? Also as mentioned above it could be the PSU, although I don't see your system really stressing out a 480W PSU too much. Thermaltake aren't the best in the world but they're not the worst either.

If the Arctic Cooling ATI 4 fits an X800 XL you could try installing one of those. It knocked 20 degrees off the temps of my X800 Pro and cut the noise down.

 

[Xellos]

GPU fan speed is always on 100%, have 4 case fans too =/

 

[Sean_UK]

GPU 87c is hot indeed, my little bro's Geforce 5950 was hitting that sort of temp other month when the cooling fan was on way out. Same thing happend; in that games ran very slow under system load, hence why i looked inside he's case and noticed the buzz of a very worn fan + high temps. Since then replaced cooler with the Arctic, temps much lower and everything works fine again. They say gfx cards can handle 80c+ under load, but not from my experiance they cant and slow up.