I think I'm overheating.Follow

Have you updated DirectX and done all the Windows updates?
Removed/disabled old video card and any onboard video?
Checked for IRQ conflicts?

Also, has the problem gone away since taking the panel off, and doesn't the VPU recovery utility give an error message or write a log?

It is definitely overheating. Also, how many Watts is your power supply?

If you know someone who is very good with modding and working with computers, get them to set up watercooling for your box.

If you can't, one thing you can do, is get two large fans...each around 2 feet high and have them blow into the computer from opposite sides with the side panels open.

Or, if you have an air conditioner running nearby, take some large tubing and put one end onto a vent and the other onto an intake fan hole/grill. Duct tape it if you have to. By doing this, it will bring COLD air into the computer all the time thus lowering the average temperature of the box. It is pretty easy to do, and if my parents would let me, that is how I would cool my computer. 2 fans in the back and one in the center which is intake and is connected via pipe to the air conditioner.

Another thing I highly recommend you to do, is to sleeve all of your wires in your computer. Tape them to the sides of the case so there is room for air to flow and so that it is controlled. Group all unused wires, such as those from the power supply and put them all in some bay or tape them to the top of the case. By having wiring out of the way, the air flow is unobstructed and therefore more efficient.

A rather innovative thing you can do is take one of the bottom case expansion panels and open it. Take the little metal plate and drill two holes in it. Attach a stardard 80mm case fan on to the side that goes into your computer and position it such that it will blow into your video card. Hook it up and hope it cools it down a bit. This actually works, and there are even some fans like these sold for $5-10, but why buy one for so much when making it yourself is so much more valuable to computer modding experience and a lot cheaper via do-it-yourself ($0.50 is the fan approximately). It doesn't have to be a Thermaltake or whatever brand fan to do this job. It will just GUARANTEE that air will circulate around your graphics card.

A final thing you can do isn't that innovative, but it works for me. Take some of that colder-than-ice stuff you normally put in your freezer or cooler and put it on top of your computer or onto or next to the intake fan(s). I run a 9800Pro and my motherboard temps are around 38-40 Celsius normally depending on what I am doing. When I put this stuff on the case or near the intake fans, it decreases by 2-3 Celsius pretty quickly. One thing I would suggest though is getting some old newspapers and putting the stuff on them as opposed to straight on the case. Water and electrical supplies don't go well hand-in-hand, which is why I suggest you have a pro do your watercooling instalation if you are going to take that path.

Anyway, good luck in your cooling attempts. Post back on your attempts/failures/successes. I still haven't had a watercooling system for example, nor managed to put the tubing from air conditioner to computer due to other people living in the same place as I do. Would be nice to know the outcomes.

Edit: As usual I mention that there is one awesome program you should take advantage for monitoring your system specs and temperatures: Everest. It is really nice and good if you are having trouble with stuff and want to export all the info about your computer to paste on a forum or other.

Edit: Edit: Here is a page courtesy of Tigerdirect where you can buy expansion slot fans: Click me! They cost ~$5-20. Of course, as aforementioned, it is so much more valuable to do it yourself. It is cheap, efficient, and has some experience value to it, especially since you aren't computer savvy.

Edited, Mon Jun 13 16:30:25 2005 by Bagira

Edited, Mon Jun 13 16:43:02 2005 by Bagira

I strongly recommend you to get an expansion fan. Place it on the bottom-most expansion slot and it will be fine. The fan will only eat another maybe 1-3 Watts of energy.

I also find it strange that my PSU (ThermalTake Silent Purepower or the like) has 2 fans and it also points the second one into the intereior of my case, which unfortunately is very close to the CPU HS/fan, despite the fact that my case has holes in it for good ventilation it it would have been really nice if I yould have pointed that fan to the top of the case so exhaust heat can go directly out.

I will also try to find that how-to for the do-it-yourself expansion slot fan.

Edit: Can't find it yet, but here is a nice tidbit on a few fans for high-end cards like yours. That Ati Silencer ranks high according to these guys. Nope, can't find the one I wanted, but in any case, it is easy to picture and just as easy to do.

Edited, Mon Jun 13 17:31:33 2005 by Bagira

Edited, Mon Jun 13 17:32:13 2005 by Bagira

Edited, Mon Jun 13 17:39:22 2005 by Bagira

I will assume that your computer was 'idle' while you saw those in Everest. Idle meaning, you only had a few windows open, no CAD stuff, maybe FFXI. FFXI does not waste nearly as many resources as older games and programs not made for P4 systems *cough* Mordor *cough*.

The CPU temp is rather hot. One problem you may run into with that one is CPU throttling, which you should have noticed before if you experience rapid slowdowns when doing stuff. Also, certain motherboards emit a very soft high pitched noise. Most people can't hear it, but I can. If you run a P4, this is a really bad temperature. If you run an AMD, it should not be getting anywhere near this hot.

Motherboard temperature is also bad. My motherboard recommends 38 C, but I go over to 40ish anyway. It is just so much harder to cool components effectively with a hot motherboard/in-case temperature. For example, say one person's temps are 30 C and another's are 40C. The one who has the 30 C motherboard temperature will find his CPU and GPU temps much lower because the equilibrium teperature of the case alltogether will be lower. Which is also why intel motherboards in general do not recommend you go over 40 C.

I can't say anything about the GPU temp though because only the X300+ cards can monitor GPU temps.

Do the air conditioner thing and get the expansion slot fan specially for the graphics card air flow. Check the GPU temps an hour or so after keeping the computer on or hour after FFXI playage. If there is a significant difference from when you first turn the computer on wait for 3 minutes and then check temps and the after an hour check, then that is bad. Pray that the Silencer will alleviate that part.

Report back with stuffage as usual, and post the summary please. Just wondering what specs you have other than the card.

Edit: In the rare case you may have an IRQ conflict, you can check in Everest under Devices -> Device Resources at the top.

Edited, Mon Jun 13 21:47:12 2005 by Bagira

Pretty sure he's running a Prescott core, but 61 is still too high. I used that Everest program, but the only temperature I got a readout for was my HD.

I can understand that, but this is a less than a year old Dell. Is 49 C too hot for my HDD?

Edited, Tue Jun 14 00:58:24 2005 by Kastigir

I've never dealt with the nForce chipset and others. I haven't dealt with anything slightly gamer-oriented at all before like 2 months ago.

I don't see wy you can't run an ATI card on an nVidia board. The drivers from the old card are wiped clean. You don't get a VPU recover thingie unless it overheats and such. Ever used AtiTool to overclock your ATI card and get a VPU recover error? There we go, it overheated.

And, yes, Kastigir, 49 C for a hard drive is very hot. However, I rarely mind, especially since my hard drives have been subjected to as brutal condtions and not one out of over 15 has failed in the last 8 years. Call me lucky.

Edit: Plus, I am waiting until the OP posts back some results of his endeavors.

Edited, Tue Jun 14 01:20:41 2005 by Bagira

So much for the OP lol.

Try to make sure they're not in adjacent bays as this builds up heat. If you only have one drive in there then heat *shouldn't* be a problem.

Ventilation is your friend, a front case fan usually gets air flowing over the hard drives and will in general make the whole system cooler. Make sure air sucks in at the front and out at the back of the case if you're going to do it.



Edited, Tue Jun 14 01:42:57 2005 by blowfin

Ok, this is a Dell system, so the HD is easily removeable. I can open up the case and see about creating some space between the HD and any other drives. I don't think I have any fans at the front of the case, just a couple in the back. 1 is for the CPU heatsink, the other for the rest of the case I guess. I know for a fact that it pulls air in from the front because I have to clean the dust off of it every once in awhile.

So, you're saying less than a year is a natural, yet premature death? Oh, and I'm still gonna move the drive down if I can. Might as well do everything I can to keep it running because if this piece of sh[red][/red]it breaks again, Dell's gonna get it back in pieces.

Edited, Tue Jun 14 03:01:04 2005 by Kastigir

Samsung, but I couldn't tell you the model. It was a 160Gig unit.

Larger heatsink, bigger/more fans?

Sorry to say, but you can't really effectively cool the CPU without either incresing air flow by a LOT or by decreasing the overall temps inside the case, also referred to as the motherboard temp.

FFXI/pol does not take much CPU usage actually. As long as you minimize the processes like winamp and stuff and not do CAD stuff while on ffxi, it still should not heat up that much after 3 hoursish. For me, ffxi takes up ~13% on one of my 'two' CPUs due to HT. It isn't a lot. And after a whole day of it running, the temps are still around 50-55ish for my intel LGA775 chipset, which isn't warm at all. Maybe there is some process that eats CPU usage? On my old computer there was one process called rnaathchk.exe which was the real player autoupdate which at usage, so check the CPU usage at startup or a bit afterwards to make sure nothing is being 'wasted'. Or lower the overall motherboard temperature. Again, if colder air passes over the heatsink, more heat can be transferred to the air flow, thus a lower equilibrium CPU/MB temp.

I am hhappy that you solved the issue with it being the Windower. I hope it is mainly confined to the newer cards because so far, I've had no problems with my 9800Pro as long as I don't overclock it.

Oh, and a larger heatsink/fan won't really work. A fan capable of delivering higher Cfm is good. A heatsink whose main material has a higher specific heat is also good, since it will be able to take a lot more heat and not go up as much temperaturage overall. So materials of heatsink and the Cfmage of a fan are good, but size doesn't really play a large role. I remember reading a review about a HUGE CPU HS/fan for the LGA775 chips. It was basically the size of one of those Brita water filters and the shape of a blimp. It was huge, and it made a lot of noise, but the cooling was still sub-par to that of the stock intel HS/fan.