• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

4850 over heating. PC shutting down :(

S

starchazer

n00b
Joined
Aug 11, 2008
Messages
52
Hello people,

For the past few days whatever game i try to play, My PC shuts down within few mins. I checked the GFX card temperature in ATI catlyst and its above 95 degrees.

Is high temp could be the reason for PC shutting down ? It only happens when i play any game.

Can someone tell me how can I low the card temp ?

I am using Gecube Radeon HD 4850 512mb.

Thanks to all in advance for their help.
 
edit: actually, 95C should be under the (IIRC 110C?) threshold. That shouldn't be causing your PC to hard-reset.

Is it just a reset or is it a BSOD?

anyways, assuming GPU temp is the problem, 3 options:

A)
RMA the card to GeCube, they'll take it back and send you a new one (assuming your still under warranty).

B)
what I'm about to mention will void your warranty and cost a couple bucks:

take out the card, take the cooler off, clean off the contact spots (core/mem, using alcohol, 70 or 90% isopropyl), re-apply using some non-sludge thermal paste with some decent conductive properties. You're temps will be back in the 70's under load.

C)
Do nothing in hardware, use some overclocking software to underclock the card and/or over-rev the fan. Riva-tuner is the swiss army knife of GPU OC'ing tools, and it'l change your fan speed/change frequencies.
 
starchazer said:
For the past few days whatever game i try to play, My PC shuts down within few mins. I checked the GFX card temperature in ATI catlyst and its above 95 degrees.
Click to expand...

They are rated for 104C but if you are seeing 95C in the Catalyst Control Panel (assuming you don't just have it up on a 2nd monitor or something), it is probably hitting 104C in a game.

If you have a single-slot model, the dust does collect in there pretty bad. Around the fan and where the air first gets pushed through the copper, dust collects there and blocks pretty much any air from actually passing through the heatsink. Since it's a small single-slot heatsink this happens much faster compared to other cards or CPU heatsinks. I would bet that is what is causing your issue. You really have to take the card out and give it a good dusting with a can of compressed air, just blowing some air into it while it's still in the computer usually isn't good enough. Mine is bad enough I usually clean it out once a month or so.
 
starchazer,

if the card overheats it should fail, but don't think it will shutdown, it should recover catalyst, or freeze, never shutdown

I suspect something else, what you are describing sounds more like the cpu is overheating and shutting down the pc.

to test the video card, lower the clock of it, and run fan @ 100 percent, and see what happens,

good luck,

Sam
 
Sorry guys, forgot to update the thread. It just came to my mind that I should update because it will help those who may face similar problem.

The solution was, as suggested by everyone, the dust.

I cleaned up my entire PC, including the gfx card, and it never gave me any problem so far. (touch wood).

Thanks for all the help. :)
 
GotNoRice said:
They are rated for 104C but if you are seeing 95C in the Catalyst Control Panel (assuming you don't just have it up on a 2nd monitor or something), it is probably hitting 104C in a game.

If you have a single-slot model, the dust does collect in there pretty bad. Around the fan and where the air first gets pushed through the copper, dust collects there and blocks pretty much any air from actually passing through the heatsink. Since it's a small single-slot heatsink this happens much faster compared to other cards or CPU heatsinks. I would bet that is what is causing your issue. You really have to take the card out and give it a good dusting with a can of compressed air, just blowing some air into it while it's still in the computer usually isn't good enough. Mine is bad enough I usually clean it out once a month or so.
Click to expand...


both of my cards have this problem requiring cleaning often.

 
Uhhhh emm. Usually if a video card overheats you get artifacting, randomly lose display, freezes, random error messages, etc... Pretty much never does the computer turn off on you. That's like your cpu overheating, power supply failing, or something like the motherboard chipsets overheating.

So given the most common symptoms check there first.

Oh and ya quick update: if your 4850 fan is variable go into ccc overdrive and set fan to like 40%-60% whatever you're fine with and just set it and forget it. It's like what was that counter cooker thing where that was it's motto was "set it and forget it."
 
Last edited:
i got my asus 4850 ref. design about 9 months ago, i cleaned it out the other day and it dropped from the 60's to the 40's at idle. i also put some arctic silver on the gpu for good measure.

p.s. i don't recommend setting a static fan speed like a lot of people do, i use smart doctor to reach 100% fan speed @70 and it gets there frequently during heavy gaming. there are other ways of setting it if you don't have an asus card.
 
Help,

I have a similar problem. My average temp is between 77c-90c. Way too hot. My next case will be water cooled. I have the door off right now, but its only temp. I am going to take out the card right now, but playing any modern game under a load will make my computer shut down. I have a E8400, 4GB OCZ DDR-800, Sapphire 4850, Panther 650V QuietCool, Giga EP45DS3R, Seagate Barracuda 320GBx2, Win 7 64bit Ultimate. Any suggestions? I play TF2, Fallout 3, Steam stuff. This is my first post, and I wanna get started in the right direction. Thanks to everyone in advance!!
 
I/O said:
Help,

I have a similar problem. My average temp is between 77c-90c. Way too hot. My next case will be water cooled. I have the door off right now, but its only temp. I am going to take out the card right now, but playing any modern game under a load will make my computer shut down. I have a E8400, 4GB OCZ DDR-800, Sapphire 4850, Panther 650V QuietCool, Giga EP45DS3R, Seagate Barracuda 320GBx2, Win 7 64bit Ultimate. Any suggestions? I play TF2, Fallout 3, Steam stuff. This is my first post, and I wanna get started in the right direction. Thanks to everyone in advance!!
Click to expand...

the obvious action to perform when your video card has high temps is to increase the fan speed on your video card and see if stability improves

if you're OCing anything, reset them back to default
 
Thanks all! I removed the vidcard, cleaned with 91% alcohol, blew out all dust, cleaned heatsink, etc. I checked the CCC, 42c @ idle, 52c @load. Im going to turn my game settings up now!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top