Is my card overheating?

C

Certain

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 16, 2005
Messages
141
I have been trying to figure out what my problem is, but I need some advice before I take action. I believe my card is overheating. Everytime I would run the 3dmark 06 demo, about a minute into it the computer would just reboot. It wouldnt freeze, just reboot. I didnt believe my card was the issue at first because I had my complete setup (in my sig) inside of a different motherboard. Since the new E8400 I got didn't play nice with the MSI, I switched to a Gigabyte. Thats where my problems started. I narrowed everything down to the card.

I got Rivatuner and down clocked my card to its lowest settings. When the settings were at their lowest and I would run the 3dmark looping demo, the computer would not reboot. I opened up the Ntune monitor and checked the temps. I noticed my card was idleing at 62C. During the test with the low clock it would max out at around 72C. Then I reset the clock back to its defaults. It idled around the same but this time it maxed out at 78C before it rebooted. As long as the clock was low it didnt reboot, and as soon as I put the clock back to its defaults it would reboot. Is that the sign of an overheating card or something else? Should I prepare to send the card back to eVGA and have them send me a new one? Its only a few months old.
 
Sounds like a power issue.
The power supply in your sig should be good enough, but it may be going bad.
 
Hmmmm. So a powersupply issue and not a bad card eh? Is there any particular reasoning behind that? And might there be some sort of compatibility issue with this Gigabyte board and the motherboard. Reason I ask is because that PSU powered that MSI board which was a more advanced board than this Gig.
 
Certain said:
Hmmmm. So a powersupply issue and not a bad card eh? Is there any particular reasoning behind that? And might there be some sort of compatibility issue with this Gigabyte board and the motherboard. Reason I ask is because that PSU powered that MSI board which was a more advanced board than this Gig.
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get a power supply tester and test your power supply too make sure its good then we can rule it out or not. It sounds like the card to me thou, i had same probelm with my 8800 GT from BFG, so i sent it back mine was hitting almost 90C so when i got the new one back i put a zalman VF-1000 Aftermarket cooler on it now full load is 50C
 
DrkWarden said:
get a power supply tester and test your power supply too make sure its good then we can rule it out or not. It sounds like the card to me thou, i had same probelm with my 8800 GT from BFG, so i sent it back mine was hitting almost 90C so when i got the new one back i put a zalman VF-1000 Aftermarket cooler on it now full load is 50C
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Yeah I have a tester and I tested it a few days ago and it was good. As far as I can tell though, my card isn't getting to 90C. From what I've seen it gets to 78C and then restarts. Is 78C enough heat to where it could be causing rebooting issues, or are issues like this usually reserved for higher temps....or does it just vary from card to card.
 
Which Gigabyte MB doe you have??

Why don't you set the RivaTuner to automatically control your GPU's fan duty cycle to keep the card cooler??? It's very easy to do.
But 78C in an 8800 GT is not that hot. My 8800 GTXs run that on average under load.

I can't imagine a GPU problem that just reboots the computer without first showing video artifacting.
Does your card shut down the computer when you play a game?
 
you dont have crucial ballistix anyway near this comp right? supposedly its crapness can transfer to other components rendering them useless. :cool:
 
magoo said:
Which Gigabyte MB doe you have??

Why don't you set the RivaTuner to automatically control your GPU's fan duty cycle to keep the card cooler??? It's very easy to do.
But 78C in an 8800 GT is not that hot. My 8800 GTXs run that on average under load.

I can't imagine a GPU problem that just reboots the computer without first showing video artifacting.
Does your card shut down the computer when you play a game?
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I have the GA-P35-DS3L. Yeah, I could control the fans with Rivatuner, but why is it rebooting with the lower clock? Especially if at its default, its only getting to 78C? Just seems like something else is wrong other than the heat.

@leetskeet: Nah, no Crucial. At first I did think it was my memory though. I had the Patriot memory in there. So I took that out and tried some backup memory that I had laying around. It did the same thing with that memory. Plus I ran memory tests on the Patriot memory so I've pretty much ruled out memory issues at this point.
 
I have that same MB, the P35 DS3L and it will randomly reboot if the BIOS settings aren't stable.

I use that MB for a folding box and if I dont OC just perfectly the board will go into a viscious reboot cycle.

I'd first return your board to all default settings and see if the card still makes the MB reboot, or put in a different GPU and run the system and see if it goes into that same reboot cycle.
If the tests still point to the GPU, I can't explain it, except to say it may be time to RMA the card.
 
magoo said:
I have that same MB, the P35 DS3L and it will randomly reboot if the BIOS settings aren't stable.

I use that MB for a folding box and if I dont OC just perfectly the board will go into a viscious reboot cycle.

I'd first return your board to all default settings and see if the card still makes the MB reboot, or put in a different GPU and run the system and see if it goes into that same reboot cycle.
If the tests still point to the GPU, I can't explain it, except to say it may be time to RMA the card.
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Yeah, everything is at stock. I'm going to pick up a card from Fry's today. If that card doesn't have the same symptoms and runs fine, then I know what it is.

I should note though that these aren't random reboots. I can run torture tests on the CPU for hours on end and no problems. Its only when I run a game or 3dmark that these reboots occur. I even thought it was a driver conflict that I just couldn't correct since I had tried everything. So I reinstalled Windows. It still continued to reboot when I would use 3dmark. Thats why I've just about put all my problems on my card. I think the only other thing outside of that could be the PSU. So I'll probably pick up both a PSU and card. That way I can test both components just in case I put a brand new card in there and it still reboots.
 
Maybe someone can answer this for me. A buddy of mine was trying to help me figure out my problem and he was the one that suggested I use Rivatuner in the first place and try downclocking the card. When I told him the situation and that the downclocked card didn't reboot, the first thing he said was PSU. Then it hit. When I was researching my Gig board, I saw that it had PCI-e 1.x. I looked it up to make sure 1.1 was compatible with a 2.0 card and I found it was. One message board I ran across had a guy in there explaining that the 2.0 interfaces supplied 150 watts while the 1.1 supplied only 75w. I was trying to figure out why that PSU was able to properly supply voltage on the MSI but not on the Gig. If it is indeed the PSU, could this be the answer?
 
The "old" PCI-e slots are compatible with the "new" PCI-e 2.0 cards, so I would assume that the 1.1 slot's lower power would be "made up" by the additional 6 pin power connector.
I also think that the 2.0 standard is being adopted to carry more bandwidth, not power. Otherwise all of us would be screwed unless we owned 780i or above MBs.
 
magoo said:
The "old" PCI-e slots are compatible with the "new" PCI-e 2.0 cards, so I would assume that the 1.1 slot's lower power would be "made up" by the additional 6 pin power connector.
I also think that the 2.0 standard is being adopted to carry more bandwidth, not power. Otherwise all of us would be screwed unless we owned 780i or above MBs.
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Yeah. Thats what I figured and that makes sense. Its just that this whole problem I have has been jabbing at me and if it does turn out to be the power supply, I was just trying to figure out why it would work with one board and not the other.
 
Well. It seems it was indeed the power supply. I replaced that CM extreme 600w with a Thermaltake Toughpower modular 750w. The system no longer rebooted during the 3dmark demo. I knew that it was not the video card though when before putting in the new PSU I replaced the other card I had with another eVGA 8800GT and it rebooted just the same. I have to run a few more tests just to be positive, but I'm pretty sure the issue has been resolved at this point.
 
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