Potential overheating

[jamesrb]

I am running the following:

Biostar Tforce 550
Athlon X2 3600+ (@ 2.8ghz) (cooled by Scythe Infinity)
Sapphire X1650 XT
6GB of Corsair ram
Silverstone Zeus 850W PSU (Etasis built)

Ever since building this system, I have gotten crashes when playing modern games. The screen either freezes or goes black and I have to do a hard reset. I get no artifacts while gaming and older games (Half Life 1) do not cause crashes.

I first thought it was the processor since it is the only component that is overclocked. Using CoreTemp, the temperature only reaches the 40 degree range after several hours of Prime95 (2 instances running).

I thought it was the video card as well. I re-did the air flow and cabling in my case and after several hours of ATITool 3d view running, the GPU maxes out at 73 degrees. The GPU is always at a different temperature when the crashes occur (often below 70 degrees).

I ran the two instances of Prime95 and the ATITool at the same time to get the temperatures I listed above.

I can run Memtest86+ for 24 hours and get no memory errors.


I am really out of ideas. Improving air flow seems to help but not completely. Pointing a small fan at the video card from outside the case does not improve the cards temperatures but seems to stop the crashes. As the chipset is by the graphics card, I am wondering if it is getting cooled by the fan. Can a chipset cause a game to crash (but not Prime95/ATITool)?

I hear a lot about overheating VRM's but don't begin to know how to troubleshoot that.

 

[BillParrish]

Pointing a small fan at the video card from outside the case does not improve the cards temperatures but seems to stop the crashes

There ya go.

One thing I have noticed is that the "artifact" test in ATI Tool will give you error free overclocking settings that will not work with new games. If you are OCing the video card I would back it off some (some = a lot) . And see about getting it some more cool air. GPU temps, like CPU temps are just a general indication of the devices temps. They can have internal hot spots that do not raise the overall chip temp but cause trouble when certain functions of the chip are used. Chip temps are a good tool and general guide but your testing indicates there is something going on your video card does not like. You have proven it. Now start messing with the video card until you eliminate the issue. It could easily be the memory on the video card is getting hot etc. etc. Hard to say. But you seem to have narrowed it down to the video.

I guess you could test the NB theory by retesting and repositioning the fan so it only hits the NB. Make a cardboard duct or air sheild if you have too to test the theory.

 

[jamesrb]

I am not overclocking the video card though I am not certain that Sapphire didn't go with higher than reference speeds.

I have modded the bios so the cards fan spins 100% at 70 degrees.

I could do another mod to drop the core and memory frequencies and see if that helps. Does that sound like a good test?

 

[BillParrish]

ouch, that additional info does make it sound unlikely its the video card. The video card should be ok at stock certainly with the bios mod to run the fan at 100%. However I cannot get past your testing with the fan which seems to solve your issue. The only thing I can suggest at this point is more testing with that fan making air duct /sheild or a smaller fan to pinpoint where the issue is. You seem to be on the right track just need to narrow it down a bit more. If you could cause the fan to run 100% all the time might be an interesting test but there is more on the card than just the gpu. There are just so many possibilities, is it always all new games or just a few, it seems you are running Vista and some games dont like it, the NB as you mentioned, all I can do it guess. A razor knife, a cut up cereal box and some tape would make an easy duct so you could blow air on just one thing at a time is all I can suggest.

 

[Riccochet]

It sounds like something else on your motherboard/video card is overheating. Get some more airflow in your case. Make sure your mosfets and NB are cooled properly. Get some ramsinks for your vid card.