Kruiz 136 Posted January 23, 2008 Report Posted January 23, 2008 (edited) Hi, I recently bought a second hand 7950GT as before then my graphics card was a ATI x300 series 128mb. I bought it so I could have smooth graphics on rFactor. Obviously, its not worked out like that, as things rarely do with me. The problem is overheating. The card runs fine for a few minutes then over-heats and lags/stutters/freezes whatver you want to call it, a lot. I have the case off and 3 external house fans to try and cool the machine down, and I can get the core temp. to a lowest of 47C on idle. When I boot up rFactor the graphics card fan stops altogether even when I have it on Direct control at 100%, then it swiftly goes way passed the 70C mark and huge lag occurs, even worse than it was with the old card. I am running a 2.8ghz Dell Intel Pentium 4 CPU and 2GB of RAM on Windows XP and I'm using 169.28 drivers with the 7950GT. I have also tried 169.21 drivers earlier as Hutch suggested I try new drivers but its not made a difference. Please help as its getting beyond a joke after I spent so much money upgrading so it would be better, and its worse than I started out now Thanks Kruiz Edited January 23, 2008 by Kruiz 136
Lee Posted January 23, 2008 Report Posted January 23, 2008 tell the bloke u want your money back ill speak to you on msn about it
Hutch#331 Posted January 23, 2008 Report Posted January 23, 2008 (edited) tell the bloke u want your money back ill speak to you on msn about it the problem isn't the graphics card its the layout of the dell motherboard, all the componets are positioned tight together for them to fit in the case which is smaller than a midi, the machine wasn't built for high end gaming as your nowhere near a window or vent the only way your going to drop the temps down is by getting one of them portable air coolers, tosh has one which works a treat i'd need to speak with him later to find out where he got it from Edited January 23, 2008 by HUTCH
Lee Posted January 23, 2008 Report Posted January 23, 2008 yh hutch.. after talking to kruiz on msn i came to the conclusion it was all too tightly packed together etc. the same as you. a portable air cooler that u talked about would be great
Pedz 212 Posted January 23, 2008 Report Posted January 23, 2008 make a hole in the side of tower and fit a 80mm or 120mm fan maybe with led so it looks cool put the hole just under the the card area and then it blows alot of cool air str8 in to card area i go for a 120mm.picture below....red is card and hole is gold
Lee Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 pedz thats what i suggested on msn to kruiz but for the time and ease the fan was the better choice. if that then doesnt work i think thats the next best option
matthew413 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 Could always buy a new case for a tenner from ebuyer?
Kruiz 136 Posted January 24, 2008 Author Report Posted January 24, 2008 Could always buy a new case for a tenner from ebuyer? Thanks for the idea's guys. I haven't got a clue where to start with building computers so would changing the case to something bigger be difficult? I think an air cooler sounds a good idea too. I would put a new fan in but there really isn't any room in the case. Here it is in perspective to a can of Lynx, as you can see its fairly tightly packed in, and a picture as it has to be run when on rFactor, and still over-heats quite badly, but 10C better than before the fans lol.
Guest Scrapman53 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 If it's still overheating with those 2 fans, then I can't see how a larger case with a casefan would help.
welly Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 You need to have an exit for the hot air (nothing to do with 'dilema' thread lol), all you are doing there is forcing the hot air to the other side of your case. Can you remove the other side? If you can it would be better to place one fan as you have it now and one at the other side but facing away from the case. The fan facing away will then draw the hot air into itself and blow it away.
Kruiz 136 Posted January 24, 2008 Author Report Posted January 24, 2008 (edited) You need to have an exit for the hot air (nothing to do with 'dilema' thread lol), all you are doing there is forcing the hot air to the other side of your case. Can you remove the other side? If you can it would be better to place one fan as you have it now and one at the other side but facing away from the case. The fan facing away will then draw the hot air into itself and blow it away. No I can't remove the other side as the motherboards attached to it, but thats a good idea I think Edited January 24, 2008 by Kruiz 136
matthew413 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 Are you sure the heatsink is attached to the chip properly? Might be worth taking it off and putting some thermal paste on if you have any. Perhaps you now know why the card was for sale though...
welly Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 Try picking up the can of Lynx removing the lid and spraying it over the graphics card
Kruiz 136 Posted January 24, 2008 Author Report Posted January 24, 2008 (edited) Haha well the bloke I bought it off said he was just replacing it with the 8800, which I thought was a legitimate excuse but you never know. Whats the heatsink and where is it? Edited January 24, 2008 by Kruiz 136
matthew413 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 Its the metal plate the fans sit on. Its job is to spread the heat from the chip by increasing the surface area but if it's not making proper contact with the chip it won't do its job properly. You can buy 3rd party fans/heatsinks too
Woka Snr Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 The problem is overheating. The card runs fine for a few minutes then over-heats and lags/stutters/freezes whatver you want to call it, a lot. When I boot up rFactor the graphics card fan stops altogether even when I have it on Direct control at 100%, then it swiftly goes way passed the 70C mark and huge lag occurs, even worse than it was with the old card. Maybe as mentioned this is just a graphics card heatsink/fan problem? Strange that the Graphics card fan goes off when you start rFactor! If anything you would think the fan would speed up if it was getting too warm. The graphics card itself sounds very suspect to me from what you have said. Good luck with it.
Hutch#331 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 kruiz means by the fan slowing down that hes previously applied the fan speed to 100% in the nvidia drivers settings, the fan will run at normal speed 50% till you manauly apply it at 100% the reason why his fan speed jumps from 100% back down 50% when hes in rfactor beats me, i would need a look at it myself, it could be a bug with windows home the heatsink on kruiz's set up must be one of the worst ones ever made, the cpu has the heat sink attached but no fan, the fans attached to the case and draws air through the green duct to cool it, third party heatskinks are out the window as its been designed for dell parts too a new case won't solve the problems as its a bad lay out with the dell motherboard with all parts being close together, i doubt dell motherboards would even fit in another case as they make the components to suit themselves my mate has the exact same pc as kruiz's and we had the same problem till we made some custom cooling for him, same as pedz's idea with a hole on the side of the case at graphics card with a tumble drier hose attached to the air vent on my mates wall which gets the cooler air from outside kruiz's dillema is he is not near any wall vents or window's (young ofenders institute) so i sudgested he buy an air chiller like tosh uses which will give him the lower temps he needs rather than blowing in the hot air from his room
matthew413 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 Im on about the graphics card heatsink not the cpu. Theres space in that case for a zalman graphics heatsink no probs.
Kruiz 136 Posted January 24, 2008 Author Report Posted January 24, 2008 If its a glitch in the Windows software, would that mean the cheapest option would be a format before I go out spending my non-existant money?
F2-Fan Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 I too had a similar problem which was made even worse in the summer months. In the end I went out and brought a Graphics Card Cooler and that seemed to help. The link belows explains one in detail and even tells you how to fit it. http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/The...ND3/index.shtml
Pedz 212 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 can u get someone else local to u to run your 7950 in there machine just to see it they get same problems m8,then u can move on to other things it may be.
Tosh924 Posted January 24, 2008 Report Posted January 24, 2008 here is how mines is set up kruiz, the chiller fan i got was from a shop called the stationary box in the local town centre,25 quid. im guessing you will need to source 1 simialir to mine as it has 3 speeds and runs very quite, i can. mines is tipped on its side and i ve positioned it so the air blows under neath it all. my pc case has 4 vents at the very top and bottom built in to remove the hot air as they suck the hot air out. the pic with the temp gauge on my pc panal is the graphics temp with the fan on. without it it normally reads 29-31 deg, i normally have it on to play games such as, rfactor,cod4,fear,battlefield2 etc, when i paly heat it just sits at 22 deg without the fan. the 3 fans you have arnt really ideal as all the air your blowing will be the hot air going everywhere in your machine. whilst mines is directed straight at the grx card. hope this helps m8 [attachmentid=22341] [attachmentid=22340] [attachmentid=22339] cheers tosh
Kruiz 136 Posted January 25, 2008 Author Report Posted January 25, 2008 (edited) I'll ask the big scouser next door if I can have a go at his machine As look would have it out Stationary box in town shut down a month ago, but I'll have a look for one like that as I think that would help. Its probably my last hope, as I can't format it since the disk I have for Windows is a Dell one and it sets up differently to a Windows one meaning I can't boot the computer from it, and ultimately can't format from it. I can't format it as a secondary hard drive as theres no room to fit another one without taking the disk drives out first, plus I can't find any wires so that i could wire 2 hard drives up. With less than 45 quid as my budget there aern't all that many options I don't think lol. Thanks for all the ideas and advice so far guys, very much appreciated. Edited January 25, 2008 by Kruiz 136
welly Posted January 25, 2008 Report Posted January 25, 2008 Be careful if he is a very big scouser and you blow his mobo just after they have lost to Havant Just looking at your case again and it looks like your gonna struggle getting enough ventilation space to let the hot air out. I'm thinking its got to be a fault with the card, as the laptop i'm just considering buying has 2 (yes two) NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX 512MB cards in it with little or no room for cooling.
Kruiz 136 Posted January 25, 2008 Author Report Posted January 25, 2008 Aye he is a big scouser.. even if he does own a 60's style Mini He looks hilarious driving it lol Its got to be either the card or system, its not been formatted for 4 years but Dell appears to have stopped me from doing that aswell with their own version of the Microsoft installer disk.
welly Posted January 25, 2008 Report Posted January 25, 2008 I have a Dell laptop with their own Windows installer cd. You CAN format using it! Set your PC to boot form the CD drive, this then gives you the all the normal Windows CD options.
Kruiz 136 Posted January 25, 2008 Author Report Posted January 25, 2008 I have a Dell laptop with their own Windows installer cd. You CAN format using it! Set your PC to boot form the CD drive, this then gives you the all the normal Windows CD options. I did that, it just boots as normal It reads a floppy disk though.
welly Posted January 25, 2008 Report Posted January 25, 2008 thats odd, can you go into your Bios settings and set it to boot from CD? If you can then remember to set it back to boot from your C drive again once you have done.
Tosh924 Posted January 25, 2008 Report Posted January 25, 2008 (edited) a guy me and hutch know has the same system as you kruiz and runs a 6800gt. his system runs like an oven as well and is the very same as yours so hutch says anyway. id put it down to your system not your card. the drivers i use are 96.89a. that was the on the disc with it, they also suggest forceware version 92.91 or higher. http:/www.nvidia.com/page/purevideo_hd.html you can always try that first. get a loan from your parents to buy a new one. and pay them back a pound a week lol. Edited January 25, 2008 by tosh874
demonstone Posted January 25, 2008 Report Posted January 25, 2008 this might sound a bit funny are you using a gaming profile set, in your gfx card settins ie application contorled max anti-aliasing ect. as some setups can add 10 to 20 degree temp increase wen ran under application, you may need to ajust these settins to cool card a bit, as dells aint that gud for coolin, see if you got fractor set on level 6 anti aliasin in config, and your card set to max quality your puttin serious load on it may jus be a case of fine tuning, pm me your addy if ya want, as i have an 8800gt in a dell case that runs at 62 degree fully loaded,
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