MJW

I've just upgraded my graphics card from a 9600 Pro to an X800XT Platinum Edition, and while the performance upgrade looks great (finally can play BattleField 2 with all the jam on) the chip seems to run really hot and has been causing some system crashes. I'm using Catalyst 5.6 drivers (5.7 won't work with BF2) The chip is running at 520mhz and generating about 55° C when idle jumping to god knows what when its getting a pounding. It's a Powercolor card and the stock heatsink and fan appear to be adequate but I wondered if it was worth using a 3rd party cooler. Anyone had any experience of this card ?

Daz34

That seems very hot. Should be in the 35-45 range at idle. What is the case cooling like? Have you got any fans in there? If you have, perhaps they need a clean. With a decent airflow through the case, the stock cooler should work just fine.

Iain Young

Seems hot to me as well. I'm running mine in a not very well ventillated case (every expansion slot filled and too many cables / spaghetti for decent airflow) and it never gets that hot. The stock cooler on the card works just fine for me.

T4molie

Slightly off-topic - MJW have you noticed much difference in performance between the 9600 and the X800? I have a 9600 at the moment and have been thinking about upgrading to a X800

Andy

DrEvil

Artic Cooling do a good aftermarket cooler for the X800 series (and Nvidia 6800 series).
The problem is it will invalidate your warranty and if fitted incorrectly possibly nuke the card - I've fitted one to a 9800pro without issue. The best thing about these coolers is they remove the hot air from the case via the PCI slot below (or above dependant on case) the AGP/PCI-E slot.

To be honest, as others have said, it shouldn't be a problem unless:

a) the case cooling is bad (may be worth upgrading your case instead, avoids voiding the warranty on the card)..

or

b) the X800 card is faulty (badly fitted stock cooler).

What case do you have?

Iain Young

I noticed a large improvement on my system (a P4 2.5Ghz with 1gb ram and 4x agp).

MJW

Yes you can run at much higher resolutions than the 9600 and everything seems a lot smoother, well worth the upgrade. I bought the 9600 a while back as it was the cheapest Direct X 9 card I could get hold of to play Half Life 2. Then the release for it got delayed for a year by which time the card was more or less out of date ! The X800 XT flies though, even on my lowly Northwood 2.4 / 1Gb PC2700.

My case is only a generic midi tower, but I've made sure the PCI slot next to the AGP slot is unoccupied to get better airflow. There is a 4" case fan at the back, and last night I fitted another 4" fan in the front (my PC now sounds like a Dyson). I might try removing the coverplate for the next-door PCI slot see if that helps.

Most of the problems stem from playing Battlefield 2, which in its current state is chock full of bugs anyway, so it may just be that. But when the VPU recovery window came up and I checked the temps I thought it might be a problem with the card. I've checked the card itself and the heatsink/fan assembly seem to be fitted ok, and I've made sure there's no cables blocking any airflow around the case.

I actually thought about under-clocking the card (lunacy, I know considering I thrashed my 9600 Pro half to death with overclocking) but can't find a utility that lets me knock the core / memory speeds to below the defaults, the ones I've found can only alter the speeds upwards.

Thanks for the replies anyway, and other suggestions welcome ..

[edit] I found a PCI slot cooler so I've fitted that in the second PCI slot away from the AGP slot, and that seems to have knocked the idle temp down from 55° to 41° I'll see if that makes it more stable ..

nakedjem

This sounds interesting. Being a lazy bugger when the fan went on my six month old 9800 PRO I stuck a 12 cm fan on the floor of the case blowing straight onto it (no other cards in way) and propped the fan up on small blocks of wood about 1 inch high to imporve flow.

A better idea obviously would to get a better fan for the card from Artic as you say. Do you have a link by any chance and are thry easy to fit.

Many thanks

Jerry

Daz34

Link to Artic Coolers here.
I have one on my X800XT. They are straightforward to fit & the existing coolers on the ATI cards come off easy enough. If you can fit a heatsink to a cpu you can do this.
I fitted one because the standard cooler was blowing hot air straight onto the mobo chipset where as the Artic Cooler blows the hot air out of the case itself. It is also very quiet.

HTH

nakedjem

Thanks alot mate, and seeing as you're online at the moment is there any chance you can help me with this

http://bbs.scoobynet.co.uk/showthread.php?t=444446

Jerry

nakedjem

MJW, sorry for hijacking your thread, mate,

Jerry

MJW

No probs

My card seems a lot more stable now, I've put a 425W Hiper PSU in to replace the 300W (which I don't think was powerful enough). I also put 2 Akasa case fans in to replace those bloody noisy YS Tech ones and tidied up the airflow a bit and it idles at about 35-40° now. So hopefully I won't have to risk removing the stock HSF from the card.