Radeon 9800SE overheating

[Pope Mobile]

I believe my videocard has been overheating. Three times now, while in a game, their has been a lockup which has frozen not just the program, but the entire computer. Sometimes, prior to this freezing occurring, i experience general slowdown in performance. As you can imagine this doesn't make me very happy... my version of the card is the PowerColor. I'm not familiar with the symptoms of overheating, so if anyone can inform me as to what they think may be going on i'd appreciate it.

[fedz]

OK. Main symptoms of GPU overheating are artifacts. If you see weird dots developing on your screen, you've got some!!

Check your case. Are all the fans running? If cpu/graphics/mobo fan is not SWITCH OFF YOUR PC IMMEDIATELY. In the bios you should see the temps. Check those and report back to us with them. (If you can't get to the bios, use everest:
http://www.lavalys.com/products/download.php?pid=1&lang=en&pageid=3 )

Lastly, the next time the PC locks up, disconnect the power and touch the video card and CPU heatsink (nothing else mind you). They should be just warm-hot, not burning hot.

:) fedz

[flanzig1]

Could be that you have too many other apps running at the same time or not enough ram.

[Pope Mobile]

Thanks for the responses.

Let's see...i haven't been seeing artifacts, and that's an indicative fact I wasn't aware of. I always monitor my temps, and yep, all fans were running. In a game, I get temps between about 50 and 55 (Pentium 4 3.2 GHz Northwood). Never had problems previous to this new videocard.

In regards to the apps/RAM issue: Very unlikely. I have 1024 MB of PC3200 DDR ram, not to mention that processor, and the videocard with the softmod, which basically makes it a wimpy 9800XT.

[fedz]

Oooooo a softmodder eh?
Downclock that beast right now and try again. That should solve your problem sharpish.

:) fedz

[Pope Mobile]

What do you mean by downclocking? Should I reduce the memory/core operating speed or relock the four opened pipelines that the softmod gave access to?

Also, when I touched the card... I couldn't hold my finger at some points for more than a few seconds. This beast is very hot.

[fedz]

Just downclock by about a third, then run your 'lockup program' and if that doesn't work, by a half. If all that still doesn't work, disable the pipelines. I really think that you have a heat issue.

:) fedz

[Antistupid]

I believe my videocard has been overheating. Three times now, while in a game, their has been a lockup which has frozen not just the program, but the entire computer. Sometimes, prior to this freezing occurring, i experience general slowdown in performance. As you can imagine this doesn't make me very happy... my version of the card is the PowerColor. I'm not familiar with the symptoms of overheating, so if anyone can inform me as to what they think may be going on i'd appreciate it.
If it is overheating, put some space between the graphics card and the PCI card next to it, that will give better airflow.