GeForce mx 400 overheating??

[heidthebaw]

I fitted a new GeForce MX 400 about a month ago and if I have the machine running for more than an hour or so the games I am playing either freezes up or automatically reboots of it's own accord.
Thinking that this may be an overheating problem I installed a case fan but the problem remains.
It happened under Win 98 and it's the same now I have installed XP.
I have an Athlon 1.4 Ghz processor with heavy duty fan, 384Mb RAM, a Chaintech
7CTKJD MoBo and all the fans are running OK. I have installed the latest Nvidia XP drivers.
The BIOS says the processor is running at 46 degrees Celsius.
Has anyone else had this problem or does anyone have any ideas for a workround?
Many thanks in anticipation
H.T.B.

[mike breck]

Hi heidthebaw,

Did you do a clean install of XP or just upgrade your existing version of Win98? If you just upgraded, then any existing driver problems may have been
carried forward into XP. I always prefer a clean installation of any new version of Windows.

What games are you playing?

The first suspects are the games. Most games have bugs. Some will cause crashes and some may even restart the PC on some systems

The next suspects are the NVidia Drivers.
If you haven't already done so, try a clean install of the NVidia drivers.
To do this you must completely uninstall the existing drivers and reinstall the new ones plus Direct X.
The procedure is here.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...threadid=18832

Your CPU temp isn't bad at 46c (I assume that's the idle temp i.e. just ticking over with no intensive programs running). However, depending on the game, your temp might be 50-55c when gaming. A lot of people here like to to the CPU temp under 55c at load. You might be very close to this temp at load.

What is your CPU and mobo temps according to the Bios after you restart after a crash or reboot? The next time it reboots itself, hit the "Del" key when it's restarting and go into the Bios and find out.

What HSF are you using and did you use Artic Silver paste?

[heidthebaw]

Mike, Thanks for the reply unfortunately it was all to no avail. The problem still remained. Still, browsed around a lot when I came across a site with a file known as NVmax. Downloaded it, had a tweak around with settings, problem solved!
I'll start a new thread with the URL and details for everyone to see.
Thanks again
H.T.B.

[mike breck]

Glad to hear it.

What specific NVmax settings cured your lockups and reboots?

[heidthebaw]

Mike apart from the recommended settings I o/c the core to 200 Mhz, o/c the memory to 170 Mhz. I also ticked the "I/O to flush cache" and "Win2K/XP + Athlon fix" check boxes.
I suspect it could have been the latter that fixed the problem.
It took a bit of experimentation but it seems to have worked out OK.
H.T.B.