Overheating

J

JunK

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Mar 17, 2009
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Ok i have an interesting problem, which i think is due to overheating.
I'll start with my specs, AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4600+ 2.41 GHz, 2 GB ram, BFG GeForce 8600 GT OC with ThermoIntelligence.
I have all settings for CSS set to low, using Casey's Config (modified so everything is actually set to low), including not showing dead bodies. I can usually play with 85-99 FPS (have it capped at 100) unless the server is full, 20v20, i get around 65-80 FPS. However once i play for a couple hours or so i start getting really bad graphical lag...my frames jump from 30-80 FPS pretty rapidly, so everything is quite glitchy.
The reason why i figured it was an overheating issue, is because my vid card gets very hot to the touch. The heat sink casing isn't too bad, but the back of the card is pretty scorchin. Recently i've added a PCI slot fan located beneath my vid card with 1 PCI slot in between (seemed to do more harm directly against my vid card), as well as drilling lots of holes in my side panel and installing a 120mm fan to draw some cool air in....doesn't seem to have worked as well as i had planned.

I do not have any software that will allow me to show any temps, or up fan speeds...in fact im not sure of any good ones, or any in general TBH. Is there any tips anybody could give me, or possibly programs in order to up fan speed...i dunno what to do now
 
oh forgot to mention, since you already posted i'll just post after you instead of an edit, make sure it isn't missed:
i do usually clean my computer pretty often since i have a cat, i don't like my comp getting all dusted up....also i can usually restart my computer and then i'll be able to play for another 2 hrs or so until the problem persists.
and i've been told i can up the card fan speed through that control panel, but i actually cannot...there is no option, i've looked zillions of times
 
Hey buddy, I had this exact same symptom, just rewind about 6 years ago.
The fan on my ATI 9700 Pro seized up and that caused the problem.
I replaced the onboard fan with a generic $4 fan (which I got for $20 at compUSA) and the problem went away.

Are you sure the card's fan is spinning? I had to get in there and touch it while running to know for sure. If it's not, and you pull the card, it should spin if you just blow on it. Any resistance on the bearing (think of it as the shaft that the center of the fan spins on), and the teeny tiny amount of power that tries to spin it won't be able to.

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
KillZone said:
DL this and you will see everything you want

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvidia_system_tools_6.03.html
Click to expand...

so i got this, and i dunno...i went to Performance; Device settings and clicked on my GPU, it shows Cooling GeForce GPU 0%.....does this represent the fan speed? cause it is running...so obviously not at 0%, and if i change it to 100% or something, is it gonna freakin blow up?

Are you sure the card's fan is spinning? I had to get in there and touch it while running to know for sure. If it's not, and you pull the card, it should spin if you just blow on it. Any resistance on the bearing (think of it as the shaft that the center of the fan spins on), and the teeny tiny amount of power that tries to spin it won't be able to.

Good luck and keep us posted!
Click to expand...

Yup its definitely spinning. Its not an old video card...its only about 9 months old...when i check the bearings, they are pretty smooth...no troubles there

Oh and a little more info, it shows my temps in celsius as:
CPU 1: 25
CPU 2: 29
GPU: 53
MoBo: 38
Disk: 40


EDIT: I just tried to change the GPU cooling setting, and it says the changes are invalid and will not be applied....
 
Last edited:
try to remove your video card from your computer and remove the cover that houses the fan and other components of your video card. Sometimes the metal fins that the fan blows air across get blocked with dirt that compressed air alone will not remove. A 1" paintbrush will remove any blockage that you can follow up with compressed air. This will allow the air to flow across the video card properly again.
 
i'll try to do that, but just to report my bad graphical lag started, and the temps were 59 celsius for the GPU, both CPUs hit 42..Mobo 43 and disk staying at 40.....i dunno those don't sound bad, i literally have no idea why all of a sudden my performance go kaput.
there was only 27 active players also...which isn't bad at all...i should have had 80+ fps but was running 35-45
 
also the fins can get clogged on the cpu cooler as well, when you have your case open to clean the video card out take a look at the block that sits on top of your cpu to see if there is any dust build up there as well.

Another way to deal with heat issues is to leave the side off your case and point a house fan at the cpu video card area. If this solves the problem then it is definitely heat issue. you only then need find out what is causing it.
 
everything is clean...now im almost convinced its just my processor bottlenecking everything else
 
i posted 2 sets, but the max i've seen my CPUs reach during load is 45 and GPU 62
 
it wont be a bottleneck with your CPU.

I know we are looking at something physical currently, but why dont we look at something not physical.

While in game, type "net_graph 3" into console (without the quotes) and when your frame rates drop, look at the loss/choke. If those are up, it may cause your frame rates to drop (they do with me anyways)

See how that goes.
 
ya i have that up constantly, i never have loss and sometimes get 1-5 choke depending...it will seriously just be completely random...and even without 20v20 it'll drop, now that i've noticed.
a restart will always solve the issue (restarting the program doesn't do anything) and uhhh...i don't have any background progs running tho i do run it in window mode cause my vid card does not like widescreen
 
few things i would consider doing 1) run a benchmark on ur processor and gpu noting the numbers if its ur processor is bottlenecking u, u can tell right off the bat however if its still a heat issue i recommend just replacing ur current gpu fan with some aftermarket one. Depending on how old the card is fans sometimes tend to burn itself out before the lifetime of the card is up..my friend had that issue when a ball bearing on his gpu unit fan slipped and nearly caused him a death of a X1900 card finally..another thing to consider is the motheboard itself sometimes mobos die slowly, parts of it at least, and causes problems to performance that way..check it out i suggest swapping parts into a 2ndary computer if u have one and test each part out..hope this helps
 
your system may just be writing stuff to disk, do you have a ton of RAM (like 2gb or more?) any program (including windows itself) that writes to disk could drop your framerate quite a bit, it'd be kind of a temporary very sporadic drop though..
 
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