Games are crashing and my Radeon is boiling hot.

[lasthidingplace]

Hi, I have joined this forum to ask this specific question.

Recently games are crashing on my PC after about 10 mins of gameplay [namely Need For Speed Most Wanted]. I really have no idea what is causing this, and I have tried everything to solve it [updating drivers, running numorus comuter clean up programs, removing a stick of RAM to test for bad RAM, simply cleaning out the dust...] but nothing seems to be working.

However, today I noticed [when removing the RAM] that my Radeon 9800 is so hot when the computer crashes that I can barely touch the outside of it. I don't know why this is happening, or if this is even normal, but is this why my computer is now crashing?

Also, on a non-relative note, since removing the RAM, whatever window I have open at the time the mouse keeps losing the focus, and games keep minimising - this is also annoying and does anyone know what the hell is wrong with my PC?

Thank you for reading, and I look forward to getting this bugger fixed.

Steve

[ronbo]

You might have answered your own question. What builds up in 10 minutes? Heat. And you said your graphics card was to hot to touch. Make sure your fan on your graphics card is turning. Try taking the side off your case and get a small table fan blowing into your computer. Your games are using the video card to run, and if it is getting that hot it could be breaking down...
You did say bugger. Are you from Australia m8? I know it gets hot there..

[lasthidingplace]

Ha ha, no I'm from Britain.

I've tired having the side off and pointing a fan into it, it didn't seem to make any difference. The rest of the computer doesn't seem overly hot, and the temperature, from what I remember, seems to be about 40 / 50 degrees, so it's all very confusing.

Also, I get no problems out of games [IE Windows] and my screen does't flicker or degrade any, and the card is barely a year old so I would be very very annoyed if it was breaking down - but I've read other peoples topics that have had this happening and they report the picture going very strange and things like that, mine literally just...crashses.

[madmat]

You might have a bad fan on your card (not unheard of) or the sink might just be gunked up with dust and cruft.

Power down your PC, pull the card and physically inspect both the fan and the sink.

It really does sound to be a heat related problem.

[ronbo]

madmat has a good point. First make sure the fan is running on your video card. If it is, then power down the computer and pull the card out. Take out the 4 little screws that hold the fan to the heatsink and see if the heatsink is full of dust. If so, carefully clean it. If still no good, can you return the card since it is not quite a year old?

All roads are pointing to your graphics card from what you have told us..

[lasthidingplace]

Thanks for your help guys - you'll laugh at this however:

I already had pulled the card out and did just as you had suggested, and yes it was full of dust and I thought "that'll be it" but it still made no difference. Anyway, in a non-related subject I downloaded a new virus scanner since my one was out of date - it found 70 trojan horses and 2 worms on my computer that I had NO idea were even there. Believe it or not, this solved the problem :| I would never have thought that this could even be a problem.

[ronbo]

Glad to hear your story had a happy ending.....Have a Happy New Year...:tongue2: