9800XT Overheating and Completely killing Video while playing games.

shipmb

I bought an ATI Radeon 9800XT about 3 months ago. I wasn't playing very many intense games at the time but I thought I might be in the coming months. I recently got back into playing Diablo 2 and Starwars Galaxies. While I have my Nvidia GeForce 2 64mb Card the games would run great, I did have to turn down all of the textures and stuff to low but that is fine by me. Well now with the 9800XT installed whenever I am playing games it will lock up and actually cut off all video. As many of you might know, Diablo 2 is very baisc when it comes to Graphics and should not hurt this card at all. SWG Is pretty graphical but it should still be no problem for the 9800XT. I thought maybe the card just wasn't seated right so I took it out and it was extremely hot, I am talking like Hot Coffee that burns the skin off the top of your mouth hot. I have contacted ATI but they still have not gotten back to be with in 5 days. Does anyone have anything to suggest for coolers? Right now I have the side of my case off and I have huge fan blowing on it. Should I send it to ATI and have them take a look at it or should I just spend $100 and water cool the stupid thing?

My Current Specs are

Pentium 4 2.4Ghz
1GB of PC2700 DDR
1 Maxtor 80GB Hard-Drive
1 Western Digital 250GB Hard-Drive
1 DVD Rom
3 80mm Fans and if I put the side back on it there is a side panel fan.
SoundBlaster Live Platinum 5.1 (3 or 4 years old)

On all the games I play I have everything set to the lowest but I just know it has to do something with heating. If anyone has some suggestions please let me know.

Thanks in Advance!

primesuspect

It shouldn't be overheating like that. What kind of cooling is on the card? is it a BBA card (Built By ATI)? or is it some other manufacturer like Powercolor or Sapphire?

JChretien

hmm
i seem to remember something about the catalyst drivers making things overheat... but somebody else will have to confirm.. maybe try the omega drivers? or be hardcore and strap on a CPU heatsink =D

TheBaron

arctic silencer

shipmb

It is built by ATI, it has the original fan on it. I was thinking about getting a Big Heatsink hehe

primesuspect

The stock HSF is fine for a non-overclocked card. If you are getting artifacts at stock, you might have a defective card. Can you try the card in a different computer?

shipmb

I will try the card in another computer tonight when I get home. Thanks!

shipmb

I havn't tried my video card in another box, but I did run a tool called SiSoftware and it told me my hard-drives were way over due for a defrag and that I needed to change some settings in my bios. It also told me to update my bios which I need to figure out how to do since I don't have 3½ Floppy Drive.

After Defragging both of my hard-drives about 5 times each, and changing some things in Bios. I also brought my computer out from under my desk and it seems to be working great! Now I just need to turn up the video settings in my games to make sure its all nice and dandy!

Thanks for your help!

Medlock

What version Catalysts are you using? The 3.8s I think were frying some video cards. You should get the latest version from ATi's website.

TheBaron

shipmb wrote:

I also brought my computer out from under my desk and it seems to be working great!

that was your problem. those "computer cabinets" get filled with very warm air and cause temps to shoot through the roof. on a high end gfx card like that, you need room for the case to pull in some cooler air

glad it works!

shipmb

Well I just got home from leaving the comp on since 10:30am (now 9:04pm) and it had a vpu error. My idiot mother turned my Ceiling Fan off so it probaly got extremely warm up here. I went to best buy where I bought the card and they said that for them to send it back to ATI I have to have my original receit. Does anyone know if I can just say "screw you bestbuy" and send to ATI myself without the receit or will it have to come from bestbuy?

shipmb

Also, how can I tell which Catalysts I am using?

lemonlime

You can actually get an RMA number directly from ATI's website, there is no need to call them at all. Since all the BBATI 9800XT's are still under warrantee, you won't even need to send an invoice. I sent out a 9700Pro AIW not long ago, and I didn't have any problems. Took only about a week and a half (I live 45 minutes from ATI though, so it may take longer if you are in the US). Just make sure you leave a very detailed description of your problem, with all of your system specs, driver versions and temperatures etc on their webform. I don't see how your card should be overheating like that, something not right there.

Good luck to you.

WestCoast

That's really odd. I have the same exact card and i never had a problem with the card even though my pc is also in a " computer cabinet thingy". I play games for at least 3 hours a day and the card never gets hot. Hell i can't remember the last time i turned off my pc. Anyways.. i guess my point is.. you probably got a bad card. Sorry to hear about that.

Maybe it would help if you get the driver i have.


Catalyst 04.8. Hope that works.

jamesrhodes

It might be that your fan on your video card is malfunctioning. I have had screwy problems with my card all week, and have just noticed its noticeable low rpm spinning - even intermittently stopping for about 1 sec then starting up... made a big difference when cleaned it out to spin better - but it still spinning very slow --believe its the culprit in my video game woes...

james