please help ATI PROBLEMS FOR 1 YEAR !

Comments

• Leonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  It sounds to me like your laptop is overheating. It probably has a BIOS setting that throttles the CPU (processor) when hot. That would explain the on again off again smooth gaming - heating/cooling cycle of the CPU. It could be your laptop internals have collected enough dust and lint to clog the cooling heatsinks. It could also be your video card/onboard video chip is also overheating. Try cleaning the CPU heatsink. Your manual should have a diagram of where the heatsink is. Using canned air, blow into the intake vents, and blow into the exhaust vent(s) several times.
  
  It could be other things, but overheating would be my first guess.

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• ronbo Connecticut

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  I have to agree 100% with Leonardo. This sounds like a classic case of overheating.

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• southerncross

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  Hi
  what can i do to correct this or reduce overheating ? I have a cooling pad that is usb and has 3 fans, i can put laptop on it, But i can also get a software called "chill CPU" or something like that ? Do i have to open the laptop to blow air into it ? please tell me, why only games are slow all other applications such as word and windows are fast and smooth etc.
  
  Thanks

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• Necropolis Hawarden, Wales Icrontian

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  The reason that its your games that slow down and not applications like Word and Windows is that the Games use your Video card alot more and this is what is heating up. This is causing your machine to heat up and as a result it slows down.

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• godzilla525 Western Pennsylvania Member

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  Software really won't help with overheating problems, but it is possible depending on how the hardware is physically set up, that the thermal interface material in between the CPU and heatpipe/heatsink may have expired or things have been jostled out of position. Word/Windows really doesn't use enough CPU or graphics power to cause significant heating.
  
  Due to increasingly short product lifecycles, laptops are hurriedly and cheaply designed and thermal issues are typically not dealt with properly (or at all) at the design stage. (My Dell i8200 has thermal problems that killed a Travelstar HDD after a year and wounded the second within 8 months—and I only have a P4-M 1.6.) So, the design may be marginal to begin with, and all it takes is a little dust creating airflow resistance or a bad thermal connection between CPU and Heatpipe to push it over the throttle threshold. I believe for Mobile P4s that this occurs around 90~100ºC.
  
  I don't know how hot the R7500 gets, but there probably should be some kind of heatsink or heatpipe on that as well.
  
  In any case, the fans should be screaming if it detects that kind of heat. If you hear any kind of buzzing while the fans are running then the bearings have expired and they're probably only turning a fraction of the RPMs that they're supposed to.
  
  You may also want to check for BIOS updates, as sometimes they may contain updates to the thermal control systems.

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  If I were you I would take the bad boy down for a routine cleaning. Most people never do this. Im sure you can find a local place that would clean out and re paste your CPU.. as to your GPU the fan on the card "if it has one" might have failed also....." My main laptop gets a good claning every 6 months. the heat index stays the same and there is no build up. I have had it for about 2 years now and it runs the same it did when I got it and I have never seen a decrease in performance. Now my buddy who never clens his and just plays with it and does his everyday things has had more issues with his than I ahve ever seen "heat problems incuded"

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• edcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  One of the updates may have made this worse. You need to find out how the fans are regulated as a function of temp. You may need to have them run faster before the unit gets too hot. Many new power management settings use slow CPU in place of higher fan speeds.
  
  Oh, clean it first, then look at cooling/power settings.

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• GrayFox /dev/urandom Member

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  southerncross wrote:

  Hi,
  
  This is a problem , Iv been having for the past 1 and half years now. If someone can sort this out, it would be huge.
  
  I have a laptop, a compaq presario 1555 AP, it is 30 gb harddisk, pentium 4 with 2.4 ghz processor, 512 mb ram, 64 mb allocated to display , the graphics card is ATI radeon mobility 7500 series.
  
  To sum it up, a very good system. I brought it in 2003, I brought 3 games along with it, one was global operations, the other one was empire earth and third one was dungeon siege.
  
  When i brought this laptop in 2003, All these games worked smoothly and had no problems, after 8 months I reinstalled the OS with windows xp retail CD that came with the LAPTOP, i had also 4 factory image CD. The games worked fine then also.
  
  In 2004 end , something began to happen, the when i played the games, 5 minutes after the game started, the graphics would begin to be sluggish and then after 5 to 7 minutes of sluggishness the game would beccome smooth again, Again after 5 minutes of smoothness it would become sluggish. It was the same for all games. Other than that the laptop was fine and worked well with all other applications
  
  2005, I reinstalled everything, installed the latest driver, defrag my disks regularly, clean out registry using sys mechanic etc, the laptop was in top condition and fast and smooth. The games worked fine for the first 1 month, then again the SAME THING !
  
  I have done everything I can, put the latest drivers etc, turned off acceleration tried with that, did everything possible. ITs still the SAME.
  
  I dont know whats going on its something to do with refresh rate ? video card something i dont know. 5minutes into game smooth then after that becomes sluggish then smooth then sluggish. the very same games that worked fine in the begining.
  
  please help, it seems only thing remaining is to reinstall using the factory cds, back to the begining, but i dont want to do that.

  Your cpus overheating this has nothing to do with your graphics card.

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• Leonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  Do i have to open the laptop to blow air into it ?

  Please reread my advice to you in my post above. First step is to blow pressurized air through the exhaust and intake vents in the laptop. Then, if the computer still shows the same symptoms, you may indeed need to open up the laptop for dust/lint removal. If you don't feel comfortable doing that, then have a comptuter shop clean the computer for you. If you can't figure out where the air intake and exhaust vents are, consult your laptop's manual. If you don't have manual, you can find it at the manufacturer's website.

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• southerncross

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  thanks guys your really great, i will take it to a servicing center or shop and have it cleaned.

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• Sledgehammer70 California Icrontian

  November 2005 edited November 2005

  just remember cleaning it might not help the situation but it might uncover the issue, bad fan or something. It is always good to keep those Lappys in great running condition.

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