GPU overheating

[VirusType2]

I thought I needed a new video card, but recently I reinstalled Windows 7 x64 and for some reason my games work perfectly now. I guess that I had somehow screwed up my driver.

But Oblivion is making my card overheat. It's locking up and resetting the display adapter at 70C.

I have not modified any of the clocks. I have already tried cleaning the fan and heatsink with compressed air. It looks like new,.

I haven't tried all my other games yet. (I just got a new HDD for games) I have tried some other 3D games and it doesn't get higher than 59C. (It idles at 52C)

I tried turning up all 4 of my fans to 1900RPM, which is extremely annoyingly loud, but it made almost no difference, except it allowed me to play for more than 30 seconds before crashing - instead it was about 10 minutes.

Well, I wanted to try increasing the fan speed of the GPU, but I'm using Windows 7, and I can't find a fan controller application that works:

ATi Tool doesn't work
ASUS Smart Doctor doesn't work
ATI Tray Tools doesn't work
CCC doesn't have fan speed option for my card


Any one know of other software? SpeedFan doesn't seem to have the ability to modify GPU fan speeds.

This is some ****ing bullshit. Please help.

(EDIT The card is an X1900XT, by the way)

 

[unozero]

what I do once in a while I take out my card and spray compressed air around the fans and heat sinks and when I put the card back my temps go down by 5c at least.
Also if you don't think that will help you might wanna check out the Guru3d forum they have a dedicated ATi board maybe they can help.

 

[VirusType2]

Thanks. I usually get my tools from Guru3D, but the ones they have won't install because they aren't signed drivers. I tried hacking that shit a couple times but never really succeeded in doing anything but getting warning messages left and right, and every time I boot my computer.

I was just thrilled to see that Oblivion is running at 60 FPS in 1080p. When I first got this HD monitor, it was running at like 10 FPS. I thought the video card just wasn't up to the task. But now I think it was from trying to get those ATI tools working on Win7, I must have screwed something up. The other thing is that I got an extremely good new PSU, so it could be that also.

I might mod the GPU fan and hook it straight up to 12V and see what happens. I will have to research that first. I also have a variable resistor and some other options available.

The fan doesn't seem to be increasing speed when it gets hot though, and that's the problem. Not sure because my CPU fan makes the same kinda whiny noise when it kicks up. I'll have to investigate the source.


EDIT:

OK guys. I found a way: Rivatuner. Finally a program that is digitally signed (just make sure you elect to install updates when you install Rivatuner or it won't be signed)

While it doesn't fully support my card, it still lets me work the fan.

I used this to manually set the fan and test it out. I noticed that my card was set to run 25% duty all the way to 70C. I guess it's supposed to be able to get much hotter, because there are increasing speeds at much higher temperatures. So maybe it's not resetting the driver because it was too hot at 70C, but for some other reason. I will try reinstalling the game.

Regardless, turning up the fan a little kept it 9C cooler under play. (and made it really annoying sound) I guess I could tweak it further and settle for a little less fan speed, just enough to keep it cool under any situation.


Well, since this program is totally complicated and others might be interested, I'll link here to a manual and auto fan speed setting help guides:

Manual: (easy) http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/290665-guide-how-set-fanspeed-rivatuner.html

Auto: (more complicated) http://www.guru3d.com/article/rivatuner-20-fan-speed--overclock-guide/1


Get Rivatuner: http://www.guru3d.com/category/rivatuner/


Oh, I used the freeware version of HardwareMonitor 1.16 to monitor temps. http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html A very simple app that displays real time temps of CPU/GPU/HDDs. (I'm sure there's a way to monitor them through Rivatuner, but I didn't delve deep)