Computer Overheating Issues?

PunkBoy

My desktop yesterday suddenly shut itself off yesterday and refused to turn on. Thinking it was an overheating issue, I left it off overnight, and tried it again the next afternoon. It worked for a while, then shut off again. Should I just leave it off for a couple days? Or is there a bigger issue possibly at hand? My computer specs:

-AMD Phenom II X2 545
-Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P Motherboard
-Radeon 4870 HD 1GB Card
-Western Digital Caviar Black 750 GB Hard Drive
-OCZ Blade Series 4GB DDR 2 RAM
--Antec Sonata III Case

kleinfehn

What is your power supply? Might want to download coretemp or some other temperature software to monitor how hot your cpu or gpu is getting. How many case fans do you have, and what way are they intaking and exhausting? Having one in and one out should be keeping it cool enough. Have you done any overclocking in the past? I have heard that even if a system seems stable it can become unstable months later, but I haven't had this happen to me.

PunkBoy

Power supply is Earthwatts EA-500D that came with the case. There is the fan attached to the case and the ones attached to the graphics card and the processor. The case fan is set to medium so I guess I can switch it to high. Haven't overclocked at all. Too afraid to, haha.

kleinfehn

It seems weird that those parts would be overheating with no overclock and with at least a case fan. Can you get coretemperature or find some cpu temperature monitor and see how hot it gets when it is at idle? From what I've seen most power supplies that come with cases aren't the greatest quality, so if the temperatures seem normal my next guess would be to test the power supply.

PunkBoy

Downloaded Core Temp, and it seems to be staying around 69 degrees Celsius. That seems...high. I also noticed ATI Overdrive was activated, so I switched that off. This is a shot in the dark, but the latest change I made to my computer is downloading newest ATI Omega drivers. Could that have something to do with this?

tardcore

I have a 4870 and it constantly overheats to the point where it shuts off my computer. I'm super pissed about it. I wonder if we're having the same issues.

PunkBoy

What in the world, now it's at above 80. I did some research, and some people recommended manually changing the fan speed value for the Radeon, but I'm kind of leery changing things like that.

tardcore

I changed it and it didn't help too much. Mine idles at 72 which I still think is too high. Everyone I've talked to has said that this card runs way too hot. I even bought an additional fan and reapplied thermal paste to no avail. Mine is an XFX version. I actually just put in a support ticket because the GPU fan is acting really wonky and making a constant annoying squeaking noise. They said they are going to send me a new fan...

tardcore

Try this

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/t296594.html

PunkBoy

Hmph, went to the AMD website to download the latest CCC, and apparently the part of the site where you can get drivers is down. Great.

EDIT: Tried the fix linked...and nothing's happening? I don't hear the fan or anything, and the temperature isn't going down.

EDIT 2: Well, things seems to be a bit more under control now. Hopefully it'll stay that way....Wait, nope. Back to the upper 80s. Argh. Supposedly there's a way to adjust fan speed right in the CCC, but I must be blind because I haven't seen any kind of option for that.

PunkBoy

Sigh, this is very frustrating. At this point, I think I'm going to need another card or another cooling supply. Any suggestions on either front?

EDIT: Or I could try reformatting my computer...could that help?

tardcore

Formatting didn't help me.

But, I have heard great things about this product:
http://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Cooling-Accelero-TWIN-TURBO/dp/B0032FAM4Y/ref=wl_itt_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=IYFPIJ1WUSILO&colid=87IFC9KGG47A

I'm probably going to pick one up within the next couple of weeks.

PunkBoy

Hm, when opening the case while the computer is running, I've noticed that the fan on top of the AMD processor just kind of "bounces" and doesn't spin. Is this normal? Or could this be a sign of a bad fan?

vhannroy

i bought one of these fans off of newegg and it is AMAZING well worth checking out.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185054

they are a little bulky so if you are tight on space it is not for you, but if not it really moves some air.

Roland_tHTG

PunkBoy wrote: »

Hm, when opening the case while the computer is running, I've noticed that the fan on top of the AMD processor just kind of "bounces" and doesn't spin. Is this normal? Or could this be a sign of a bad fan?

Your CPU fan died, very not normal, time for a replacement. Those temps are quite high.

You could just get a standard replacement, but it's not a bad idea to upgrade to something better, even if it's something as inexpensive as this. I have a 550BE and use the 120mm version of that cooler, and it never goes above 30C.

darkgrue

PunkBoy wrote: »

Hmph, went to the AMD website to download the latest CCC, and apparently the part of the site where you can get drivers is down. Great.

EDIT: Tried the fix linked...and nothing's happening? I don't hear the fan or anything, and the temperature isn't going down.

EDIT 2: Well, things seems to be a bit more under control now. Hopefully it'll stay that way....Wait, nope. Back to the upper 80s. Argh. Supposedly there's a way to adjust fan speed right in the CCC, but I must be blind because I haven't seen any kind of option for that.

I don't have my PC in front of me at the moment, so I'm doing this from memory, so forgive the inexact terminology.

You have to go to the overclocking page and enable both overclocking and fan control (first by clicking the lock and accepting the horrible consequences, then by ticking the checkboxes next to overclock speed and fan control). You don't actually have to change the clock speeds, but for reasons which are totally unclear, just checking the fan control box won't enable fan control, the overclocking box MUST also be checked, or it won't use the fan speed values at all.

I have my fans cranked up all the way (or 80%, I forget which), I found that in the Summer, in the desert, the cards would overheat and blue screen out if left to their own devices. The automatic fan profile is way too meek for my situation, and I suspect it needs to be more aggressive in most general siutation. If your room temperature's 70F and your case is extremely well-ventilated, it's probably fine. Otherwise... turn the fans up manually. You'll lose the automatic fan speed throttling, but you'll gain a lot of reliability.

Roland_tHTG

From what he last said, this is a CPU fan failure, not GPU, and nothing in the CCC is going to help him as he's currently running his processor with only a (if OEM) craptacular heatsink to cool it.

darkgrue

Roland_tHTG wrote: »

From what he last said, this is a CPU fan failure, not GPU, and nothing in the CCC is going to help him as he's currently running his processor with only a (if OEM) craptacular heatsink to cool it.

Yeah, video card can't cool down the CPU.

But, the OP had wondered why tweking the fan speed in CCC didn't seem to change the fan noise (and turning the fan speed up on a Radeon should be pretty noticable), and I was addressing a possible reason why that might not work. I wasn't intending to adress the CPU fan failure, rather just that issue. I probably wasn't real good at making that intent clear.

I agree with you 100%, the CPU fan failing has to be addressed first.

Roland_tHTG

Oh, in that context your post makes perfect sense. My mistake too!