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Computer Overheating
tsplitter
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Lately I have been having a problem with my PC whenever I dont use the integrated card. When I bought
this computer (a Dell Inspiron 530) way back last December I also bought an ATI Radeon X1650 graphics card.
Though the power requirements for the card said i needed 350w power supply and I only had 305w, I did not really have any problems using
it until around May, when things started to get hot. Now if I try to use it my computer will turn itself off in about
five minutes. The integrated card works fine, but it simply isnt good enough to run most of the games I
play. Before I go out of my way to buying stuff I wanted to know what my options were to fix this
problem (getting a stronger power supply, or anything else that costs money.) I'll try my best to come up
with any other information about the system if needed. A permanent solution would
be greatly appreciated!
this computer (a Dell Inspiron 530) way back last December I also bought an ATI Radeon X1650 graphics card.
Though the power requirements for the card said i needed 350w power supply and I only had 305w, I did not really have any problems using
it until around May, when things started to get hot. Now if I try to use it my computer will turn itself off in about
five minutes. The integrated card works fine, but it simply isnt good enough to run most of the games I
play. Before I go out of my way to buying stuff I wanted to know what my options were to fix this
problem (getting a stronger power supply, or anything else that costs money.) I'll try my best to come up
with any other information about the system if needed. A permanent solution would
be greatly appreciated!
tsplitter on
0
Posts
What are the computer specs and is it the GPU thats overheating or the CPU?
Are the fans on the GPU and CPU heatsinks moving?
If the motherboard has onboard video try just taking the videocard out and seeing if it still reboots after a couple seconds.
After determining which part is the culprit we can move on to aftermarket cooling and the like although I'm going to make a prediction and say that at least one of your components is toast.
A computer doesn't just randomly start overheating unless somethings broken.
That said, kbf's advice is sound. As a band-aid solution, you can open your computer case and keep it open and see if that helps (and when you do it, check if there's excessive dust in the grille surrounding the display adapter fan).
if you won't void a warrently or something just turn it on with the case open and see if everything looks normal-fans spinning and what not. If your convinced it is overheating you could try cooling it. I just used a large upright fan, opened my case and aimed it right in there. Cooling with the fan didn't seem to fix my problem at all, so I figured it wasn't heat related.
I ended up switching out a stick of ram and it fixed my problem (computer lock up completely after a few minutes of gaming). If you have more then one stick of ram and you can game with less then all your ram, you could try switching them out to see if one is faulty. Ditto for hard drive/power supply or any part you have an extra of really.
Does it affect only one game or does it affects all games and your fairly sure it is hard ware related? What exactly happens when it crashes?
the specs are:
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E4600 (2MB L2 Cache,2.2GHz,800 FSB
windows XP professional
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cacheâ„¢
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100 ( I'm using an ATI Radeon X1650)
305w power supply
I never thought to chekc the GPU for movement, but i know the CPU ones do
Im pretty sure the problem is the video card though, since the only time i have a problem with overheating
is if im plugged into it
im not near the computer in question but i will be soon so if anything else needs to addressed ill be able to
help make a better picture of things
download it, install it and run it. Run it with both the integrated card and the new card you have. See what the temperatures say.
Then report back here.
Well at first it only acted up when I played Age of Conan, otherwise the other games worked fine (team
fortress 2, the counter-strike games) but now i dont even have to start a game to make it overheat, and, as I have said before, only happens when i start using the bought video card
one thing i brought up to my cousin who fixes stuff like this is that theres dust around the card's fan, but he said it probably wouldnt give me this bad a problem. Does anyone else agree?
This.
On a side note if the GPU got extremely hot once it could have toasted the thermal paste, which is why, after one bad overheat, you might get continual overheating (FYI I've only seen this happen once).
ok ill give it a good cleaning, but im gonne be out for awhile so i wont be able to report in until much later
thanks for all the posts so far!
My woes were in the computer itself though, not an outside video card like yours seems to be.
I knew it had to be a fan because a) it was super warm to touch and I couldn't hear the gentle whirring anymore, and b) it ran much better when I set it up atop a box fan.
Since it was a hardware issue my warranty covered it, and they fixed it without it costing me a dime. Not even postage, they sent me a nice cushiony box to send it in even. I mailed that sucker out and got it back within three days, runs like a dream now. I have an Acer and not a Dell though, so YMMV.
I totally took it apart to see if I could look at the problem too, but the fans in mine are buried way in the back, under a dozen things that were beyond my expertise to move. Also like a million tiny screws. I managed to put most of them back properly... man I love unscrewing things.
but i dont think anything looks really bad, and I havent seen any of the numbers go higher than the ones shown
Also, why are the VCores different? I thought the Intel voltage stepping applied to the whole CPU not individual cores...
i was updating age of conan and looking at the forums, thats about it
Hmm... what you've described sounds more like a PSU issue. Reseat all your wires just to be sure.
Also what motherboard do you have? You can probably look up in the fault codes what two consecutive beeps means.