9700 Pro Heating up ?

[t0m]

Recently my Graphics Card, (ATi Radeon 9700 Pro), has been overheating to such an extent that is causes my PC to crash. I think its the Gfx card because its only a problem in 3D games, so far noticed in Medal Of Honor, Spearhead, OFP and Freelancer. I installed Dx9 which had no effect and have updated my drivers for my motherboard etc.

I'm using the latest Catalyst drivers from the Ati site and all fans are functioning in my PC. It may be a cpu issue, however because it only happens in games I suspect the video card. I set BIOS to "Warning beep" when the cpu gets to 66 degrees and shutdown at 70. When it crashes there's no beep but I have been told that my processor will become unstable above 55 degrees.

I've overcome the problem by running my tower open with a desktop fan to keep everything nice and cool. I've cleaned all the fans and taken all the dust out, where I can, and made sure there is lots of space for airflow. I don't think its a power issue as I have a 300 watt power supply and only 1 HD and 2 CD drives.

If you have any suggestion it would be welcome and information, if required, on replacing my card.

Heres some info you might need.

Win XP Home
Radeon 9700 Prg
80 Gig HD
512 Mb SDRam
Leadtek Mobo
300 PSU

Regards,

Tom White
9700

[teststrips]

if your system is not crashing with the door open and a big fan blowing on it, i'd say it's definately a heat issue. If you wanted to, you could add some fans to your system, which may require the use of power tools and some artistic style. If you don't feel like making extra holes and adding more fans/noise to your pc then you can try option #2

Option #2 isn't really a common thing in today's world. You've heard of overclocking your processor/video card, but what about underclocking? People spend $100's of dollars on water cooling/adding fans/huge heatsinks, because the result of overclocking is excess heat. In the same aspect underclocking results in less heat. I have a pc unit that i use as a dvd player/mp3 player/and for games hooked to my living room tv. I baught an athlon 2100+ but only run it at 1600+ speed. I have a cheap heatsink and a very slow fan on, and everything runs great.. i think you get the point. I didn't have any problems with the video card at it's default speed, but I'm sure underclocking a video card would have similar results. Good luck