What's wrong with my computer - possible heat issue?

[Peerzy]

A few months ago my old FX5700 256MB card went, lucky I had an old MX440 lying around so I popped that in. No problems as I only really played Football Manager and that doesn't require anything powerful.

Now I'm looking to play some of my older games and a few new ones; Max Payne 2, F.E.A.R, Far Cry and even BioShock.

Thing is when playing any of these games the PC will randomly reboot after 20minutes or so. I'm nearly 100% sure it's the graphics card overheating/messing up as it never happened with my FX5700.

Basically looking to pickup a cheap(ish) graphics card, around £30 or so.

Been checking out Ebuyer.co.uk to be honest have no idea whats what in graphics cards these days.

Looking for something thats AGP8X, 256MB preferably and around £30 delivered. Not into loads of gaming just those few games so doesn't have to be the best card.

Cheers :dabs:

[mr. nails]

is that $60 US? if so... ur not gonna be able to get anything decent. if u hold off 'til u get at least $100 u'd be better off. i know that's almost double, but with $60 ur not gonna get much. lol, i know i'm not helping much, but that's my $0.02.

edit: do a search for 7600 gs. that may be ur best bet.

[Peerzy]

is that $60 US? if so... ur not gonna be able to get anything decent. if u hold off 'til u get at least $100 u'd be better off. i know that's almost double, but with $60 ur not gonna get much. lol, i know i'm not helping much, but that's my $0.02.

edit: do a search for 7600 gs. that may be ur best bet.

Don't want anything decent to be honest. I have a lot more money than £30 (which is $60), I just don't want to spend anymore to play 2 year old games that I use to be able to play fine with my FX5700.

I went to the local PC World and got some GeForce6200 128MB by PNY which was £27. Installed that fine and Max Payne 2 and Painkiller play fine (after downloading the right drivers) however Max Payne 2 still crashes after 20 minutes or so. I didn't play enough of Painkiller to see if that did as well and Far Cry played pretty badly. Jolting and jumping about on medium/high settings (which is what I use to have them on when I had the 5700). The water looked really artifact-y and fucked as well.

The problem still persists which therefor leads me to now believe that it's not the graphics card that is the issue. First thing that came to mind is over heating but a few days ago I put a 30" tower fan directly up the back of the PC and it still crashes (although it took slightly longer...).

Everything else on the computer is working 100% fine (bar my Lite-On DVD-+RW which has suddenly stopped working altogether) and Football Manager plays for days without fault.

I'm going to take the 6200 back because I can get better online and just wanted something to test out today. Any ideas on PC Worlds return policy, should I say it doesn't work, it's bollocks ('cause it is - my old 5700 was far better), or say I don't want it?

So basically, any ideas on what could be causing the problem?

Cheers'

:dabs:

[mr. nails]

just by putting a fan up to ur pc isn't gonna help. lol, i've tried that be4. depending on ur mb maybe dl some sort of utility to monitor ur temps. maybe ur cpu is overheating.

[Peerzy]

Idle temps;

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/6576/speedmu7.th.jpg (http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=speedmu7.jpg)

Any idea why 3 temperatures are on fire and what they are?

Edit: When playing Max Payne 2 for about 5 minutes Temp2 went up to 65, Temp1 (CPU I think) was fine and all of the other temps stayed pretty much where they were. 65 does seem quite high, but any ideas what Temp2 is?

[suprafreak6]

one of the sensors gotta be off...that shit would be dead if it was over 100C*

[Peerzy]

Yeah, didn't seem right to me.

Temp3 (128) and Temp1 (51) stay the same no matter what I do. Temp 2 (53 in the image) shoots up to 65+ when I load a game which seems dodgy to me.

[Smith]

The 6200 is a horrible card, im not suprised farcry plays shitty. Like the man said..looking at the ati 1600XT (i have it and it runs bf2 @ high settings) or the 7600GS. I know you dont want much..but in all honesty these cards arnt much at all.

[Peerzy]

The 6200 is a horrible card, im not suprised farcry plays shitty. Like the man said..looking at the ati 1600XT (i have it and it runs bf2 @ high settings) or the 7600GS. I know you dont want much..but in all honesty these cards arnt much at all.

A 6200 is a 'better' card than a FX5700 though, isn't it?

Either way the 6200 has been taken back now and I'm on the MX440 for now until I figure out whats making the computer randomly reboot when playing games.

Any ideas?

[mr. nails]

so, i guess it's not the cpu overheating... psu good? swap that out. if that doesn't help how many sticks of ram do u have? try using just 1 stick. maybe one of ur sticks is bad.

[memnom]

if u can afford get a x1950GT AGP from newegg/ebay for 139.99, a Hella lot better than 7600gt AGP. its the decent card that wont burn a hole in ur pocket.

[Peerzy]

so, i guess it's not the cpu overheating... psu good? swap that out. if that doesn't help how many sticks of ram do u have? try using just 1 stick. maybe one of ur sticks is bad.

I have 2 sticks of 512MB both have been tested in other machines and are fine.

From the image I posted above the only temperature that stays the same is the one 'stuck' on 128C.

Temp2 which on the screen shot is on fire, usually stays on fire but I have seen it move about randomly, never really high but I have seen it go down to green a few times.

The last Temp1 (which is on fire in the screen shot) has a blue arrow facing down now and is only 37C which seems fine but as soon as I play a game it shoots back up.

The two HDD's never really go above 45C and I saw them as low as 25Cish the other day.

Any ideas... :dabs:

[Peerzy]

Just tried rechecking the memory by taking 1 stick out and running on 512MB then testing it and doing the same with the other stick; same problem.

Had a look round the BIOS and it says;

System Temp - 29C
CPU Temp - 55C

That sounds a tad high doesn't it?

What kind of fan/heatskin would I be looking at for a Pentium 4 3.40GHz with hyper threading? I've had a look round the device manager and can't find a model number or whatever, only the following information;

GENUINEINTEL_-_X86_FAMILY_15_MODEL_2\_0
INTEL PENDTIUM 4 PROCESSOR H-T(FSB800)

The computer is an Advent 3519 and everything is the same as when it was brought bar a new DVD-RW drive (which no longer works) and I've had to pop in my old MX440 as the FX5700 that was in there went kaput.

Edit: Full PC spec here (http://uktsupport.co.uk/advent/pc/3519.htm).

[Mïcrösöül°V³]

any heatsink made for a p4 will work, just get one of those heatpipe coolers by thermaltake, or whoever they are. They usually say what cpu they are made for. and 55c is a little high. new thermal paste, especially if you are using the stock heatsink that came with the pc, cuz that heatsink was designed for that cpu, unless you have it overclocked like nuts lol.

[Appzalien]

I think your first temp listed is whats usually called the motherboard temp and will always be lower than the cpu, the next or temp2 is your cpu and the third is probably and unused temp sensor thats why it never changes and the other temp1 at the bottom is probably the same as the first but just a different zone (two sensors set in differrent places on the die).

Two things to check would be your venting of the PC (there could be a clogged filter up front between the front bezel and the case) and your cpu heatsink. The heatsink could be clogged with dust or the thermal grease may have dryed up and is inefficient. Also check your fans to see that there all moving air properly.