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#1
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Massive slow-down after 30 mins on Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro
I recently purchased a new Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card
for my PC. Initially after installing it I was extremely impressed with it. UT2004 ran at 1280x1024 with all the details up with a very smooth frame rate. However after I'd been playing for about half an hour the frame rate suddenly plummeted to just 12 FPS, making the game unplayable. Restarting the game or the PC didn't make any difference and other software was affected too. I tried again this morning, leaving the game to play itself. Again after about 30 minutes of smooth play the slow down happened again. Can anyone suggest what might be causing this? I wonder if it's a heat issue (the air coming from the back of my PC is fairly warm) but would hope that a new card would have sufficient cooling for this not to be a problem? It's very frustrating anyway so I'd really appreciate any suggestions that anyone can offer. My PC is running an AMD 2400XP CPU on an Epox 8RDA+ motherboard, and I have DX9 and the latest Catalyst drivers installed. Many thanks, -- Adam. |
#2
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It does indeed sound like a heat issue. IMHO, the cooling that comes stock
on the 9800 is no more than the minimum the factory could get away with. If possile, try to set up a fan to blow directly on the card, or change the cooling system to a better after market cooling solution. You may also want to make sure that you are not suffering from a memory leak due to anapplication that is hogging system resources. "Adam Dawes" wrote in message ... I recently purchased a new Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card for my PC. Initially after installing it I was extremely impressed with it. UT2004 ran at 1280x1024 with all the details up with a very smooth frame rate. However after I'd been playing for about half an hour the frame rate suddenly plummeted to just 12 FPS, making the game unplayable. Restarting the game or the PC didn't make any difference and other software was affected too. I tried again this morning, leaving the game to play itself. Again after about 30 minutes of smooth play the slow down happened again. Can anyone suggest what might be causing this? I wonder if it's a heat issue (the air coming from the back of my PC is fairly warm) but would hope that a new card would have sufficient cooling for this not to be a problem? It's very frustrating anyway so I'd really appreciate any suggestions that anyone can offer. My PC is running an AMD 2400XP CPU on an Epox 8RDA+ motherboard, and I have DX9 and the latest Catalyst drivers installed. Many thanks, -- Adam. |
#3
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George Skuse wrote:
It does indeed sound like a heat issue. IMHO, the cooling that comes stock on the 9800 is no more than the minimum the factory could get away with. If possile, try to set up a fan to blow directly on the card, or change the cooling system to a better after market cooling solution. Thanks for your suggestions George. Can you (or anyone) recommend an after market cooling solution that I could investigate? Are other models of the 9800 Pro likely to be more stable that the Sapphire Atlantis? And finally, are there are utilities available that would let me check the temperature of the graphics card? I don't know whether the hardware supports this, but if it does it would help me to determine that the problem really is with overheating. Many thanks, -- Adam. |
#4
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"Adam Dawes" wrote in message ... George Skuse wrote: It does indeed sound like a heat issue. IMHO, the cooling that comes stock on the 9800 is no more than the minimum the factory could get away with. If possile, try to set up a fan to blow directly on the card, or change the cooling system to a better after market cooling solution. Thanks for your suggestions George. Can you (or anyone) recommend an after market cooling solution that I could investigate? Are other models of the 9800 Pro likely to be more stable that the Sapphire Atlantis? And finally, are there are utilities available that would let me check the temperature of the graphics card? I don't know whether the hardware supports this, but if it does it would help me to determine that the problem really is with overheating. Many hanks, Adam. Low tech, but I personally would open up the case and direct a desk fan at the graphics card while repeating the game test. If that improved the situation then pop in one these http://www.sochilled.co.uk/product.asp?item=515 or similar. HTH, Laurence |
#5
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"Adam Dawes" wrote in message ... George Skuse wrote: It does indeed sound like a heat issue. IMHO, the cooling that comes stock on the 9800 is no more than the minimum the factory could get away with. If possile, try to set up a fan to blow directly on the card, or change the cooling system to a better after market cooling solution. Thanks for your suggestions George. Can you (or anyone) recommend an after market cooling solution that I could investigate? Are other models of the 9800 Pro likely to be more stable that the Sapphire Atlantis? And finally, are there are utilities available that would let me check the temperature of the graphics card? I don't know whether the hardware supports this, but if it does it would help me to determine that the problem really is with overheating. Many thanks, -- Adam. This is a good VGA cooler. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...186-110&depa=0 What are your CPU and case temperatures? Do you have MBM5 installed? http://mbm.livewiredev.com/ What is your operating system? How much RAM have you got? I am not very experienced. I have heard VGA heat resulting in artifacts and/or freezes and crashes. But, not decreased fps! I believe only 9800XT and 9600XT have the hardware capability of monitoring the GPU temperature, not 9800 pro. You can check your GPU core and DDR clock rates with this free utility. http://www.lavalys.com/index.php?pag...ew=1&subpage=5 You can over/under-clock your GPU core and DDR with this free utility. http://atitool.ocfaq.com/ I don't know anything about AMDs. Does your cpu provide throttling when too hot, like Pentium 4s? |
#6
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Low tech, but I personally would open up the case and direct a desk
fan at the graphics card while repeating the game test. If that improved the situation then pop in one these http://www.sochilled.co.uk/product.asp?item=515 or similar. I'll have to try it this evening and see it it makes a difference. And thanks for pointing out that fan (and indeed that whole web site), that's MUCH better than the approach I was considering if it does turn out to be a heat problem. ;-) -- Adam. |
#7
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Navid wrote:
This is a good VGA cooler. http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...186-110&depa=0 Thanks for that -- I'm in the UK but the site that Laurence Wilmer mentioned has this product too so I'll have a look on there. What are your CPU and case temperatures? Do you have MBM5 installed? I can't tell you offhand but I'll check tonight. What is your operating system? How much RAM have you got? Win XP Pro with 512MB DDR400 RAM. I am not very experienced. I have heard VGA heat resulting in artifacts and/or freezes and crashes. But, not decreased fps! I know, I was thinking along these lines too but don't know what else it could be. If everything went back to normal after a reboot I'd assume it to be a software problem (not that it ever slowed down on my previous card, an nVidia GeForce4 Ti4200) but the continued slow performance has made me think that heat is the likely cause. I wondered if the heat was causing the card to throttle its performance or to simply stop working properly. If it's not the heat than I can only imagine it's a faulty card. I'll experiment with the case open tonight, anyway. I don't know anything about AMDs. Does your cpu provide throttling when too hot, like Pentium 4s? I believe all the motherboard does it sound an alarm if it gets too hot, not aware of anything else. I've left the alarm temperature threshhold settings at their default values and it's never made a sound so far. Thanks once again for all the helpful links. -- Adam. |
#8
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Adam Dawes wrote:
Low tech, but I personally would open up the case and direct a desk fan at the graphics card while repeating the game test. If that improved the situation then pop in one these http://www.sochilled.co.uk/product.asp?item=515 or similar. I'll have to try it this evening and see it it makes a difference. And thanks for pointing out that fan (and indeed that whole web site), that's MUCH better than the approach I was considering if it does turn out to be a heat problem. ;-) I'm suffering simmilar probs with te hotter weather arriving and have just ordered vga silencer.It replaces your existing gfx card fan (which lets face it they aren't much cop and aren't even fitted very well) and it exhausts the hot air out of the back of your pc like the blower from sochilled,anyway see for your self and check out some reviews they seem to be highly recommended Try http://www.cpucitystore.co.uk/catalo...roducts_id=411 and theres a version 3 as well so check manufacturers website to see if v1 will fit your card,i think it should but check anyway. |
#9
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John wrote:
I'm suffering simmilar probs with te hotter weather arriving and have just ordered vga silencer. This product does look interesting, and for UKP7 it's not going to be a fortune wasted even it it doesn't fit... I'm curious to know, are you having the same problems as me (large drops in frame rate) as opposed to complete crashes, and have these problems only started in the last week or two now that the UK finally has sight of the sun for a bit? -- Adam. |
#10
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Adam Dawes wrote:
John wrote: I'm suffering simmilar probs with te hotter weather arriving and have just ordered vga silencer. This product does look interesting, and for UKP7 it's not going to be a fortune wasted even it it doesn't fit... I'm curious to know, are you having the same problems as me (large drops in frame rate) as opposed to complete crashes, and have these problems only started in the last week or two now that the UK finally has sight of the sun for a bit? My case and cpu temps rose abit after changing from a gf4 to a saphire 9800 pro but the room in which comps are in has really got warm these last few weeks and i've been getting crashs/lockups and slow/stuttering performance. After examing the gfx card it wasn't to hard to spot the cooler isn't much good so i decided to order the vga cooler,hopefully here tommorrow so i'll see if its much better,it can't be any worse. I really want to avoid adding loads of case fans and if the cooler is as descent as they say it is then getting some heat out from the gfx card can only be a good thing and like you say for £7 it won't be the most money ever wasted trying to achieve this. |
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