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Massive slow-down after 30 mins on Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 7th 04, 09:58 AM
Adam Dawes
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Default 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  
Old June 7th 04, 10:23 AM
George Skuse
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Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old June 7th 04, 11:22 AM
Adam Dawes
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old June 7th 04, 12:45 PM
Laurence Wilmer
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Posts: n/a
Default


"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  
Old June 7th 04, 12:56 PM
Navid
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"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  
Old June 7th 04, 01:46 PM
Adam Dawes
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old June 7th 04, 01:59 PM
Adam Dawes
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Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old June 7th 04, 02:17 PM
John
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old June 7th 04, 03:07 PM
Adam Dawes
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Posts: n/a
Default

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  
Old June 7th 04, 05:32 PM
John
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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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