ATI Radeon X1900XT Heat Issues?

  • Thread starter Thread starter MadHatter
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MadHatter

Hi everyone,

I've owned my X1900 XT for a number of months now and it's been running
perfectly, the card is a dream and renders all of my games beautifully.
Just recently, I've come into World of Warcraft and have discovered
one annoying issue - after playing for about 15 minutes, a fine bar of
colour appears down the right side of my monitor. Playing longer shows
that the line begins to distort and 'wave' around a bit.

I am inclined to think this is a heat issue, and so if anyone agrees
could they link to a heatsink removal guide for this card (so that I
may put Arctic Silver 5 on it)? Or, does anyone else have another
solution? All my temps are good, not sure about the card itself but
everything else is fine. Also, running 6.12 drivers. Here is my
system:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.3 GHz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe Mainboard
Mushkin DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 RAM
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB PCI-E Video Card
Enermax Liberty 620 W Modular PSU

Thanks for the help in advance.

MadHatter
 
I've owned my X1900 XT for a number of months now and it's been running
perfectly, the card is a dream and renders all of my games beautifully.
Just recently, I've come into World of Warcraft and have discovered
one annoying issue - after playing for about 15 minutes, a fine bar of
colour appears down the right side of my monitor. Playing longer shows
that the line begins to distort and 'wave' around a bit.
Click to expand...
You can investigate further by using ATI Tool to slightly under clock your
GPU or your RAM to check effect. My experience has been overheating GPU will
cause lock-ups and game crashes. Going too far with RAM frequency will cause
visual distortions. If you have any motor or magnets (speaker) anywhere near
your monitor, try moving them away. Also try to de-gauss your monitor to see
if helps. If degauss option is not available from monitor's menu, power
off/on monitor.
 
Install ATi Tray Tools and check the fan speed ramp schedule. I think by
driver default the fan doesn't hit 100% speed until the GPU reaches 95C. Set
the threshold to 80C instead and the artifacts should not appear again.

Since the X1900 (and all the other X1K cards) has separate 2D/3D clocks *and
voltages*, I would suggest not attempting to underclock the card as Kent
Diego has suggested. Don't even install ATiTool (different from ATi Tray
Tools).

There's nothing wrong with the thermal interface. Don't think for a minute
that remounting the heat sink with Arctic Silver is gonna do anything. :-)
 
MadHatter said:
Hi everyone,

I've owned my X1900 XT for a number of months now and it's been running
perfectly, the card is a dream and renders all of my games beautifully.
Just recently, I've come into World of Warcraft and have discovered
one annoying issue - after playing for about 15 minutes, a fine bar of
colour appears down the right side of my monitor. Playing longer shows
that the line begins to distort and 'wave' around a bit.

I am inclined to think this is a heat issue, and so if anyone agrees
could they link to a heatsink removal guide for this card (so that I
may put Arctic Silver 5 on it)? Or, does anyone else have another
solution? All my temps are good, not sure about the card itself but
everything else is fine. Also, running 6.12 drivers. Here is my
system:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.3 GHz
Asus P5W DH Deluxe Mainboard
Mushkin DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 RAM
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512 MB PCI-E Video Card
Enermax Liberty 620 W Modular PSU

Thanks for the help in advance.
Click to expand...

Wow we have almost the exact system. Same CPU,MB, I have high end Corsair
ram, also 800.
Same card, but I have the 256MB Version. Can I ask how you got the E6600 up
that high? And are you using stock cooing on the CPU? Man that's some great
OCing! The P5B D is the MB to do it, if it can be done.
Have you tried running the game with stock speeds to see if maybe the game
is sensitive to overclocking. I'm thinking it might be the ram that is
making that line, not the 1900. Have you tested you RAM at those speeds with
MemTest? I want to OC my CPU , but I'm not all that up on how to do it. Any
info you could spare would be great. TIA JLC
 
looks more like a shielding issue to me...how does your cooling/airflow look
?

heat issue would more look like artifacts (IMHO)...but "waves" ????


georg
 
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