Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
coolaid

I just upgraded my graphics card but its overheating! HELP!

Recommended Posts

after spending 2 hour vacuuming and cleaning the interior of my PC, i finally added a brand new nvidia graphics card to my motherboard, but i noticed that the card seems to be running fairly hot at ~60 degrees even when idling, so i added an extra Side Panel Fan on the side of the computer but it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

i checked the side panel fan again and it seems to be in good working order, the fan blades are spinning, and its sucking in air from the outside and blowing it towards the motherboard. i read that the side panel fan is supposed to "intake" air so i configured it to be as such, but so far, it doesn't seem to be cooling down my graphics card, so what on earth am i doing wrong?

UPDATE:

my motherboard and CPU temperature are around 35 degrees, yet my nvidia graphics card stays at 60 degrees even when i'm not playing games with it.

Share this post


Link to post

Whats your power supply wattage? Your PSU might not be powerful enough to distribute the wattage necessary to all of your components.

Share this post


Link to post
Doominator2 said:

Whats your power supply wattage? Your PSU might not be powerful enough to distribute the wattage necessary to all of your components.


Current specs of my PC

- Power Supply 380watts
- Celeron G550
- 2GB ram
- samsung 120gb HDD
- Geforce 9500GT (the new card i just purchased)

* NO DVD drives or any kind of PCI cards installed

i built this computer myself back in 2011 and i had intended to use it for work with MICROSOFT OFFICE only and i never intended to use it for any kind of 3D gaming, atleast that was the mindset i have back at the time, and because of that i only used the bare minimum amount of components needed for a working office pc and not a gaming one. i chose the celeron chip precisely for its low vottage and low heat perk and i also picked an ASUS motherboard because ASUS have good solid capacitors so i don't have to worry about leaving my pc on for 24/7. (never forget the great capacitor plague of Y2K)

this pc has been with me for the past 5 years, i never played any games with it until last month when i play wolfstein on my co-worker's laptop and that was when i finally decided upgrade my pc just to play wolfenstein on lowest setting. so i bought a cheap geforce9 card and i was fully expecting my power supply to give up the ghost as soon as i plug the geforce card in and turn the pc on, but so far nothing's happened, the power supply appears to be working fine and is stable for the time being.

Doominator2 said:

Your PSU might not be powerful enough to distribute the wattage necessary to all of your components.




is it really a problem with my power supply?
i thought a 380watt PSU should be more than enough for a celeron computer with only a low-end graphics card in use, though i could be wrong.


i did briefly considered taking apart my other pc, an HP laptop that i purchased 2 years ago, to see if i can upgrade the onboard graphics inside, however i was warned by HP that i would lose the warrenty if i do so, plus i do not wish to fry my laptop as all my work related documents and powerpoints are inside so upgrading the laptop thus far is completely out of the question.

i thought about building myself a new gaming pc, but since my flat is too small for 2 desktop pc, this would mean that i'd have to throw this perfectly good and working computer away just so i can built a new one from scratch. in all honesty i do not think i should spoil myself in this manner when there are people starving out there and when i could just upgrade this computer that i already have.

[/url]

And before anyone come in here screaming "geforce9 sucks lol", yes i know that, but i got it for 10 dollars and i was fully expecting it to be fried by my generic power supply as soon as i turn it on. the way i see it, it would be better to lose a 10 dollars graphics card than to lose 60 dollars one, at least that's what i think anyways.

Share this post


Link to post

Idling at 60C makes me think the heat sink on the card is not making proper contact. Even if the card is "brand new" that means it's been sitting in a box for, like, 7 or 8 years, and the thermal paste / pad could have gotten dried out or corroded or whatever. My recommendation would be to remove it, clean it off, and apply new thermal paste.

Unless it's a passively cooled card? If there's no fan on the heatsink, then idling at 60C might be pretty normal.

Share this post


Link to post

Quick Google search for "9500gt temp" will give you a bunch of results in which people report their card idling at 60, 65, 70 degrees. I wouldn't worry about it. Graphic cards can work for years at up to 100°C with no issue whatsoever.

Share this post


Link to post

I would definitely look at your PSU. The minimum requirement for the GT9500 is a 350W PSU. But you have to remember your PSU is also powering the rest of the system, so leaving just 30 watts for the rest of your computer isn't a good idea.

I had a PSU go bad on me because I installed a videocard that required more Wattage than the OEM PSU. It needed at least a 350W PSU, the factory one was 400, but that left no room for the rest of the computer to get the power it needed, everything was going to the videocard. It was fixable, but I had to install a new PSU, the one I bought was 600W, and that fixed the issue. That was 10 years ago, and I learned my lesson. The GPU in my current computer requires a PSU with 500W output, so I put a 1,000W PSU in it, and it has ran silky smooth for 3 years now.

Share this post


Link to post
Jello said:

I would definitely look at your PSU. The minimum requirement for the GT9500 is a 350W PSU. But you have to remember your PSU is also powering the rest of the system, so leaving just 30 watts for the rest of your computer isn't a good idea.

I suggest you read the specifications page again because that is not at all what the 350W recommendation means. The maximum power this card will ever draw is 50W.

Most people who buy 1000W PSUs are wasting their money, because they don't need all that extra capacity.

Share this post


Link to post
Bloodshedder said:

I suggest you read the specifications page again because that is not at all what the 350W recommendation means. The maximum power this card will ever draw is 50W.

Most people who buy 1000W PSUs are wasting their money because they don't need all that extra capability.

Agree with you, some people get insane if you tell me that your PSU is not 1000w... Those PSU are good if you have a shit load of stuff...

Share this post


Link to post

hello! i just want to say thank you to everyone here for helping me with this problem, i much appreciate and am very grateful for all your help! thanks again everyone!

Justince said:

Wait, what Wolfenstein game are we talking about here? Because if it's New Order your computer ain't going to touch that game.


yes it's wolfenstein new order, i saw someone running the game on a geforce 210 and a pentium 4 using a low-resolution patch and it appears to run quite fast on his pc.

here's the link to the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLxoTUgHXvo

when i saw this i went to the mall and was going to buy the exact same geforce 210 to play wolfenstein but ultimately bought the geforce 9500GT instead from the shop's bargain bin instead, as i figured it would be a much better choice.

i've already ordered a hard copy of wolfenstein new order, it should arrive in a few weeks. i'll post back screenshot IF it runs on my pc. if it doesn't, i'll just go and get the geforce 210 i think.

Linguica said:

Unless it's a passively cooled card? If there's no fan on the heatsink, then idling at 60C might be pretty normal.


the video card uses its own fan for cooling, sorry i forgot to mention that.

and what you said about the heatsink and the cooling gel makes perfect sense, this is most likely the reason why my video card is so hot.

i haven't built a gaming pc since 2007 which was when i built a geforce 6 desktop pc to play Doom 3, after that pc got fried from a faulty power supply and took everything with it, i gave up on desktop pcs and started buying branded laptops until i built this celeron pc so i could take some of the workload off my laptop. i was under the assumption that the geforce 9 was a card from 2010, but i was wrong. the card is apprently much older than it looks.

Share this post


Link to post

Ohhh man. I do hope you can get the game running but i'm pretty sure it would be unplayable anyways. Although that person in the video you posted did run it on a P4 but it had horrible frame rates. Even without FRAPS the listed FPS was not that good. Like you said though you never built your PC for 3D gaming in mind.

It's probably common for that older card to be that hot. It most likely has a smaller fan and i'm sure the thermal paste (if any) is dried up by now like other people already said.

If you want to though you could try to upgrade that PC if you don't feel like building a new one. That processor is a FCLGA1155 which i believe should take any 1155 socket CPU (?), depending on your mobo specs that is. Not sure about RAM though.

Anyways, good luck.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×