Recently, my system seems to be running much more hot than it should. While it won't crash or have any problems when under standard use, the moment I load up any kind of graphically intense program (such as games), the heat starts to rise and the program itself will eventually crash (if my entire system doesn't hang).

To counteract this, I replaced the stock fan that came with my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and put a brand new fan on, including some heatsinks. It seems to have helped to enough of a degree that the program doesn't hang for about twice as long (roughly half an hour to an hour, at this point). The problem is, I'm not sure what else I can do to cool this bloody thing down. I have a processor fan running, the video card fan, and a tower wall fan. I don't have a fan on the rear of the tower at this point in time (though I'm not certain how much that would help). I can easily tell that the air blowing out of the wall fan is warm, if that helps at all.

Any thoughts or suggestions? My cash flow is extremely limited to say the least, but I'll take into consideration anything you might have to say. I was hoping I wouldn't have to resort to hobo cooling (open tower wall, get standard use fan, point it at computer, yay), but if it comes to that...so be it.

Have you thought about one of the fans that get mounted in a cd/dvd slot and plugs straight into a plug from the power supply? Australian summers regularly hit 40 degrees celcius, and as soon as I plugged one of them in, I got a hell of a lot less overheating in my case.

I also suggest you go through the parts inside the case and dust them with a paint brush or the like, especially around the heat sink on the cpu, as that can cause overheating issues too.

Two problems with that. It's already quite clean, as I very recently took out my entire system and transferred it to a new tower. The other problem is that I'm pretty much out of ports from my power source. I might be able to cannibilize one of them though...just take it out of the cd-rom that basically never gets used and plug in the alternate fan.

The weird thing here is, it's very winter here in Utah. The apartment is kept relatively warm, but nothing bad. I tend to wear extra clothing just because the heater doesn't quite keep me warm enough (but I've been called cold blooded by many people).

I'll look into that fan though, thanks for the suggestion. I'd completely forgotten they have that variety...

Have you tested the heat sensors themselves? Windows Diagnostics (accessed through BIOS) has a feature for it. Fans don't do any good if the system doesn't know that you're overheating. If I remember right (and, I'll admit, it's been a long time since I took my certifications), Windows will actually start shutting down hardware before it lets critical components reach that level. I don't remember if the video cards come with that sort of failsafe, though.

Well if you have a spare PSU just in case, you could always cannibalize one of the pos/neg wire coming out of the psu and splice the fan straight onto it, or see if you can find one of the double adapters or the like.

Generally overheating is caused by the CPU, replacing the fan on your video card isn't as much of a concern as making sure you've got a good heatsink and fan on your cpu. What type of cpu do you have? Also, you overclocking at all?

Sometimes new video cards or a new tower don't let the CPU breathe even with the new fan and then you get overheating.
Try to move them inside the box so they have more space, or check if your old box was bigger and had things more separated.

quoted for emphasis. My sister had a similar problem. She build in a lot of fans and whatnot to get the temprature down but it was of no use. In the end her graphic card kind of died on her, but at least then she found out that that had been the problem (even if it was to late by then).

@Xavius - No, I've not tested the heat sensors. I generally don't touch BIOS much, as it hadn't really occured to me. It seems unlikely however, seeing as if it disabled the video card I'd lose the display I would think. I won't count it out, though.

@Raezon - I have an AMD Athlon XP 2100+. It's not overclocked, as I've never been able to get the heat levels in my system low enough that I was willing to risk it. It has a rather large fan and heatsink combo attached to it that work pretty well, as I changed out the old stock fan quite some time ago.

@Iridiel - The old tower was actually significantly worse. I had to keep the tower wall off all of the time, and two of the three fans in the system didn't function, or barely functioned at all. There were many cases in which my power source fan didn't activate and I suffered some nasty losses because of that accursed thing. The old box is long gone, but it was roughly the same size. It just had worse cooling, due to less fans. The only changes I've made to my system since transferring were to add a second hard drive (my original 40 gb hd just wasn't cutting it)

@Shadow - Trust me, it's quite clean. If a can of compressed air and a meticulous eye aren't enough, I don't know what is.

Thanks for the suggestions and comments. At this point, it would appear that my only option is hobo cooling or something. I'll go over it with a techy friend of mine and see what he says when he wakes up.

As a side note, according to ATI Tool my motherboard temperatures read as follows: 33.0, 54.0, -55.0. The problem is, I don't know what each temperature is being read from specifically. That one in the middle is the only one that seems to fluctuate. When I was testing the system last night, that temperature would rise up to about 56.0 and after a little while the game I was using for testing would crash.

Unfortunately, ATI Tray Tool won't let me monitor my video card temperature for some reason. While the option's there, it won't let me select it. Piece of hud.

On a side note, the fan I attached to the video card definetely helped. My system lasted significantly longer with it going, but it hasn't been enough...

I don't know what graphical card you bough, but by default none need such a lot of cooling in winter. that's reserved usually for overcloked systems in warm climates.
Make sure there's enough space between the components on your computer for air to pass through them in a straight line? This way the cooling is better.

::grins:: Whoops sorry, I hadn't realized I didn't specify my card on this thread. I'm running an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro. Currently using the latest Omega drivers, in case that's relevant for whatever reason.

So yes, I'm using two different components that are known to run hotter than the competition. On the other hand, they both have better performance. Now if only I could figure out why they didn't give me problems until now...

As far as spacing...my video card is in my AGP slot, as always. There's an empty slot below, then the rest of the slots are filled with my various PCI cards. Given the option I'd like to make more room, but the stupid fan on the video card is facing towards the PCI cards. I don't know what they were thinking with that one...

So I don't know. Most of my bays are open and there's plenty of room above the cards and around the processor and motherboard. I figure that's probably where some of the heat is, so I'm going to go ahead and get a rear wall tower fan to help. I have sixty dollars left to get this thing functioning, at least. After that, any further assistance will have to come from someone else's wallet.

I had a similar problem with a P4 just recently. It started heating up in games first, so I moved it to an air conditioned room. It still kept overheating. After about a month of flashing the thermal warnings, it started slowing down in applications. So I replaced the thermal paste on the CPU, and did it two more times in the next maybe 8 months. Each time it would keep the processor cool for awhile, then the problems would start all over again and they were getting worse, as the system started shutting itself off. Eventually, about a month ago, the system crashed for the last time and never came back to life again. The computer shop I took the case to said the processor was dead and I had to install a new one.

Moral? Take it to be examined by professionals. AMDs have lower frequencies than Intels, so shouldn't be overheating as easily. Thus, if it does overheat then there's a good chance of something being rotten in the CPU, in which case you are risking the loss of the motherboard or some expensive piece of equipment along with the CPU when and if it finally melts.

P.S. Oh, and I did lots of playing with fans, at one time I had 2 in the back, 1 in the side and 1 in the front panel - didn't help any.

Well, as I mentioned, my funds are extremely limited so taking it to professionals isn't an option. I really don't trust a lot of the so-called techies out here, as they've missed things on my system a number of times already. Plus, blowing sixty bucks for an hour worth of diagnostics just isn't going to work. If the processor's gonna die, I'm not going to have a computer for a long, long time...

Hopefully, the extra two rear fans I just mounted will be enough. It's definetely running a lot cooler now, but I haven't actively put it to the test yet. I'd be lying if I said I believe in God...but man, I hope this works...

If it's still overheating, I lose. I won't be able to fix it after this, plain and simple.

The only thing I can recommend then is to download Everest. The Home Edition is completely free and it should be able to accurately recognize and monitor all your thermal sensors (at least it does for me). Then you won't need to guess what part what temperature reading relates to.

P.S. Well, what do you know - Lavalys discontinued the free edition of Everest. Might still be able to pick it up on Kazaa or some such. Lucky me for having grabbed it while it still lasted.