Video Card Overheat at 4X Antialiasing Samples in Full Screen

ATI X1900XT overheats at maximums settings in full screen only

from Sins Forums
Hello all, I don't know if anyone else in this world owns an ATI X1900XT.

The game runs perfectly fine at all settings, including the maximum. My video card runs hot, and at the maximum antialiasing, it overheats and starts to beep at me. If I take it out of full screen mode, but have the window maximized, it doesn't quite overheat.

My screen resolution is always set to 1600X1200 for both desktop and game in all modes.

If I want to do full screen, I just knock it back to 2X sampling, and it seems fine. I have all the overclock sliders at minimum as well.

Even if the screen isn't rendering a busy scene, I still get the overheat.

It's just a curious thing, but doesn't really matter that much (until I have a random meltdown at the end of a 20 hour multiplayer game...)
technical
4,734 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
I have the same graphics card and have no overheating problems. The main thing I would check is that both sides of the graphics are clear of dust. I've had to clean my processor and graphics card many times due to them overheating from build up of dust.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
When I read the headline, I knew I had to pop in and say Ha-Ha thats what you get for buying an ATI. I know thats not helpful at all, and I apologize, but after reading the actual message I wasn't disappointed.

My XPS notebook with an Nvidia 7950 GTX doubles as a space heater, but dell did a nice job with the heat sinks and as long as the fans are working I cant overheat it.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I know, I know, my last card was an nVidia, and I trust them, but they had more pixel shader pipelines with this card at the time I was shopping... I think I'll go back to GeForce next time, though I'm not angry at ATI for any reason.

As for dust, it is a problem from time to time, and it might need a little vacuuming...

When you say keep the processor clear of dust, do you actually take the huge fan thing off? I'd be very weary of doing that, since I killed my mobo trying to exchange a fan with a heatsink. The fan is internalized on the card, and I am sure it's gathering dust. I'm not sure if the only part that passes air is vissible through the clear window where I can see the fan. I tried to screw off just the clear panel once, but it is difficult (screws are very tight), so I gave up, since I didn't think there was a problem at the time.

The back panel faces up and does gather dust, so I can give that a try.

Thanks for the replies. This game totally rocks!
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
I used to have an x1800XT card, and if your colling fan is like mine was, what you should do is take a can of air, blow the dust off the inlet point (where it will be inches thick... almost literally, the darned thing kept the dust off the rest of the computer). Make sure you do that at an angle so you don't drive the dust into the fan! Then, after you've got the inlet cleaned out, blow into the fact, first from front then (if needed) from rear. That should clean out dust problems quite handily.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
I realized that there isn't supposed to be a fuzzy pad on the back of the video card fan/heatsink unit. It is indeed an exhaust port. Pictures finally clued me in! About 2 seconds of vacuuming completely cleared the port, and now everything runs so cool, and I can even overclock. There must have been 0 airflow through the card at this point, and it still only overheated at 4X antialising (max settings 1600x1200) but not at 2X...