Possible video card issue, please help give your opinion.

Azazel · Post by **Azazel** » 2005-07-26 10:54pm

Hi, some of you may know who I am, some may not, either way I ask for your opinion.

Last night I was on my computer, whilst playing WoW I hear what can only be called a snap or a pop. After checking my computer for any signs of burns, I noticed that my fan on my graphics card stopped and caused the card to overheat. I don't know this for sure though. I then continued to see if anything was wrong with performance. I noticed that occasionally the screen would freeze for a little while and then would eventually almost catch back up . This would continue and make any game literally unplayable.

So is it the video card that is the problem? Please help and thankyou for your opinions.

Azazel · Post by **Azazel** » 2005-07-28 12:09pm

Anybody have any sort of ideas?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-07-28 12:23pm

Sounds like your card's most likely fried. A popping noise and overheating are usually bad things.

Naaman · Post by **Naaman** » 2005-07-29 09:11am

If the card is still working after making the snap\popping noises then it may have been the fan suffereing from catastophic failure. It's probably worth trying a new fan or heatsink\fan combo as an interim fix but it's also worth thinking about a new card in the not to distant future.

I suppose bottom line is how much spare cash you've got

Azazel · Post by **Azazel** » 2005-07-29 10:47am

Yeah I was also thinking of trying a new heatsink on it since it seemed like it was still slightly operational. How much do heatsinks/fans go for for video cards?

Yeah, I've been eyeing up a Radeon 9800 pro 128mb for $139. I would moving to that from my Geforce 4 TI 4200 128MB.

Thanks for the input.

BabelHuber · Post by **BabelHuber** » 2005-07-29 01:50pm

Perhaps you have destroyed your card by trying to use it without a working fan.
To be honest, I cannot understand why you have tried this. I once had a 9800PRO, too, and this thing was quite hot while running even with the fan on.

Nevertheless, you usually get a new fan from your graphics card manufactor. Abit once gave me a fan for my GF3ti200 for free, even though the warranty had run out.

Azazel · Post by **Azazel** » 2005-07-29 02:26pm

See I had no idea the fan wasn't working until it had already happened, the fan works if I mess with it for a while, but I think it was too late anyways. No, I am not stupid enough to go "oh well... the fan on the graphics card isn't running, maybe it'll be ok"