Can an overheating video card give me this much trouble or is it something else?

[j00]

i have a visiontek geforce 256 sdr and the fan has crapped out. im sure there is no circulation for the heatsink and the bastard is hot as hell. my computer has been crashing all the time lately and things are extremely slow to load (like opening a new webpage takes forever compared to a few weeks ago). the fan has been on the fritz for 2 weeks or so and has finally given out. it's under warranty and will be replaced but was just wondering if it could be causing these problems. ill assume an overheating chip can cause a lock up, but what about poor performance? wouldnt it actually run faster the hotter it is?

 

[DaveB3D]

dunno why it would cause web pages to load slower, but hot is bad. For example, if you run a chip at like 200 degrees below 0 C, you performance can double because of reduced resistance.

 

[TekkieJosh]

I think overheating is the issue. Many times, it cuases crashes.

TJ

 

[LordSandMan]

Even when the fan was still spinning on my GeForce it was causing crashes. I removed the heatsink fan and replaced it with a pentium heatsink. Then I put a big 80mm fan on top of it. I haven't had a lockup since. Also when I took the heatsink off, the heat sink compound was broken down, kind of powdery. That couldn't have been helping things. Personally I would not run the machine if the fan isn't spinning. Find a replacement soon. Graphics cards still aren't cheap.

 

[Kitros]

well, you have one thing right.... HOT is BAD. No circulation eh? Maybe it's your whole system bogging down b/c it's hot. But, you do need that fan there... I'd say buy a cheap 486 cpu fan/heatsink and thermal glue it to the chip.😉

 

[sandorski]

Over heated vidcards can cause lockups, reboots, and odd video behaviour. Some of the odd behaviour is IE going into a scroll loop(constantly scrolling). I've experienced all 3 with an old TNT.