Overheating video card?

[jakeviii]

Symptom: Reboots after playing any game for 15 minutes or so. No video corruption
or lock ups. No blue screens (even though auto-reboot is off). No problems at the
desktop or in non-game apps.

Memtest says memory is ok. CPU temp is ok. Plenty of power. OS and drivers are ok.

I popped the video card out and cleaned off a moderate layer of dust off the
heatsink/fan. I also reseated the memory. Magically, the reboots stopped for a
whole day. I played games for hours with out problems. But today, I had another
reboot while playing a game.

No over-clocking
Abit NV7-133r
AMD 2000
TI-4600
Enermax 431W
1GB Crucial

This setup has been going fine for a few years now. Can an overheating video
card cause reboots like this?

 

[exar333]

whats the video card?

Brand, GPU, model, ect...

 

[paadness]

If thats a leadtek Ti 4600, the memory never makes a good contact anyway.

Regular restarts are not a sign of overheating rather some other issues. Overheating will pose some artifacts clearly visible to the human eye. Still if ur sure its the heat, take off the heatsink, give the core a good nice shiny look and BUY NEW PEGS for the heatsink.

Since that card is rather old now, the spring mechanism might have lost some of its strengthj, use new pegs to apply more pressure.

I personally think ur PC has some trojans or viruses. The game can crash anytime, even just when u start it.

The best stress test for ur card will be 3dmark 2001 SE(30 MB dowload).

 

[jakeviii]

Originally posted by: ExarKun333
whats the video card? Brand, GPU, model, ect...

No over-clocking
Abit NV7-133r, AMD 2000

Visiontek TI-4600

Enermax 431W
1GB Crucial

 

[jakeviii]

Originally posted by: paadness
I personally think ur PC has some trojans or viruses. The game can crash anytime, even just when u start it.

I am virii free. Or at least as much as you can be with a firewall and Anti-virus software
running all the time.

The reboots aren't random, they occur only in games, and only after playing them
for about 15 minutes, never at startup. This hints at something to do with heat. But
I'm not convinced of that. I'm just exploring the possibilities.

I hate unexplained reboots.

Ok, I will try 3dMark, thanks.