Hi all, Got a new rig a while ago, specs are on the right. Anyway everything runs very cool, especially the CPU which runs at 30 degrees celcius idle and 45 while loading, except for one thing, and that's the video card. I opened up the case today to install a PCI network card to replace my USB one, and I decided to check how hot the video card was, because it doesn't have a sensor on it like my CPU. What I found was that the heatsink was extremely hot, to the point where if I had left my finger on it for more than a second I'd burn it. Moving my hand above it I felt alot of heat rising from it. Just previously I ran a game for about 5 minutes. Now I know video cards generally run hotter, but I'm curious as to how hot. All the applications I've tried can't pick up any sensors on the card, despite several websites claiming X1300's do have sensors. Any info would be greatly appreciated!
I'm not that familiar with the X1300 series but I would guess that a card in that price range does indeed have a temp sensor. The most likely place to get a reading would be the ATi Overdrive overclocking utility that's part of the Catalyst Control Center. Have you tried it? I don't know what's the normal temp for the X1300 but anything above 60C is enough to cause a burn sensation if you touch a metal part, especially highly conductive metals such as copper or aluminum, and some ATi cards routinely soar above 90C under load. In itself the sizzling heatsink is not alarming as long as your computer behaves normally, i.e. doesn't reboot for no reason.
I second everything Karl 2 has said. It doesn't something that hot to hurt if you keep your finger long enough on it. Most video cards can actually reach above 60 under load (not that they should, but they do, and it's withing their operative specifications)
You guys wanna know the funny part? I just booted my computer, and all I have run is IE. And guess what? The heatsink is deadset on fire basically. I can't access Overdrive and no other application detects any sensors. In Catalyst it says under manafactuer - "Powered by ATI", and the Vendor ID of 1002 turns out to be ATI Technologies, Inc. I would have thought if ATI actually made the card, not just the GPU, then it would have sensors. But apparently not. So if it's true that most video cards run at these temperatures, would it be true that video cards generally don't have long lifespans?
Is there a fan on it then or just the heatsink? If so you could add your own fan for about 10-20 euro/dollars. But otherwise, it's not a cause for concern unless you start to get either artifacting or lock ups. Lifespan is still fine - I've had a friend using a heatsink cooled Fx5200 for about 3 years now, playing games everyday - no problem. Although again, if you are worried it's not so difficult just to add a cheap vga fan onto it.
Yeah no fan, just a heatsink. Meh, I guess I'm just paranoid - it shouldn't be a problem. I've had no performance issues.
"Yeah no fan, just a heatsink." Yeah, don't worry about the temp as long as it runs fine. It's impressive but you'll get used to it. I boiled my Athlon once by forgetting to turn my waterpump on Components are very fragile and very tough at the same time. Make sure you have a good airflow in your case tho.
