Overheating 4850

Sparrownightmare · Jun 29, 2009, 03:13 PM

Hi. I already posted this in the ATI drivers thread, but I thought I would ask here too. I have major overheat problems with my Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4850 PCIE 1GB HDMI Dual Slot cards. One already fried, and the other is unstable. I can't get past the main menu screen of Sims 3 without getting an overheat alarm on my Gatewatch II thermal panel. The Gatewatch says it is idling at between 36C and 42C. When I load up a game it bounces up to between 45C and 50C, and then sets off the overheat alarm. If I don't get out of the game quickly, the card becomes unstable and it will give me the dreaded ATIKDMAG BSOD error. I downclocked the memory and GPU in Catalyst, and also locked the fan at 100%. I am thinking of getting a Zalman VF1000 VGA cooler, but I wanted to make sure it would fit the card. It looks like it might have issues with the medium sized heatsink on some components near the back of the card. Has anyone used this cooler on this card? Or, can someone recommend a good alternative to the onboard default fan.sink?

Thanks.

Neshi · Jun 29, 2009, 04:15 PM

cross / dual posting not allowed..

Sparrownightmare · Jun 29, 2009, 04:21 PM

Sorry. I zapped the question in the other forum.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neshi

cross / dual posting not allowed..

Neshi · Jun 29, 2009, 04:24 PM

lol, I just answered in the other thread..

never mind, I copied it over the this thread

do you get an overheat alarm at 62 degrees Celcius..?
that is weird because mine runs (with this hot weather) at 70 degrees idle.
I even adjusted the fan speeds so it will increase rpm sooner then it was on stock, otherwise it would be even hotter.

The 4850 are notorious for running hot. I think the cooler isn't working well, it might be that the thermal paste wasn't applied correctly or not enough, you might want to check that.
It might be that the temperature sensor isn't working well, because the card is nowhere near overheating at 62 degrees.
There is the 3rd possibility that your card is defective.

Easiest thing to check first is the cooler and thermal paste. BUT, if you take the cooler of, replacement of thermal paste is as good as necessary!!

You can run AtiTool to adjust the fan speeds, this might improve the high temperatures as well.
Not sure if fanspeed can be adjusted in the official ati control panel..

jks139 · Jun 29, 2009, 05:05 PM

I agree with Neshi - you might have a different problem. Those are very cool temps for a 4850 from my experience.

I have 4850s in crossfire and they both idle around 66C. Under load they run hot at 90C unless I manually adjust the fans (65% gets me back down to around 70C). I've never had my cards become unstable due to these level of heat.

I've read very positive reviews of the Coolink GFXChilla. Legit Reviews - Coolink GFXChilla VGA Cooler - Cooling The Radeon HD 4850 - Benchmarking and Conclusion

As always - check the connection, power source, airflow (cables in the way etc). If you've had a card fry on you already - confirm that the bios voltage settings and PCI-E Frequency are locked?

Sparrownightmare · Jun 29, 2009, 05:11 PM

I'm kind of hesitant about taking off the stock cooler unless I know I will be replacing it. I'm pretty sure that it would void my warranty and these are only a few weeks old. I am also thinking that I may have a bad board sensor reporting them too cool. And with the huge fan and sink it has on it, it's hard to get the Gatewatch sensor anywhere the actual GPU, so it may be running much hotter than it shows. I'll double check the BIOS and look at the GFXChilla. Thanks for the input.

Neshi · Jun 29, 2009, 07:45 PM

Not sure if reseating the stock cooler voids warranty. I know they tell you a 3rd party cooler voids warranty, but if you place the stock cooler on it when you send it back, there is a very big chance they won't notice it at all..

Tril · Jun 30, 2009, 12:08 AM

I use a fanless 4850. It has a big heatsink but no fan. Before installing a fan, the temperature would rise to 100C. Because of that, I installed a very silent fan and it runs cooler and I've never had any instability with the card even if the fan does not push much air. I'm running stock clocks.

Mac Daddy · Jul 1, 2009, 03:46 AM

Arctic Cooling

PH3N0M · Jul 1, 2009, 04:36 AM

Here, take four of these and call me in the morning if your symptoms don't subside.

procupine14 · Jul 1, 2009, 03:26 PM

See I don't have that problem either. My card is Overclocked (see in specs) pretty far and I have no problems rising over 60C at peak load.

Thorfkin · Jul 27, 2009, 08:22 PM

The Radeon 4850 was designed to run stable at upwards and even over 80c. If your machine is crashing around 62c it is probably not the video card itself causing the instability. It is possible that the heat from the video card is causing some other component to overheat. Some of the 4850 coolers will blow the heat around inside your case instead of carrying it out the back. If it blows that heat onto the northbridge or southbridge chips then it could conceivably cause the machine to crash. Your system specs list your motherboard as running the 790fx chipset. I don't know what the southbridge is capable of but the 790fx northbrige generally wont run stable at much past 55c so make sure your 4850 isn't heating up the motherboard of one of the other expansion cards. If it is then get a video card cooler that blows the heat out the back of the case.

A Desire to Game · Aug 3, 2009, 06:38 PM

I love how the Nvidia pic says "Use as perscribed." Who needs to take Imbicillin not Imbecillin?

SeraphicSorcerer · Aug 3, 2009, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PH3N0M

Here, take four of these and call me in the morning if your symptoms don't subside.

You should be smacked for that, if only it hadn't got a smile.

FlyingMidget · Aug 11, 2009, 01:54 AM

I am running a single 4850 @ 625 MHz, 60% fan, 60 C.

I do not know about your card, but mine seems to respond to loads differently. Try stress testing it, or use some other benchmark test: The sims 3 is not only a poor way to measure your card's load and temp, but it is also a bad game all around. I have used Sandra for some stress testing and my temps only went up to about 85 C with fan @ 100%. While playing crysis on high settings 0x AA for about 30 min, I managed to hit 107 C. Surprisingly I saw no fps drops or artifacts. Other games such as COD4 @ high settings 4x AA, get my card up 80-90C.

The temps you posted are about half of my top temps and should be no problem. If you are doing any form of OC, that could easily explain the stability issues. Turn off any OC software you might be using and turn your fans up to 100%. If problem persists RMA or buy a 4870 which now cost around 120$!

~~CitySlicker~~ · Sep 13, 2009, 04:08 AM

Keep in mind the best heatsink can't do its job properly when the case is bad!

I am using here my card's stock hs - idle around 30C after a 3Dmark06 temp is up to 45C, reported by CCC, and that's it.

procupine14 · Sep 18, 2009, 04:44 PM

Well, here's the easiest way to tell if your card is too hot. If you touch it and it comes close to burning you (on the back side) its probably too hot. Otherwise its fine. The GFX cards of today are engineered to run extremely hot and most of them do.

Jun 29, 2009, 03:13 PM	#1
Sparrownightmare DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Midwest US Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Overheating 4850 Hi. I already posted this in the ATI drivers thread, but I thought I would ask here too. I have major overheat problems with my Sapphire ATI Radeon HD4850 PCIE 1GB HDMI Dual Slot cards. One already fried, and the other is unstable. I can't get past the main menu screen of Sims 3 without getting an overheat alarm on my Gatewatch II thermal panel. The Gatewatch says it is idling at between 36C and 42C. When I load up a game it bounces up to between 45C and 50C, and then sets off the overheat alarm. If I don't get out of the game quickly, the card becomes unstable and it will give me the dreaded ATIKDMAG BSOD error. I downclocked the memory and GPU in Catalyst, and also locked the fan at 100%. I am thinking of getting a Zalman VF1000 VGA cooler, but I wanted to make sure it would fit the card. It looks like it might have issues with the medium sized heatsink on some components near the back of the card. Has anyone used this cooler on this card? Or, can someone recommend a good alternative to the onboard default fan.sink? Thanks.

Jun 29, 2009, 04:15 PM	#2
Neshi S.N.A.F.U. Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Wellington, NZ Posts: 3,372 Rep Power: 177 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 cross / dual posting not allowed.. __________________ If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live? Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Jun 29, 2009, 04:24 PM	#4
Neshi S.N.A.F.U. Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Wellington, NZ Posts: 3,372 Rep Power: 177 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 lol, I just answered in the other thread.. never mind, I copied it over the this thread do you get an overheat alarm at 62 degrees Celcius..? that is weird because mine runs (with this hot weather) at 70 degrees idle. I even adjusted the fan speeds so it will increase rpm sooner then it was on stock, otherwise it would be even hotter. The 4850 are notorious for running hot. I think the cooler isn't working well, it might be that the thermal paste wasn't applied correctly or not enough, you might want to check that. It might be that the temperature sensor isn't working well, because the card is nowhere near overheating at 62 degrees. There is the 3rd possibility that your card is defective. Easiest thing to check first is the cooler and thermal paste. BUT, if you take the cooler of, replacement of thermal paste is as good as necessary!! You can run AtiTool to adjust the fan speeds, this might improve the high temperatures as well. Not sure if fanspeed can be adjusted in the official ati control panel.. __________________ If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live? Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Jun 29, 2009, 05:05 PM	#5
jks139 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Re: Overheating 4850 I agree with Neshi - you might have a different problem. Those are very cool temps for a 4850 from my experience. I have 4850s in crossfire and they both idle around 66C. Under load they run hot at 90C unless I manually adjust the fans (65% gets me back down to around 70C). I've never had my cards become unstable due to these level of heat. I've read very positive reviews of the Coolink GFXChilla. Legit Reviews - Coolink GFXChilla VGA Cooler - Cooling The Radeon HD 4850 - Benchmarking and Conclusion As always - check the connection, power source, airflow (cables in the way etc). If you've had a card fry on you already - confirm that the bios voltage settings and PCI-E Frequency are locked?

Jun 29, 2009, 05:11 PM	Thread Starter #6
Sparrownightmare DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Midwest US Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 I'm kind of hesitant about taking off the stock cooler unless I know I will be replacing it. I'm pretty sure that it would void my warranty and these are only a few weeks old. I am also thinking that I may have a bad board sensor reporting them too cool. And with the huge fan and sink it has on it, it's hard to get the Gatewatch sensor anywhere the actual GPU, so it may be running much hotter than it shows. I'll double check the BIOS and look at the GFXChilla. Thanks for the input.

Jun 29, 2009, 07:45 PM	#7
Neshi S.N.A.F.U. Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Wellington, NZ Posts: 3,372 Rep Power: 177 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 Not sure if reseating the stock cooler voids warranty. I know they tell you a 3rd party cooler voids warranty, but if you place the stock cooler on it when you send it back, there is a very big chance they won't notice it at all.. __________________ If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live? Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Jun 30, 2009, 12:08 AM	#8
Tril S-3D enthusiast Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Canada Posts: 1,676 Rep Power: 64 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 I use a fanless 4850. It has a big heatsink but no fan. Before installing a fan, the temperature would rise to 100C. Because of that, I installed a very silent fan and it runs cooler and I've never had any instability with the card even if the fan does not push much air. I'm running stock clocks.

Jul 1, 2009, 03:46 AM	#9
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 Arctic Cooling __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Jul 1, 2009, 04:36 AM	#10
PH3N0M The Master of Sarcasm Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: The U.S. of A Posts: 348 Rep Power: 36 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 Here, take four of these and call me in the morning if your symptoms don't subside. __________________

Jul 1, 2009, 03:26 PM	#11
procupine14 Why is it Beeping!?!?! Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: USA, Missouri Posts: 1,400 Rep Power: 58 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 See I don't have that problem either. My card is Overclocked (see in specs) pretty far and I have no problems rising over 60C at peak load. __________________ HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU

Jul 27, 2009, 08:22 PM	#12
Thorfkin DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 11 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 The Radeon 4850 was designed to run stable at upwards and even over 80c. If your machine is crashing around 62c it is probably not the video card itself causing the instability. It is possible that the heat from the video card is causing some other component to overheat. Some of the 4850 coolers will blow the heat around inside your case instead of carrying it out the back. If it blows that heat onto the northbridge or southbridge chips then it could conceivably cause the machine to crash. Your system specs list your motherboard as running the 790fx chipset. I don't know what the southbridge is capable of but the 790fx northbrige generally wont run stable at much past 55c so make sure your 4850 isn't heating up the motherboard of one of the other expansion cards. If it is then get a video card cooler that blows the heat out the back of the case.

Aug 3, 2009, 06:38 PM	#13
A Desire to Game HardwareHeaven Hoosier Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Indiana Posts: 293 Rep Power: 33 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 I love how the Nvidia pic says "Use as perscribed." Who needs to take Imbicillin not Imbecillin? __________________ Three is my new favorite number. (SATA III, USB 3.0, and triple channel memory)

Aug 11, 2009, 01:54 AM	#15
FlyingMidget DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Re: Overheating 4850 I am running a single 4850 @ 625 MHz, 60% fan, 60 C. I do not know about your card, but mine seems to respond to loads differently. Try stress testing it, or use some other benchmark test: The sims 3 is not only a poor way to measure your card's load and temp, but it is also a bad game all around. I have used Sandra for some stress testing and my temps only went up to about 85 C with fan @ 100%. While playing crysis on high settings 0x AA for about 30 min, I managed to hit 107 C. Surprisingly I saw no fps drops or artifacts. Other games such as COD4 @ high settings 4x AA, get my card up 80-90C. The temps you posted are about half of my top temps and should be no problem. If you are doing any form of OC, that could easily explain the stability issues. Turn off any OC software you might be using and turn your fans up to 100%. If problem persists RMA or buy a 4870 which now cost around 120$!

Sep 13, 2009, 04:08 AM	#16
~~CitySlicker~~ Banned Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Brisbane Australia Posts: 183 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 Keep in mind the best heatsink can't do its job properly when the case is bad! I am using here my card's stock hs - idle around 30C after a 3Dmark06 temp is up to 45C, reported by CCC, and that's it.

Sep 18, 2009, 04:44 PM	#17
procupine14 Why is it Beeping!?!?! Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: USA, Missouri Posts: 1,400 Rep Power: 58 System Specs	Re: Overheating 4850 Well, here's the easiest way to tell if your card is too hot. If you touch it and it comes close to burning you (on the back side) its probably too hot. Otherwise its fine. The GFX cards of today are engineered to run extremely hot and most of them do. __________________ HTPC/file server: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom x4 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 (2x2GB) - 1TB WD Black - 4 x 1TB Hitachi DeskStar in RAID 5 - ATi TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner - HIS Raedon 4850 512MB - ASRock N68C-S UCC mobo - OCZ ModExtreme Pro 500W PSU GF's Gaming PC: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Phenom 9850 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 1066 - 500GB Western Digital GP - HIS Raedon 5770 1GB - ASUS M3A78-EM - Zalman 650W PSU Media Streamer: Win 7 Pro 64-bit - AMD Athlon x2 3200+ - 4GB SuperTalent DDR2 800 - 250GB SeaGate Barracuda - MSI K9N6PGM2-V2 - ASUS Raedon 5450 SILENT - FSP group 250W PSU