Powercolor X1950 Pro Overheating issues. Help!

[hermannjr]

I recently built a new computer and bought a Powercolor X1950 Pro 512 with it. The other system specs are:

Corsair 520W PSU
Antec P180B Case
Asus P5B motherboard (was a Gigabyte DS3, but it was shipped with the northbridge cooler ripped off...)
2x1gigabyte sticks of Corsaire ValueSelect CL5 667 DDR2
Core2 Duo E6300
Zalman 9500 CPU cooler.
Seagate Baracuda 7200.10 250 gig

So the problem I am having is that unless I underclock the graphic card severly (from 594 GPU / 695 Memory to 500 GPU and 580 Memory) the card overheats within 5-10 minutes of playing games. I've tested this with World of Warcraft, Battlefield 2, STALKER, etc...

The hardware monitor log of ATI Tray shows the heat of the GPU going up to 47-48 C and the ENV temp going up to 44 C or so.

What are my best options here? Should I return the card to powercolor? I think I read somewhere that the problem is that the card's on board memory has no cooling on it. Could that be the issue? Can I resolve this with an aftermarket cooler?

Thanks in advance

 

[aelfwyne]

47-48C is not overheating.

If the card is crashing at those temps, there is definitely something seriously wrong and you should return it. You didn't say if the card actually is causing problems, but it should be able to go MUCH over those temps. GPUs have a much higher heat resistance than CPU's.

 

[oynaz]

Simply RMA the card.

 

[Skitzer]

I'd worry if it got over 70C. Is it crashing?

 

[hermannjr]

Yeah, it crashes completely. Black screen and no response from the graphic card. Sometimes after a minute or so it crashes back to the desktop and VPU recovery tool comes up saying the card was unresponsive.

I figured that the GPU temps weren't the problem, but maybe the memory isn't being cooled enough? All I see is the ENV temps, which arn't all that helpful...

Funny thing is if I underclock the card that it works just fine. Am I just dealing with a defective card then, not the cooler itself?

Thanks for the help

 

[Skitzer]

Uninstall the ATI drivers and use the default windows drivers. If it continues to crash I would RMA it, if it doesn't try reinstalling the drivers again. Once the drivers are eliminated as a problem I would definitely RMA it.

 

[aelfwyne]

FWIW, I've had this issue before with PowerColor. It was a LONG time ago - Geforce 2 days - but it was the exact same thing. Card would not run stable at stock speeds. In that case it was supposed to be a Pro, and when I removed the heatsink, it turned out it was a non-pro chip on a pro PCB (which explained why it couldn't run at the speeds they had it set at). I haven't gotten near a PowerColor product since then.