9600 heat problems?

[Claudio Cauchi]

hi, I've just bought a fanless Sapphire Atalntis 9600 256Mb card.
Everything is fine until I play a game using DirectX. I placed a heat
sensor on the heatsink. After running for a while (desktop), the
sensor read a stable 27 degrees C. Then I started a DirectX game and
the sensor read (after about 5mins) 42 degrees C and I had artifacts
on the screen. I am running latest cat drivers. Should I place a fan
blowing on to/away from the heat sink?
TIA Claudio

 

[Kent_Diego]

sensor read a stable 27 degrees C. Then I started a DirectX game and

the sensor read (after about 5mins) 42 degrees C and I had artifacts
on the screen. I am running latest cat drivers. Should I place a fan
blowing on to/away from the heat sink?

42C is not that hot. The GPU cooling is fine. The artifacts are from memory
not GPU. If GPU problems you will get game freeze/lock up. The heatsink only
cools GPU. Your RAM memory cannot handle the memory speed it is run at. You
could use Radeon Tweeker to lower memory speed to fix.
http://rage3d.com
Since you paid good money for this card, I suggest you send it back and get
new one.

-Kent

 

[Navid]

hi, I've just bought a fanless Sapphire Atalntis 9600 256Mb card.
Everything is fine until I play a game using DirectX. I placed a heat
sensor on the heatsink. After running for a while (desktop), the
sensor read a stable 27 degrees C. Then I started a DirectX game and
the sensor read (after about 5mins) 42 degrees C and I had artifacts
on the screen. I am running latest cat drivers. Should I place a fan
blowing on to/away from the heat sink?
TIA Claudio

I have the same card (fanless), but only 128M.
The heatsink gets really hot when playing a game.
That is the job of the heatsink, to transfer heat from the GPU
to the air around it. The problem starts if you do not move
the hot air out of the case.
That is one thing to check. How is air circulation in your case?

An easy way to confirm if this is the problem is to open the case and
play the game. Does it still show artifacts?
If the answer is yes, I'd say, you may want to return the card.

But, if there are no artifacts with the case open, all you need to do is
to reduce the temperature inside the case.
There are many things you can do to achieve that. First, let's find
out if that is the problem or not.

 

[Navid]

I have the same card (fanless), but only 128M.
The heatsink gets really hot when playing a game.
That is the job of the heatsink, to transfer heat from the GPU
to the air around it. The problem starts if you do not move
the hot air out of the case.
That is one thing to check. How is air circulation in your case?

An easy way to confirm if this is the problem is to open the case and
play the game. Does it still show artifacts?
If the answer is yes, I'd say, you may want to return the card.

But, if there are no artifacts with the case open, all you need to do is
to reduce the temperature inside the case.
There are many things you can do to achieve that. First, let's find
out if that is the problem or not.

Wait a minute!
I assumed, may be incorrectly, that you were not overclocking.
If you are overclocking, there are procedures you have to follow
to find the safe clock rate.

 

[Asestar]

Getting artifacts and overheating with factory settings, (no-OC) is NOT
acceptable. Return your card immidiately, it might be defect.

 

[Claudio Cauchi]

I am not OC'ng the card. I solved the problem by adding another fan to
the case.
Thanks for the responses. As for the artifacts, I found out it was not
the card to produce them but the game!! (It is a cheap game I was only
using to test out the card) as they turned out even on my friends PC
running an nvidia card. BTW the heatsink only reaches 38 degrees C at
max now.