Too hot? Help with my TNT :)

[rar124]

Hey guys, I have a Creative Labs TNT(PCI), a Celeron 450A all on a BH6 mobo. My problem is that when i play a game, specifically NBA Live 99, the game runs fine for a while then the program just stops running and goes to windows. Is my Video card getting too hot?? I touched it and it is pretty hot. Could this be the problem??

 

[Rifter]

Like i said i had some problems with my v550 when playing halflife so i got a voodoo cooler from 3dfxcool and it worked so well that i tried to overclock it and it works cool to the touch at 105 core 125 mem fine so i would suggest a voodoo cooler it runs at 27.50 shipping included.

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The Rifter

 

[DonRay]

If Windows is not locked up when you're returned to the desktop, you've probably got a program problem. If Windows HAS locked up and you haven't overclocked your TNT then you might want to try increasing the voltage to the Celeron. Try increasing it to the next setting and try playing the game again.

When I've over clocked my TNT beyond it's limits the whole system locks up and I have to reboot. And you don't have to worry about the heat as much if you're not overclocking the video card itself. The TNT feels very hot to the touch under normal operating conditions.

 

[Geoff]

The game suddenly quitting to the desktop is not a symptom of video card overheating. If your video card overheats, the screen gets scrambled and the computer locks up. Sounds to me like the Celeron is not quite stable.

Celeron 450 + TNT in one system, that thing must be hot.... try running it with the case off (and maybe aim a desk fan at it just to check things out). if the game doesn't quit then you've got a heat problem.

Donray got it pretty much spot on with his post. It's not the video card at fault anyway. Video cards just do what the CPU tells them to. If the video card locks, it can lock the rest of the computer but that's about it. There's no way for a video card to kill your game and send you back to windows and have windows work ok.

BTW I reckon TNTs get too hot anyway... i added a fan to mine even though I don't overclock it, just to be on the safe side.

 

[collinj]

I had the EXACT same prob with Caesar3 on my Celeron 450 and CL TNT. Upping the voltage of the celeron 1 step fixed it. I think that prog caused it (all my 3d games ran fine) because the CPU will be working harder in that game than in something like Quake2 when your vid card is the bottleneck, and the CPU is not having to work as hard because it soo far ahead of the vid card. Since a game like Caesar3 is very CPU integer intensive with so much happening at any time, and it is not being bottlenecked by the vid card, and allowing full use of the CPU.

Like the other guys are saying, its not a sign of vid card overheating, its your Celeron that is not stable. Up the voltage to the next increment, and it should be fine.

 

[rar124]

Thanx guys for the advice, i will try what u guys said. Anyways if u have any more advice just drop me a note...thanx again

 

[Geoff]

Yeah um actually something just jumped out of the far reaches of my mind. The problem with stability tests to see if an overclocked processor is stable really don't fully test the CPU, because they only execute a small range of instructions over and over. To check for stability you really need to work ALL the instructions and make sure they give the right answers. Most times the biggest workout happens in games because so much needs to be calculated. This could behave like you described in that an error occurs and the game thinks "whoops better bail out" and windows will still work because it doesn't use the instruction that isn't stable.

 

[Geoff]

One more comment that Eccentric or whatever his name is will like... a good stability test is compiling a kernel under linux. On our old computer it always quit with an error once or twice (AMD 5x86 133 overclocked to 150 and it was running below rated voltage I think... my motherboard didn't have the right one for it). But then if I tried again it kept on going. Windows was stable though.

Since then I upped the voltage on that computer by about 0.7V (smallest increase I could give it believe it or not). It still runs just as cool but it should be more stable now. At any rate it's an old POS so when it dies I'll just replace it with another cheap but probably slightly faster POS