Hi there,

I have recently been experiencing problems when playing half life 2, after around 5-10 minutes of playing my screen would either just freeze or the monitor would go into standby with the sound still looping, in both cases a manual restart was needed.

I have never had this problem before and have always played this game without any problems.


Someone suggested that perhaps I was experiencing overheating, so I opened up the side of the case and successfully played for over an hour.


While I had the case open I noticed that the fan on my graphics card was not spinning, so I removed my card to have a closer look.

The heatsink and fan were caked in dust, so I removed the fan (which is held on the heatsink by 3 small screws, and throughly cleaned both the heatsink and fan).

I than replaced the card and again played half life 2 for over a hour with the side of the case off, during this time the fan did not spin at all.

I then replaced the side of the case and played again and sure enough within 10 mins, my monitor appeared to go into standby mode and I had to manually reboot.

So it appears that the fan that sits within the heatsink of my graphics card is broken, so my question is can I get a replacement for this fan, that will just sit straight on/in the heatsink and if not, what else can I do to resolve this problem.

I have the following set up:

CPU Type Intel Pentium 4, 2600 MHz
Motherboard Name MSI MS-6701 (Medion OEM) (
Motherboard Chipset SiS 648
System Memory 512 MB (PC2700 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (01/24/03)
Windows XP

Video Adapter Properties:

Device Description MEDION RADEON 9600 TX
Adapter String MEDION RADEON 9600 TX
BIOS String BK-ATI VER008.004.008.004
Chip Type RADEON 9600 TX AGP (0x4E46)
DAC Type Internal DAC(400MHz)
Installed Drivers ati2dvag (6.14.10.6517 - ATI Catalyst 5.3)
Memory Size 128 MB


Temperatures:

Motherboard 35 °C (95 °F)
CPU 50 °C (122 °F)
HDD 45 °C (113 °F)


The fan has the following on it:

Sunon
Magnetic Levitation System
124010VM
14.ms.ct.57.m
DC12V - 1.0W
CH0304
ZP
CLE


Many thanks in advance for any help you may be able to offer me

It depends on the setup of the card. Some cards can just have the fan replaced with a 40mm fan, while other cards have the fan built into the heatsink, so thereby would need both a heatsink and fan. Also, different cards have different heatsink mounting holes, so that could complicate things a little.

If you just need a 40mm fan, here's one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999016
Same brand as your current one.

Here are some heatsink/fan combos that might work.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186114
^that says it's for 9600 series, so it should work.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811999472
^That's compatible with many cards, so it says.


If you replace the heatsink, you'll need to apply some thermal compound(just a tiny bit) like artic silver 5.

Another cheap option. If you don't feel like all the bother of replacing the heatsink, you could get a fan, like a regular 80mm case fan, and like zip tie it to the card, yeah, it's ghetto, but it might work.
Or you could position a fan to blow on the card from below the card, or on the case floor.

Or if you don't want to mess with anything you could get a new card.
Like this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814153012

Hi there I have the same problem I opened my pc case and removed the old fan on the graphic card (ati radeon 9600tx) and installed this one this one

But if I play a game the screen also goes to stand by mode

Please help me

Over 300 views and no responses? Tisk tisk.

Well PiM, er, upsidown "i" thing. It would seem that your problem could be just about every problem a PC can possibly have. lol
Double, triple, and quadruple check that your new heatsink/fan deal is properly installed on the GPU and is FLAT against the chip.
Double check the rest of the system is cool, touch the various heatsinks in the system and make sure they are not boiling.
Try taking the side cover off and putting a desk fan blowing on the insides.
Try updating your video card drivers, and other drivers for that matter.
Make sure Windows itself is all up to date.
Get the latest DirectX software installed.
Check the quality settings in HL and turn them all down to diag and see if it helps.
Go onto Steam's web site and do a search for "validate files" or something like that. There is a command you can type which will check all the game files that none are corrupt or missing. It's like a browser command. I can't think of it offhand.
Are you talking about HL1 or HL2? Source? Cause a 9600tx (or did you mean xt?) is just on the edge of being able to play HL2 (especially on upper settings).

Anyways, just to give you something to do And it wouldn't hurt to check for viruses and spyware while your at it. Close any background processes you don't need open while playing.

Good luck!

Hi I have checked the heatsink and it's installed properly, it is FLAT against the chip(I used artic silver 5). I opened the computer case (I took the side cover off) and the temp. is 40/43 degrees C' (checked with speedfan 4.27) when the computer is using 100%CPU the temp. is 50 degrees :hotbounce. If I play Rome:Total war even now the monitor goes to stand by

P.S. If the computer is standing in the desk the temp. is 60 degrees at 100%CPU use

Dawm I don't know what to do

Maybe I'll buy a Sapphire Ati Radeon X700 PRO AGP 8x TV-Out. DVI. 256 Mb
But will it get hot too??

60c is on the upper end of what people like to see, for sure. I assume you mean degrees of the CPU? Or you talking case temp or vid temp? If case, that is very hot! Also very hot for video, though the CPU can work alright, but that's pretty high.

What we really need to do is try to rule out hardware versus software problem. Although I'm leaning towards hardware at this point, mostly heat.

Another big thing you want to check is your power supply. If it is under-powered, things can heat up only because they are drawing more amps then the PS can output, which creates heat. Fans won't change this. Look at your PS and tell us the make and model, and all the numbers that are printed on it.
Note: If you buy a fancier video card, this should play the game better, but it will certainly draw more power then the old, and could potentially INCREASE your problem if the PS is at fault.

Also, the X700 Pro is pretty good, but for AGP I would try to get maybe the X800XT Platinum if you could, or XP Pro or whatever it is. I bought the X850XT PE and it rocks. All depends on your budget I guess. But the x800 would be better then x700, and the differences between 800 and 850 are not very big.

------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 11/27/2005, 13:11:13
Machine name: P!M
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 1 (2600.xpsp2.050301-1526)
Language: Dutch (Regional Setting: Dutch)
System Manufacturer: MEDIONPC
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz, ~2.6GHz
Memory: 512MB RAM
Page File: 238MB used, 1265MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.0001.0904 32bit Unicode

http://img495.imageshack.us/img495/1830/img08908pd.jpg
It's a picture of my PS

You could very well have an underpowered PS! It's only 250w.

Check out this thread:
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic37067-pg1.html&pp=20
Sharam spills the beans on some PS numbers. Read through that thread and you may learn something useful about your PS there.

If you can, I would try to buy a new PS (assuming you can find one to fit in your case, not sure what your form factor is), of at least 400 to 500watts versus your 250. I can't gaurantee that this is your problem, but it could very well be. So if anybody else wants to jump in and give an opinion, go right ahead.

But 1 year ago I played game's too but then I didn't have a single problem with my graphic card
How is it possible that now my PS sucks? could it be that the PS doesnt give enough amps?

It could very well be under-amped. Have you added/changed hardware since it was new a year ago? Anything upgraded or added will draw more power.

But also, power supplies DO just wear out and not output what they used to. They become weaker.

The only other way to rule out hardware/software would be to reload Windows. This way, you get all new drivers and updates, and then you'll know for sure if it was just a Windows bug in the game.
I assume you've reinstalled the game, if not you could try that.

Didn't mean to steal the thread Upya! Have you got your issue resolved?

I only installed a new fan for my graphic card but further I didn't do annything at all. I was planning to install Windows again to see if it's a bug in the software. But I am gonna do it in the vacation of christmas, so if the problem is fixed it's cool but if it's not I am gonna buy a new PS of 330W. and maybe a new graphic card as well. But will 330W be enough? :eek:

I installed windows xp again and the screen still turns on stand-by :unch:

Why not download service pack 2? Anything's worth a try....

Oh sorry I did download al the updates so. . . also service pack 2

Still having trouble? It's been a while!

Since you reloaded Windows and it still happens, we are certainly looking at a hardware problem.
If you can find a better, higher watt, power supply to test with, or just downright go get a good new one, do it.

Rule out the overheat issue, with the side cover off and blow a fan on it, create as much air flow as you can, make sure no heatsinks are to hot to touch.

And lastly, it could be your video card is just plain going bad, perhaps it overheated before you replaced the fan and did some damage? In any case, if it's not the PS and not overheating, you want to swap video cards next.

And it would hurt to run memtest86 on it for a few hours and see if there is any RAM errors.

good luck

I tested my RAM with memtest86 for about 13 hours and with 0 errors, so it's not the RAM what is broken. I tested my CPU with prime95
Also 0 errors so CPU works fine. I am gonna test with another videocard (a geforce 2) I know it's verry old and check if the screen still goes on stand-by
You will hear the result in a few days

Hi I bought a tagan 330w and played some 3d things but the screen still goes on stand-by but now it takes longer than before. First it took 5 min to go on stand-by, now it takes about 20 minutes. puke: on my pc.

Interresting. It is possible even a 330w may be to low. But that's a pretty big guess. Now that you have the other PS, can you also swap the video card?

maybe I can borrow a video card from someone. It think that will solve the problem because it worked fine for 2 years with the 250W PSU, and now it doesn't with 330W PSU that is strange don't you think? So I think it's the video card. And if i bought a new video card right away I had to buy a higher Watt PSU after all.

It is odd, but not impossible. The card can go bad, develop memory errors, perhaps overheating and messed up the logic circuits. Whatever the case, testing with a different PS is not a bad endeavor.

hope you find the answer soon!