Video card making things too hot?

[crash116]

I have an older PC I bought to play older PC games (a 2005 Dell Dimension 5100c). It is a small form factor so things are a bit squeezed close together. It has Pentium 4 521 2.8 GHz (775). And today I just got an AMD Radeon 7000 Series (7470) low profile 1GB video card, replacing the 128MB Ati Radeon X600 SE it came with. I just wanted more video memory. But I felt the PC while running after installing drivers and noticed it was unusually hot (older Radeon never did this). I turned it off, checked everything, and the video card was pretty hot (it has a fan and it runs fine). What do you think is causing this? Could the card be blowing heat onto them? Could it be too much video memory for the CPU or computer to handle? Should I try upgrading the P4 to max 3.4 CPU or go lower on the card? (Edit: I lowered the clock settings in Catalyst to lowest and it gets up to 63-65 degrees. Is this still bad?)

 

[clarkjd]

I have an older PC I bought to play older PC games (a 2005 Dell Dimension 5100c). It is a small form factor so things are a bit squeezed close together. It has Pentium 4 521 2.8 GHz (775). And today I just got an AMD Radeon 7000 Series (7470) low profile 1GB video card, replacing the 128MB Ati Radeon X600 SE it came with. I just wanted more video memory. But I felt the PC while running after installing drivers and noticed it was unusually hot (older Radeon never did this). I turned it off, checked everything, and the video card was pretty hot (it has a fan and it runs fine). What do you think is causing this? Could the card be blowing heat onto them? Could it be too much video memory for the CPU or computer to handle? Should I try upgrading the P4 to max 3.4 CPU or go lower on the card? (Edit: I lowered the clock settings in Catalyst to lowest and it gets up to 63-65 degrees. Is this still bad?)

Well, neither card is what classifies as "power hungry". They both recommend a 300 watt PSU. What, exactly is getting to 63-65 degrees, the GPU or the CPU? Under load, anything below 70C for the CPU and 85C for the GPU is considered normal.
You can't have too much VRam for the CPU to handle. SFF cases are a bear to keep cool, as you just don't have enough airflow.

 

[smorizio]

if it the cpu that cooking try and repaste it. also keep the side case open and use a small fan if you need to keep the case cold. see if your pc can take more ram. 8g is what games need today to run smooth.

 

[crash116]

I have an older PC I bought to play older PC games (a 2005 Dell Dimension 5100c). It is a small form factor so things are a bit squeezed close together. It has Pentium 4 521 2.8 GHz (775). And today I just got an AMD Radeon 7000 Series (7470) low profile 1GB video card, replacing the 128MB Ati Radeon X600 SE it came with. I just wanted more video memory. But I felt the PC while running after installing drivers and noticed it was unusually hot (older Radeon never did this). I turned it off, checked everything, and the video card was pretty hot (it has a fan and it runs fine). What do you think is causing this? Could the card be blowing heat onto them? Could it be too much video memory for the CPU or computer to handle? Should I try upgrading the P4 to max 3.4 CPU or go lower on the card? (Edit: I lowered the clock settings in Catalyst to lowest and it gets up to 63-65 degrees. Is this still bad?)

Well, neither card is what classifies as "power hungry". They both recommend a 300 watt PSU. What, exactly is getting to 63-65 degrees, the GPU or the CPU? Under load, anything below 70C for the CPU and 85C for the GPU is considered normal.
You can't have too much VRam for the CPU to handle. SFF cases are a bear to keep cool, as you just don't have enough airflow.

It appears to be just the video card. At first, I thought everything was getting hot, but it's just the
Video card. It has one of those large dell heat vents too, and I'm having no problems otherwise, so . Here's some pictures of the assembly if it helps: http://imgur.com/gallery/UI7kyHt

 

[crash116]

if it the cpu that cooking try and repaste it. also keep the side case open and use a small fan if you need to keep the case cold. see if your pc can take more ram. 8g is what games need today to run smooth.

My PC supports up to 8GB but not onky is it running XP 32bit, but I have 1.5 GB and that'll be enough for the older games I'll be playing, which typically only require like 256MB minimum.

 

[clarkjd]

if it the cpu that cooking try and repaste it. also keep the side case open and use a small fan if you need to keep the case cold. see if your pc can take more ram. 8g is what games need today to run smooth.

My PC supports up to 8GB but not onky is it running XP 32bit, but I have 1.5 GB and that'll be enough for the older games I'll be playing, which typically only require like 256MB minimum.

Well, you certainly don't want to install XP 64 bit! It had terrible driver support!