What can I use to measure GPU temperature?

[thebski]

I just installed a new SeaSonic 850W power supply and a BFG Tech GTX 275 OCX in my computer. I fired it up and everything was fine, and it seemed to be fine. I downloaded a John Deere farm game demo just to try it out, and I played for about 10 minutes (maybe a little less) and the screen froze. The first thing I thought of was that the card was overheating, but that game shouldn't even make that card break a sweat. So I opened the side of my case and blew a fan on the whole mobo and it worked fine. After a while I took the fan off and within a few minutes it locked up again.

Anyone have any ideas? This game shouldn't even make this card work at all. I'm thinking about going and picking up Crysis to try and really make it work and see if it's the game, or the card. I'm pretty new at this tech stuff, so I'm trying to learn as I go. Any help is appreciated.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I like evga presision myself

 

[thebski]

Don't you have to have an EVGA graphics card for that?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

No, you can just sign up. Do you have nVidia monitor? Thatll give temps as well. Make sure the fans running also, and the card itself could be hampered in some way, of the fan, sometimes stickers fall off

 

[frozenlead]

I like Everest. It will do a lot more than GPU temps, too.

 

[thebski]

Alright guys. I got the EVGA Precision. I'm installing the original Far Cry, and I'll see what the temps do. It didn't sound to me like the fan ever sped up. Could the fan controller be bad? I shouldn't be jumping to conclusions. I'll play around and see what happens. Thanks guys.

 

[thebski]

Well it locked up at 79 degrees C. I never heard the fan even speed up. Anybody have any ideas? Far Cry shouldn't work a GTX 275 that hard.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

79 is fine.
could be ram, cpu heat, try downloading everest, itll also give voltage.
Lastly it could be drivers too, check that cpu temp

 

[shubham1401]

HWMonitor and Realtemp works the best for measuring CPU temps.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Thats true, those are better. If the OP is spiking out, itll show up

 

[thebski]

Alright, I'm not sure what the deal is. I played for a while. I let the GPU temp climb to 76 and the fan speed had still not turned up. I turned the fan up to 75% using EVGA Precision and it cooled right down to like 66 or 67. I alt tabbed back out of Far Cry to EVGA Precision running on my second monitor to change the fan speed back to 40 and auto (like I had originally found it) and when I went back to far cry the game chopped for 20 -30 seconds and finally froze. CPU temp was 63 and GPU temp was 67.

I'll go ahead and give a system run down.

P4 630 Prescott 3.0 GHz Processor
BFG Tech GTX 275 OCX Graphics Card
4GB GeiL DDR2 DDR533 RAM
ABIT AL8 Intel 945P Mobo
SeaSonic M12D 850W Power Supply
Maxtor 80 and 160 GB HDD
Windows XP Pro 32-bit

I know the rest of the system is old. I built it back in the summer of 2005 before I went to college. I built it with the intention of letting me play some games, but mainly getting me through college. It's done that as I graduate in December. I bought the power supply and GTX 275 because I wanted to run dual displays. For my second (now primary) display I recently bought a Samsung 23" 1080P monitor. The reason I bought a higher end card and big power supply is because I'm going to build an i7 rig here a few months. That's my graduation treat to myself, haha.

Maybe it could be that the rest of my system is just too old, but it doesn't show up until things start to heat up. I really think the issue is heat related because I can sit here and surf the net all day long. What should I try next other than getting the i7 and everything else on the way? I need to get it figured out because I'd like to get my rebate coming for the graphics card and power supply, but if there is a problem with either one of them then I need to get that straightened out first. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[thebski]

Oh, and it's all in an Antec P160 case. I think that's part of the problem. It's a nice looking case, but there's only one exhaust fan in the back. I had another intake fan in the front, but had to unplug it because of the GTX card. I'm going to get a Cooler Master HAF 932 for my new computer, but as I said that won't be for a few months.

 

[Helloworld_98]

you put a 275 with a P4?

seriously, get a new CPU, mobo and ram along with an antec 300 or something.

then it'll bring you upto speed.

 

[shubham1401]

Your CPU is definitely overheating.
63c for a CPU is not normal.

 

[thebski]

I know the rest of my system is outdated, and that will soon change. I bought the 275 because I wanted to run dual displays, and since I'm going to be building an i7 rig here in a few months I just bought the card that I was gonna put in that so I didn't have to buy another one. I may buy another one, but it will be for SLI.

Any feedback on the Cooler Master HAF 932 case? It's a sweet looking case and is loaded with HUGE fans. I know my case is part of the problem because when I remove the side panel the idle GPU temp drops from 62 to 55. That's a pretty good sign of serious air flow issues. The 275 in the THG review idled at 55, so that's probably normal. What is a normal operating range for a CPU? I didn't even think about the fact that running Far Cry on max settings wouldn't touch the video card but would work the piss out of the CPU.

As I was writing this response my computer just automatically restarted. I'm sure that's got something to do with the issues. The computer was fine before I changed the PSU and Video Card. It was doing auto reboots one other time, but I reformatted it and have never had a problem since.

The fan issue on the video card still puzzles me. The fan never did speed up even as high as 79 degrees. How hot does it get before the fan speeds up? Thanks a lot for your help guys.