Overheating in x850XL...how to fix

[Ecks]

Well I recently bought 2 Saphire x850XL's (for two seperate comps). But I am having overheating problems, temps over 80C. I did some research found that the fan ratios from stock are off. So I have ATItools to fix it but not sure what vales to assign and hpw to apply it so that on every restart the values will be used. Please help! I very new to this so some coaching my be required. Thanks for all you help, I know that this is a relativly easy fix but I just want to do it right.

Thanks,
Ecks

 

[dduummyy]

ok i got the same card i put in 30c/10%-35c/20%-40c/30%-45c/40%-50c/50%-55c/60%-60c/80%-70c/100%

it never really goes over 60C in my case (3 80mm pulling through my radiator on top of my pc and 2 in the rear coming in and 1 in the front coming in giving it plenty of fresh air.you need the startup dropdown and select registry key for it to str\artup with windows

 

[Juggernaut1987]

Or load the bios from the card. Edit the bios with the appropriate settings for the fan. Flash it back to the card. That way you wont need atitool. The card will do it itself.

If you really want better cooling and lower noise buy a Zalman VF700 or a ATi Silencer, but thats not what you asked

 

[dduummyy]

thanks juggernaut i didnt know you could edit the bios, i was looking also at coolers, this one is sweet too. VF900 http://www.pro-clockers.com/article.php?id=118&page=1

 

[trog100]

buy a pair of artic coolers not the accelero ones the ones before them.. your problems will be instantly solved and very quietly..

trog

 

[i_am_mustang_man]

i second the words for an ati silencer. they are awesome!

 

[Juggernaut1987]

I would go for the VF700 and if you can afford it, the VF900.

 

[Ecks]

Flashing the bios would be better but I have no idea how to do it. I very new to that kind of stuff. If some one can give me step by step that would be great!!! ( I dont like to play with the bios, especially when i dont know what im doing, I may bugger it all up and the card will be screwed!)

If some one can help me with that it would be great!

 

[Brenda]

I'd love some tips on flashing the bios too -- I replaced the stock cooler on my Sapphire x850xt with the Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer 5 (Rev. 2), and it's helping, but I'd rather not be relying on ATItool to get my fan speeds right.

 

[DiGiTaLdAzE]

I posted today with the same problem--Saphire X850XT running too hot--over 80C under load.I would like to know exactly how to manually set fan speeds with ATI tool (which I downloaded today), or how ro access the card's bios and change fan settings there. In ATI tool I can see under 'Properties tab' a check box foer fan settings but it is not obvious how to proceed from there.Any detailed info on this would be much appreciated before I fry this card which is new.Thanks

 

[klingergary]

The ATI tool settings are very self explanatory .Experiment with it, you"ll figure it out.

 

[Brenda]

The ATITool wiki has a brief explanation on how to set fan speeds here. All I've done is set the fan to keep the card from exceeding 60 degrees centigrade.

 

[Juggernaut1987]

Ive send this in a PM:

Originally Posted by Juggernaut1987

Originally Posted by demonbrawn
I saw in a recent post where you set you could edit the bios of a video card in order to keep fan settings optimal w/out using ATITool? Could you send me a site that has a walkthrough of how to do this?

Get Rabit 2.1 here: http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/283

Get Atitool here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/259

Go into atitool, settings, misscelanius, save vga bios to file.

Now you have your VGA bios saved as a file on your desktop.

Start Rabit

Open the bios on your desktop

Go to features. enviroment monitor.

Here you see many different entry's

Select the top entry (which determines fan speed at 0 degrees, thus is the fan standard speed)

Then the second one which probably is 60. In the first box next to the selection box you will see the temp. In the second one the fan speed. Just make it closer to full speed which is 100%.

Do this for all temps you see in the selection box so that you think your card will be cool enough, save the bios, flash it to the card in dos.

Good luck!

 

[Juggernaut1987]

And here a quick flash guide:

Read this to know what you are about to do: http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/100

Create a bootfloppy with modified flashrom on it.
Boot with the floppy. In the dos command prompt enter this:

flashrom.exe

flashrom.exe -s 0 backup.bin (modified flashrom backups your stock bios on the floppy as backup.bin)

flashrom.exe -f -p 0 (new bios name).(new bios extension, bin or rom)

You will hear a tune.

Reboot to windows

Re-install the latest catalyst just to be shure.

Done!

 

[DiGiTaLdAzE]

Many thanks to all for the helpful info on ATI tool fan settings, and working with the card's BIOS settings.Last night I figured out how to set fan speeds in ATI tool and as an experiment put it at 100%--my card under load dropped from 83C or even higher to a max of 68C--problem solved!!Also, it appears that prior to this the fan was never going at much more than 4%--thats what ATI tool read while at desktop, and although I didn't check a reading under load, the fan never sounded any louder while gaming--no wonder it was overheating!!Why is no info provided with new cards on this issue in the manual?Consumers should not have to spend hours of research to find a solution and possibly damage their card in the meantime--I think either Saphire or ATI or both could be doing a better job on this.Thanks again to all who posted on this situation--I got better info here than from ATI Tech Support.

 

[Juggernaut1987]

I hope you edited the bios to let the card handle the speed itself rather then relying on atitool to do that for you