Radeon HD 4850 85*C idle, 110*C under load.

The_Absolute

I have a Gateway gaming desktop, and whenever I play a game, the temperature shoots up from it's 85 degrees Celsius idle, to past 110 degrees Celsius under load. With the fan speed running 100% which is loud enough to hear it from several rooms away. Is my card faulty? Should I send it back to the manufacturer and ask them to send me another one? It's using it's stock air cooler, and it is running on all stock clock speeds. It has not been overclocked in any way.

Eventually, the card will burn itself out and stop working, and I'll have to get a new one. People have been telling me to "RMA" my card because it could be faulty. What does that mean?

whs

110 seems a bit hot, but 4850s are known to run fairly hot. What brand is it? Have you read the manual? It should say in the specs the safe operating temperatures, if your temps are within the safe range, then its no problem.

RMA means to return the card from where you got it, they check it out and either send you a new one or what not. Most people see high temps and immediately think somethings wrong, but check the spec sheet on your card first. The engineers design these things to operate at high temps.

whs

Also what are you using to record these temperatures? Different programs can give different temperatures.

The_Absolute

The ATI Catalyst control center. The GPU temperature, fan speed, and activity level are displayed there. GPU-Z also reads the same temps.

whs

Ok, so what is the safe operating temperature of your card.

These 'people' you speak of obviously know this already, that is why they are telling you to send it back. (Note: I wouldn't trust these people)

kote

To return a part you first need an RMA. What that means is you call up tech support and if they determine you need a new card they'll give you an RMA number and shipping information. You don't just send it back by yourself - tech support does their thing first. The actual acronym means "Return Material Authorization."

I'd just call them up instead of playing around with it and get an answer from the source. Sometimes you can find a work around or a fix online that they don't know about, but the company obviously doesn't want to send you a new card if it doesn't have to. It could also be a known issue with certain cards or drivers or whatever. They could have a fix for you in a few minutes. Just call tech support .

The_Absolute

I was thinking of buying a new soundcard. Since the PCIe 1x slot is directly underneath the HD 4850 GPU, I was afraid that it would either not fit, or would get fried by the enormous heat produced by my HD 4850. Is this a good idea?

kote

It's possible it wouldn't fit, but there are ATX specifications that your graphics card manufacturer will probably want to adhere to to make sure things would fit. Often when graphics cards have 2 GPUs on them they will take up 2 full slots, but you can check this easily by looking at the back of your case and seeing if it takes 1 slot or two. I would be worried more about airflow to the GPU being impaired and it heating up even more. The sound card will probably be fine if it fits.

whs

Have you any clue about what brand OR safe operating temp of your card?

I'm thinking you gave up on this simple endeavor.

hamster143

I strongly suspect that it's really 85 F and 110 F. If that's the case, there's nothing to worry about. It would be fairly incredible for the video chip to heat up to 85 C (185 F) when idle, unless the cooler was poorly attached or malfunctioning... and the chip wouldn't last long at that temperature.

Equate

It's degrees C allright. 4850s are known for high temps: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...0,1957-22.html

What you can do:

- get a case with better air flow,

- install an after market heatsink.

Good news is I have never heard of a 4850 burning up, they seem to like the heat. They should be good to 120 C.