Whats My 9800 XT's problem ?

im having a crappy problem with my ATi 9800 XT.when ever i play a high graphical game like far cry,doom 3,half life 2,joint operations, or any steam source based game,about 1-2 hours into either of the above games ,my screen freezes,the screen goes into a stand by mode/meaning off. NOTE : i have tried all these games on low settings and high,same thing happens.i have updated everything from chipset drivers,cats 5.2,audio drivers,and i have windows xp SP2. im not sure but i personaly think that radeon 9800 XT's run hot,so if you think thats it too ,should i get a new cooler for the card and some artic silver 5 ? and i know i have good cooling for the CPU,RAM,and case.

Yes, The 9800xt run hotter than any card I know of. The memory gets very hot and the stock cooler does not work that well. I would look into an extreme cooling solution. More so if you overclock it.

i dont want to overclock it yet.i just wanna know what kinda cooler should i get then ?

You should seriously concider watercooling this card but there are some agrissive aircoolers available as well. This thread has some pics of my 9800xt cooler.

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=365956&highlight=exos

The Zalman heatpipe is a good air cooled soloution. What ever you choose try to get one tht cools both sides of the card because of the memory chips on the back.

I have a VGA silencer on mine and it works great. Cool and quiet and it's overclocked to the numbers in my sig. The RAM uses some plain old OCZ BGA RAM sinks.

Woa, hold on a second here.

If you are not overclocking your card, and have not ever overclocked your card, and you are having problems with your expensive video card, you do NOT want to go and void your video card's warranty, which is what will happen the second that you remove the stock cooler on the card.

If this problem persists, get in touch with ATi about it. Contact them, and explain your problem - your warranty covers a video card that does not work properly.

For all we know, there is something seriously wrong with the card, a flaw covered by your warranty. If you void that warranty, and the problem persists, you're out of luck, and stuck with a very expensive bad part.


If you want to try improving the card's cooling, leave the card itself alone. Instead, start by improving your case airflow. An 80mm intake fan, and an 80mm exhaust fan will improve airflow signifigantly, and may alleviate your problem if it is heat related.

I very strongly reccomend that you do NOT alter your video card in any way (including overclocking), untill you resolve this problem.



It is very important to always make sure that all of your hardware is fully functional, before modifying it or overclocking it. The first three days, running a new system build, or part, at 100% stock settings, has saved me a lot of misery and money in the past.

Although many overclockers view warranty services with contempt, warranties exist for a good reason - sometimes you simply get unlucky, and end up with a bad part.

The Games you mentioned (far cry,doom 3,half life 2) are some of, if not "The" most graphically intensive game out. 2 Hours of playing any of these games will tax even the best video card. The freezing you mentioned is a symptom of the card getting hot and protecting itself. If this is the only problem your having try using ATItool to display the card temp and monitor it ether while playing of use a test program such as "Real-Time High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting" rthdribl v.1.2 (DirectX9) If you see the card temp rising past 70c, then your cooling is not sufficient. And yes it is a good idea to call the tech support and explain your findings before voiding your warranty.

I have the ATI silencer3 fan on mine. Im clocked at core 451 and mem at 383. Idles at 52c and loads at about 61c ( mostly at 58c though).

Dude its a freeking 9800XT...it has temp monitoring...use it and report back the temps!!! And felius is right, DO NOT touch ur card, the last thing u wanna do is void the card w/ out getting a sure answer

ok right now ati tool version 23 is showing me its at 67° idle,and i havnt even played a game yet ,yet alone i just turned my pc on 1 hour ago.i know my case has good airflow i have 5x 80mm fans.i mean before i owned a 9800 XT i had a 9800 Pro and i had no problems,and after i would finish game i would check my CPU & RAM temps ,and they would be ,and still are always around 35° ram full load,44° CPU full load using air cooling and artic silver 5 for the CPU.

67°? Damn thats hot for a card thats not even overclocked yet! It might be a faulty contact with the card and its cooler/heatsink. The best option is to contact ATI