Video Card Overheating?

[Mabubeezareel]

I've been using a Sapphire Radeon 4850 for the past 9 months, OCed from 500/750 to 625/995 with my fan speed set to 55%. This configuration has been great for me, but in the past month or so, I notice that while playing WoW and being in certain areas, the fan will kick up full throttle for a bit then return to its normal setting. This goes on/off until I go to another zone (likely one that has much less graphical detail being rendered). When that happens and I check the GPU temp, I see that it's running around 100C. Last night when it occurred, it was up to 106C.

I realize that this feature is meant to prevent the card from overheating, but should I be concerned that it's getting that hot to begin with? Think I may need to reseat the heatsink and fan, or look for an aftermarket cooler? Poor case ventilation maybe (Antec 900)?

[Olo401]

That's hot even for a GPU.. you should ABSOLUTELY be concerned. Tune down the card to the default clocks until you can figure out the problem.

I'd suggest replacing the factory-applied thermal transfer crap with some good quality paste - Arctic Silver's #5 or Arctic Cooling MX-2 are the best ones on the market at the moment. I'm also testing out a free sample of Innovative Cooling's Diamond 7 paste (once it arrives) but from what I hear it's better than AS5 or ACMX2, at least for CPUs..

BTW the Antec 900's one of the better designed cases for ventilation on the market.. you've got what two intake 12cm fans up front, a 12cm exhaust in back and 14cm exhaust on top?

[Kiehl]

I also have a 4850 and the bastard always runs hot when I play BF2142. 660/1085 are my settings. Have had it for about 6 months. I had to take the side cover off my tower just to keep it under 90C. I tend to keep my fan at 70% or so when I'm gaming, auto control when I'm not. I still get some weird graphic hiccups if I play for more than 3 hours.