Desktop's... had a stroke?

[SckizoBoy]

Hi all,

So, I'm not entirely sure what's wrong with my PC, but I think it's because the GPU's overheated, and it being an ATI Radeon HD4850, apparently, the auto-fan control isn't particularly good. This is based on what happened earlier this week:

Was spending Monday evening just watching anime and went to play some CS offline (yes, I know, how sad), since this particular PC has never been connected to the internet. Then, it chokes out (green/purple pixelated squares appear in neat, but rather blinding patterns), PC forcibly shuts down. I think... oh, overworked? *shrug* Let it shut down and returned to it Tuesday after work. Huh, not happy, can't seem to do anything so turned on in safemode and transferred a few bits and pieces in case it was truly fucked. Tried playing a random video in safemode and it played it fine (no sound) and flipped the image, but the graphics were back. Seemed alright yesterday... but today... choked again. It was on for two hours and I played a couple videos only.

Since it's the weekend soon, I'll be cracking it open just to check everything's OK with the unit but you reckon anything I should look out for? Recommendations to what to do next? Any ideas as to what's wrong?

Tks v much...

Rgds,

A technophobe.

 

[Antari]

Graphics cards coughing up purple blops usually means driver issue. Did you update your video player recently and not your graphics drivers?

 

[SnowyGamester]

Since your computer forcibly shut down I want to say hardware problem. As said previously, could also be a driver issue. If it bsodded that's definitely in the realm of possibility. Update to the latest drivers, uninstalling the previous ones and rolling back to the generic drivers beforehand (that should make sure you completely default any broken settings). If you open it up, clean up any dust in there (ideally with some form of compressed air), as it can cause overheating, especially when there's enough to stop a fan from spinning (yeah, that actually happens, it's freaking ridiculous). If all that fails something may be faulted.

 

[SckizoBoy]

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Thanks for the feedback... will need to have a look inside the tower just to see everything's OK.

Went through Catalyst Control Centre and the idle temp is 45 C, which, judging from [user]Luca72[/user]'s thread, is on the warm side...

Forgot to mention, though, that the GPU is almost four years old and hasn't really been given much of a rest...

 

[SnowyGamester]

Well considering that I'd say you've had a pretty good run. Maybe it's about time for an upgrade.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Well considering that I'd say you've had a pretty good run. Maybe it's about time for an upgrade.

Yeah... only just struck me the other day how old it is now... ended up browsing for a new(-ish) mid-range card.

However, and sorry if this is a dumb question and I hesitate to ask, but is there any chance it's a CPU fault?

 

[SnowyGamester]

I highly doubt it.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Yeah... looks like... did a diagnostics... thing, and the CPUs worked fine. Well, here's to a new graphics card... Radeon HD7750 on the cheap which will serve well enough until I get a new rig.