Graphics card overheating

[squatter]

After a few minutes of play, WAR overheats my graphics card and forces a system shutdown. It's a pretty powerful card, and no other game does this to it.

I noticed someone else had this issue - my fans function fine. Did anyone have a solution?

[Tejszd]

Are you over clocking your card?

[e_barkmann]

I'd be surprised if it was heat; the 10 yr old graphics engine wouldn't be nearly as demanding as some of the more recent 3D games.

cheers

[Erik Rutins]

Squatter,

We haven't noticed any unusual heat issues or system stress when running CCWAR on our test systems. Are you sure nothing has gone wrong on your system?

Regards,

- Erik

[squatter]

I'm not overclocking my card - and as I say, I can run a modern FPS with no heat problems.

There appear to be no other problems with my system at all, in fact.

When I play CCWAR - and only when I play CCWAR, not any other game or program - the graphics fan starts going mental, making tons of noise, even when you're just looking at the strategic map! Then, after a few minutes of play, the computer just reboots, or crashes to the desktop. When I check the temperature of the graphics chip directly after, it's abnormally high, around 90.

I know this sounds like the fault of the system and not the game, but as I say, it only happens with WAR, and happens EVERY TIME I try to play. Someone else has reported the exact same problem, so I suspect it is something in the code of the game, however obscure.

No other CC game gives me this problem, btw.

[Erik Rutins]

When CC: WAR is running on your system, if you use Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the Process Monitor, what kind of CPU usage are you seeing?

[Andrew Williams]

What graphics card do you have?

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: squatter

When I play CCWAR - and only when I play CCWAR, not any other game or program - the graphics fan starts going mental, making tons of noise, even when you're just looking at the strategic map!

......I know this sounds like the fault of the system and not the game, but as I say, it only happens with WAR, and happens EVERY TIME I try to play. Someone else has reported the exact same problem, so I suspect it is something in the code of the game, however obscure.

No other CC game gives me this problem, btw.

Btw, today's GPUs can stand temperatures of around 105-110° Celsius, but perm temperatures of let's 90 or 95 degrees will already shorten the GPU's life, as that level of temp puts mechanical stress (like we say) on the chip.

Anyway, my video card does exactly the same thing, and it ONLY happens when playing CC WaR !!!.
First, I thought it was my CPU fan ... I enabled the temperature management feature of my mainboard (MSI), which is set to keep a temp of 50° Celsius, but this is a 120mm fan that never exceeds 4000-5000 RPM, as it delivers an outstanding performance at way lower speeds already.
So i opened the case and figured that it's the video card's fan, spinning with max speed, i guess, when it goes mental. I haven't checked the temperature yet, but, according to the noise, I'd say it spins with at least 6500 RPM - or even more. It sounds like the tiny CPU fan i had in my old AMD 1.7 rig, which used to spin with 7500 rpm, sounding like a jet engine, lol.

My NVIDIA card starts to go mental if I scroll the map excessively, or if many units start moving at the same time.

I wonder: CC WaR's video options menu offers various screen resolutions, but all are 16-Bit @ 60 Hz, where the low refresh rate is really disturbing on my CRT, I'm used to refresh rates of at least 85 Hz.
Many new video cards don't like 16-Bit modes, and especially NVIDIA cards have a way lower performance in 16-Bit modes, so this might be the reason for the card's fan going mental, as the GPU is really under pressure - trying to deliver performance in 16-Bit mode.

Is this game a pure 16-Bit thing? Is there a chance to up the Refresh rate, at least?
Also, after playing CC WaR, my desktop color depth is often set to 16-Bit (although i always use 32-Bit color mode.) When I tried to start an FPS game, the game came up with a warning msg saying the game won't run in 16Bit mode and flipped back to the desktop, that's how i figured that the color mode had been changed.

I hate to say it, but it must be CC WaR, as it's the ONLY game that makes my GPU fan go mental and it's the only game program that tinkers with my desktop settings.

I'm using an NVIDIA 7600 GT 256 MB, not the newest one, i know, but it runs games that are packed with high res graphics/FX (like Brothers in Arms etc), just fine.

So, what's going on here?

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

When CC: WAR is running on your system, if you use Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the Process Monitor, what kind of CPU usage are you seeing?

Checking right now, I see 100% cpu usage, but it's the GPU fan going mental, not the CPU fan... and if i switch to the task manager/desktop, the cpu usage goes to 0, and 100 again if i go back to CC.... Well, usually, with 100% it would take a while to switch back and forth, but I can switch without any problem, i could even start other games or programs with CC running in the background, the system is totally responsive and it still has plenty of power/resources, so the game switches to PAUSE mode obviously, once i use alt-tab.

I'll open my case again tomorrow, to double-check if it's really the GPU fan.

[Andrew Williams]

I have the exact same card and have no problems.

I also have it running on a PC with GeForce4 card.

It doesn't reset my desktop settings to 16bit and doesn't run hot on either system.

So we're trying to figure out if the re is a commom cause for the couple of people that have reported this.


my card
---------------
Display Devices
---------------
        Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS
     Manufacturer: NVIDIA
        Chip type: GeForce 7800 GS
         DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
       Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_00F5&SUBSYS_2A37107D&REV_A2
   Display Memory: 256.0 MB
     Current Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (70Hz)
          Monitor: Default Monitor
  Monitor Max Res:
      Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
   Driver Version: 6.14.0011.7519 (English)
      DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
 Driver Date/Size: 5/16/2008 15:01:00, 6108928 bytes

[GoodGuy]

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 7600 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0391&SUBSYS_033D10DE&REV_A1
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (85Hz)
Monitor: EIZO F56
Monitor Max Res: 1920,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.7813 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 9/17/2008 08:55:00, 6057472 bytes

I mixed up GT and GS... i got a GT [:D].
5 seconds after closing CC, the fan stops going mental, usually. It could be the 16Bit mode, some cards/systems really hate that.
Also, your GPU fan/cooling system might be better, many 7600 GT/GS cards are using the NIVIDIA's reference layout/design, so they are using tiny fan/heatsink combos, where the fans use to be employed at higher speeds.

You might have a "tweaked" card with a better cooling solution and you might have a bigger or less noisy fan, so you won't get to know. Check the temperature of your card (nvidia offers a performance/monitor tool which reads temp/speeds) and tell us what your card does. You may not hear your card going mental, but you might see a signifant change regarding temperature.

Last but not least, recent NVIDIA drivers (i noticed that your driver is older than mine) may not fully support 16-Bit modes anymore, as they are optimized for 32-Bit-color applications. With the appearance of the first GeForce card, Nvidia cards only delivered full performance when employed in 32Bit mode, performance in 16 Bit benchmarks is often at 60% (or less) of the 32-Bit performance.

[squadleader_id]

Hmm...I didn't have any reboot problems...but after reading this I decided to check my GPU temp when playing WAR.
Same overheating results here...reaches up to 90 degrees after about 2-3 minutes of WAR...that's not good [:-]
Out of curiosity I did the same test with CC4 and CC5...with both games my GPU temp only rises slightly (65 degrees, idle temp is about 60-61 deg).
CPU load for WAR is also unusually high.

90 degrees is a lot of load on the GPU...something that high-end games like Crysis or Company of Heroes would put on GPUs...but a 2D game like WAR?
I play WAR at 1280x1024 on a 20" LCD ('cause I like to see the little details)...maybe playing at higher res causes higher GPU load and more overheating? CC4-CC5 had issues with tactical map scroll speed on modern systems...but AFAIK no issue with GPU temp...you just had to disable direct-draw and live with using the arrow keys for scrolling.

How about people with ATI Cards? Any reports?


My System and GPU info (not overclocked):

System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 11/6/2008, 09:12:20
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: )Phoenix - Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.1GHz
Memory: 2560MB RAM
Page File: 427MB used, 5815MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.5512 32bit Unicode

Display Devices
---------------
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip type: GeForce 8600 GT
DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0402&SUBSYS_40161682&REV_A1
Display Memory: 256.0 MB
Current Mode: 1400 x 1050 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0011.7824 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 10/7/2008 13:33:00, 6058112 bytes

[Andrew Williams]

I'm running some tests on my 7800 GS

Cc is playing constantly and I'm running the teams back and forwards across the map.

The temp has crept up to 54 deg C.

I'll keep at it for an hour or so.

[Andrew Williams]

After playing for around 35 minutes

The temperature settled down

Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

GeForce 7800 GS hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0    49°C (120°F) [0x31] (GPU Core)


Will still keep monitoring

[GoodGuy]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Williams

After playing for around 35 minutes

The temperature settled down

Hardware monitor
-----------------------------------------------------

GeForce 7800 GS hardware monitor

Temperature sensor 0    49°C (120°F) [0x31] (GPU Core)


Will still keep monitoring

Could you install NVIDIA reference drivers 78.xx ?
Your driver is an earlier version (75.x), so if you'd run the same test with version 78.x - without ending up with overheating, we could rule out a possible issue caused by these particular ref drivers, at least. Get either Squadleader's 78.24 or the version I am using. Thanks.

[Andrew Williams]

Installed the Driver Version: 6.14.0011.7824 (English)

again crept up to 54 and then settled back to 51

[GoodGuy]

I just installed the NVIDIA MCP package (control panel).

NIVIDIA's performance monitor displays 99% GPU usage and 103° Celsius when running CC WaR.
Sorry, but this isn't normal, it must be the program code, as a 2D-environment usually doesn't put such a heavy load on the video card.

I have a 2D-MMORPG game, it runs in 16-Bit-color mode too, the GPU fan NEVER spins up when I play that one.

I just tested a few 3D games, BiA, FarCry2.
The temp stays at around 80-85° (which is ok) when playing these games, the GPU load stays at around 82% - 88% and the gpu fan's sound just blends in with the sound of the other fans.
The fan only spins up when a directX/3D game is being launched, for a few seconds, but that's it.

With CC WaR, the fan goes mental... sure, 103° Celsius is like 2-7 degrees below the max limit, it's pretty close to the "boiling point" where a card would either die or take damage.
A 2D-game running at 1024*768 (that's the res i am using on my CRT) is really some piece-of-cake-deal for a 7600 GT, the GPU should be bored and yawning, really [:D].

I'm not going to play CC WaR anymore until you guys tell me what's going on. I'm not going to risk my video card just for a (10 yrs old) 2D-Game.

[Andrew Williams]

hmmmm...

I wonder why my three PC's aren't running hot?

I'll get the tecchies to take a look though

[squadleader_id]

I'll test WAR on my daughter's PC (NVidia 7300GT) and get back to you with a report after the weekend.
Hopefully it's just specific to 7600GT (and 8600GT) and maybe driver incompatibilities...I hope this will be resolved soon so we can get a patch.

[ANZAC_Tack]

tested mine today. had WaR with patch 2 days...
 
Nvidia G 9900 512 meg $210 aud.
 
temp priour to playing 50c
temp at end of 2 games 51c.
 
fan set to variable speed. with Vtune manager.