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XPS 630i: 9800 GT getting hot (non-SLi)
Wasn't sure whether to post in the XPS forum or here, so will try here.
I play one game (EverQuest II) that doesn't have serious high end graphics, and been playing it since before buying a gaming machine. Bought the XPS 630i as it was sold as a gaming machine, and had adjustable intake fans, and the interior design looked like it could keep cool.
Using the EVGA Precision to spin up the video card fan to 100%, and have a gaming profile in the Nvidia Control Panel to spin up the fans to 75% (100% is too loud).
Been playing this one game before buying the XPS 630i, and since I had bought the machine back last October. It's been doing well up until recently. Figuring it may be a software issue, I rebuilt, and updated the system. The problem hasn't gone away.
The 9800 GT video card has been putting out some serious heat. In the back area of video card, where the tiny-square holed slot covers are, the thing is getting so hot that it feels like a heater is going off inside there, and there are minor dust particles near the clot covers. On normal (non-gaming) mode the card is staying at 64° C, with a board temperature of 58° C; this is just using the desktop and playing music.
When I am playing EverQuest II, video card fan at 100%, both hard drive cage and PCI slot fans at 75%, the normal temperature has been 74° C, board at 68° C.
Recently I started experiencing video issues when not in the game very long. Temperature readings were 89° C, with board at 79° C, and was getting some odd streaks in my video display.
This streak across my screen was getting quite annoying, and was hard to screen capture cause it would change with movement. Found this one spot that I was able to get a series of screen shots off on, to show what I was seeing.
So I call Dell Technical Support, and talked with a agent named Shawn. He told me to run diagnostics, which I did, and no errors came back. I also decided maybe I should tell him about a sound card noise that I have been experiencing every so often, thinking it may have something to do with the heat coming from the video card that's only 4 inches away.
Guess should of called, as I have been beating my head up against the wall repeating the same things over and over to him. He seems to think the above streaks are normal, and the card can get extremely hot and that's normal too. Wanted to know if I experience this issue when not playing the game.
Since I have not had issues other than the game, the fault must be with the game, since the diagnostics did not find an error.
His recommendation was to rebuild my OS (again) and try playing the game (again) to see if I got the same results, and if that should continue... the problem lies with the game. Not the 192° F / 89° C heat producing fan.
I don't seem to be able to get across to him about the card is producing mirage line effects, and then streaks across my screen, as that being an indicator that perhaps the video card isn't doing so well now. Since the Dell Diagnostics wouldn't produce the error on a much less stressful scenario, his only suggestion was for me to rebuild my OS (again) and try it (again).
Okay, why not just replace the video card, instead of making me rebuild the OS and spend the next two days sticking my software back in (minus the amount of licenses that would be used up by reinstalling)? I don't have the luxury to waste time rebuilding the OS on a whim of a tech support agent's beck and call.
Even tried playing in Windows 7, and had the same video issues at times. It's not happening a lot since I changed a slot cover with more air-flow slots in it, but still get the mirage lines and the sluggishness of the video. Shawn made me so mad of repeating myself four times explaining the heat issues that I had to hang up on him. He's the worse technical support agent I've talked with in the past 15 years of owning computers.
Guess technical support means coming to the forums here, or buying replacement hardware from reputable manufacturers. Sure can't get support from the technical support agents at Dell unless the diagnostics gives an error code. By the way, there is no sound card diagnostics in the Dell Diagnostics partition, nor the CD version. There is a PC Speaker test that plays through the attached speakers, that plays 8 tones, then asks the user if they heard them or not. That's the extent of the sound card diagnostics!
I thought the XPS line was supposed to have superior technical support. Instead I get some technical support representative telling me to rebuild my OS to fix a hardware issue... where do they get these people?
So how do I get real technical support on the video card, from Dell?
Note: I have an ongoing issue with Zune to recover 89 songs I lost licensing rights to due to rebuilding just the other day, that supposedly the agent is going over to maybe recover due to rebuilding the OS. Seems Zune thinks that rebuilding cause the licenses on the DRM songs to been used up, and Zune doesn't want to re-license the songs I bought over the past three years, even the ones I just bout lats month.
So when a lousy technician can only tell me to rebuild my OS to fix an failing video card just irks me!
Xelkos
213 Posts
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July 7th, 2009 13:00
I tried the Video Card Benchmark that Chris had posted.
Had a score of 542 fps, did the stability run and got into 3:12 before the rotation of the planet started skipping in rotation a lot, and the bottom globe was quite jittery. Had to kick in the gaming mode fans speeds as the video card reached 98° C very fast! The card was hovering around 70° C after the gaming-speed profiles were engaged onto the fans. Ran the benchmark immediately afterward and had a score of 312 fps.
Wouldn't think a program that is in windowed mode would ramp up the video card's heat issue quite so fast.
Need to talk to a real technical support agent on the video card heat issue, and if the card is going bad after owning the system for 7 months. I paid for full coverage warranty/support, I sort of expect something more that someone tells me to rebuild my computer, like real help.
DELL-Chris M
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July 8th, 2009 08:00
Does the same issue occur with the video card in the other PCI-Express x16 slot?
Xelkos
213 Posts
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July 8th, 2009 10:00
Hmm, didn't know I could run the single video card in the other PCIe slot.
If it's going to put out as much heat, it's going to bake the sound card or the *USB expansion card, with no ventilation slot between them. (* Needed two more USB ports than I didn't have to run an external backup drive and an uninterruptable power supply communications cable.)
Just hated to be told to rebuild the OS just to fix a video card issue. Will give it a go, just not had the time to do much in the past week. Thanks for the help, will get back to you. ;)
The 630 machines are x8 slots.
(Although was initially sold as single being x16, SLi was x8 . Wasn't till much later, after my purchase, found the 630i was x8 in each lane.)
Xelkos
213 Posts
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July 9th, 2009 03:00
Okay, this is odd, and wasn't even playing a game. The monitor went blank and the Dell monitor's power button went yellow, like as if it went to sleep. I turn4ed off the monitor button, and back on a few seconds later, and it looked like the monitor was going to kick in, then went to yellow light like it was in sleep mode.
Checked each video connection power cord, and reseated each, no change.
Disconnected the video connection, then the monitor wakes up to show the floating coloration thing, so the monitor was working. Connected to the other DVI port, monitor went back into sleep mode-like state.
Hit Ctrl+S to save what what I was typing out in, and pressed the power button. Turned off the machine, and put the video card back into the other slot it was in. Changed the BIOS settings, restarted the computer. Then the Aeroslot covers came in, so was a good time to replace the OEM slot covers.
The video card has been doing okay so far, with only an occasional higher horizontal reverse-coloration band. Doesn't happen often, so couldn't get a screen shot.
Been monitoring the video temperature playing EQ2, and when I noticed the odd band distortion, I would Alt+Tab and saw the temperature had shot up to 76° C with the video card fan at 100 speed. Then after a few seconds the temperature drops again to 63° C. One time I caught it spiking to 79° C, but it went back down, but the pc board temperature's been between 53°C to 43° C, but more usually at 48° C.
I have no idea why the GPU is spiking in temperature every so often, but I haven't had the screen blank out or those streaks like above, yet.
When the video card was in the other PCIe slot, temperatures were climbing in the 79° C with fan at 50%, so popped it up to 75% just in desktop mode. Heat seems to be an issue. The card's temperature has been better in the first slot, and there's more cooling and the card's temperature has been better.
Playing Everquest 2 in windows mode, the more average temperature is 64° C with PC board at 48°, much better than before the slots.
In my opinion, the card is starting to show signs of being unreliable. Now how to translate this all to a real technician. I don't have another computer with a PCIe slot, so that idea is out. I do have two Nvidia 8600 GT cards at 256 MB each, from my former Dell Dimension 8400. (The Dimension 8400 couldn't handle the heat from the 8600 GT video cards, and the system was literally burning up. Replaced that unit with this one.)
Also testing in Windows 7 with the same results, minus the monitor blanking out on me of course. The GPU still spikes in temperature, but the average temperature when not doing much of anything it the game is 64° C and PC board at 48° C. But it does occasionally jump to 76° every so often.
Want me to run the benchmark? I was scared to run it in slot 2 when it blanked out the monitor. There's nowhere for the heat in the back end of the card to escape, and I switched the sound card & USB card around. If only the brackets mounted on the video/USB expansion/sound/wifi cards didn't have ventilation slots in them too.
That EVGA precision is quite a useful tool for monitoring GPU & PC Board temperatures of the video card!
Xelkos
213 Posts
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July 13th, 2009 16:00
Not sure if my postings attributed to this, but Amazon is temporarily sold out of the Aeroslot slot covers now! :emotion-15:
Xelkos
213 Posts
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July 13th, 2009 16:00
The recently installed ventilated slots been helping out the video card a lot better than the OEM slots. Not had some of the issues I had posted before, although the card has not been performing as well as it used to; still bogs down, frame rates drop quickly at times (for no apparent reason), and periods of heat spikes on the GPU occur.
Found that using the Dell Thermal Monitor helped get more real-time control over fan speeds of the machine, and EVGA controls the video card's built-in fan. The Nvidia Control Panel's fan speeds still do not set the fan speeds to what the user wanted, even though it appears it does. The Dell Themal Monitor can control fan speeds and I have noticed a difference in fan speeds.
When Vista x64 loads, and after a long wait for the Nvidia drivers to kick in for networking & video, I see the profile I have loaded runs, and that sets the lights to red and the fan speeds supposedly to 25% hdd and 35% PCI. I decided to adjust this a bit with the XPS Thermal Monitor and have the hdd fan at 35% and the PCI fan at 50%, so I can audibly hear the difference when it loads. And it seems the XPS Thermal Monitor over-rides the Nvidia Control Panel settings!
So with the Aeroslot ventilated PCI slot-covers, and doing office related work & streaming music, the video card GPU is 61° C and the video pcb at 47° C. What i noticed MORE is that the pc board stays over 10° C cooler with the addition of the ventilated slots! To me, that pays for the new slot covers. The 9800 GT might be doing better now, but I fear the heat damage isn't reversible.
Xelkos
213 Posts
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August 3rd, 2009 03:00
Card still getting upwards of 82° C even at high fan speeds. Board is much cooler with the slot covers I installed, but the video been getting quirky at times. I seriously think the video card was at melt-down stage and is now limping along. As for technical support, they seem to think the card could withstand 100° C without burring up. IBeen at this far too long to know that.
Dells very basic diagnostics is in the dark ages, still running basic early entry EGA/VGA video tests, nothing that would even rev-up the video cards capabilities, let alone even getting to a stress point issue. If the card puts out video, regardless of games (that's why I bought this machine, for gaming!) and has no Dell Diagnostics errors, the technicians don't "see" any issues.
Where does Dell get these support people at? They read from a script, prolly never even used a computer to its full potential, and call the customer a liar when the customer is complaining if video card issues.
I dealt with XFX, and I've had cards do this and every one of them that had issues like this failed their testing and was replaced. Dell... pfft... really wondering why I paid for an extra warranty covered when the technicians are still using kindergarten computers.