[nerdcorepunx]

Ok, i guess a little back-story is in order.my computer is about 3 years old. in the past year and a half i started playing games.GPU intensive games like Arkham Asylum,Mafia II,all the AC's....then i got GTA IV.with the previous games i would run with whatever settings that were default.i assume high. i could hear the fan on my card wind up while i was playing and i would play for hours at a time with no problems. when i installed GTA IV,it lagged so bad i put all the settings on medium or low.it was playable and i didn't mind, but after a couple days my 9800GT burnt out. so, i went and got a GTX 550 Ti.at first it ran fine and was actually kinda cool to the touch.i didn't change any settings.next day(today),it froze and i noticed the card was very warm,almost hot.i keep the side panel off. i just don't want it to increase more and more til this one burns up too. i did some reading up and installed Realtemp and MSI Afterburner. it is running at about 44 degrees, but when i load up the game (and just sit there,not actually play) it jumps to around 78 degrees in just 5 minutes. i know with the monitoring program you can adjust fan speeds and such,how do i keep it from getting so hot so quick? or did it just top out around 78? or will it keep getting hotter? also,if it is determined that i am safe, i am interested in doing a little overclocking and maybe bring the levels of the settings up if i can.here are some of my specs:

core i7 920@2.67 GHz
6GB DDR3
460W PSU
GTX 550 Ti 1GB

it's all packed in a small case, but i do keep the side off and the actual GPU card doesn't have much around it.please don't respond with case or cooling systems resolutions as those aren't options for me right now. i would rather try tweaking for right now to either cool it or at least keep it in a safe zone and possibly boost performance. thank you in advance to anyone who can help and if any other specs/settings are needed, just let me know and i will get back with an answer asap!

[mkey82]

Normal working temp for a GPU is up to 85-90°C, so you're fine. Monitor the temperature further and see where it goes, 78° is low. For a GPU, keep that in mind. You can use "hardware monitor" (just google it) to find out other temps you have there, if you have a general venting problem, you may want to check system temperature, you don't want your chipset overheating or possibly negatively affecting the CPU.

As far as overclocking goes, I wouldn't recommend OCing the GPU. But that CPU should have overclocking head room. If you haven't done any OCing before, I recommend reading some guides and try to find people who have similar systems as you. Their results can be used as a guide, but do remember that every system handles overclocking differently. Motherboard and power supply are major factors.

I assume you have a 64 bit OS there, you may want to try using memrestrict, that can help with performance at times. How fresh is your OS installation? GTAIV can be very sensitive, a defragmentation + ccleaner + AV scan run (I recommend MBAMI) can only help.

This post has been edited by mkey82 on Friday, Apr 13 2012, 08:56