No, not fully sick, sick as in unwell.

Was playing a bit of Stalker: Chernobyl last night and without warning my machine restarted. I went to get a drink while it was booting only to come back and find it frozen pre-Windows startup.

When I restarted again I got nothing whatsoever. It was as if the monitor was not connected to the box. After some tinkering under the hood I managed to get the thing going again. I located the problem as being video card related, and figured that the game may have overloaded it (???) Is that possible?

Now the fan on the video card is struggling and it generally sounds like it's about to die. Can these fans be repaired/replaced easily? Or is it better simply to replace the card?

BTW Video card is a Albatron 6600GT.

And yes I have considered buying a *insert latest dickstiffening video card here* but I want to do some other upgrades atm. and would like to avoid this if possible.

The game would make it work harder, well a game would (Never played Stalker)

Is it really dusty, can you clean it? Most that I've seen the fan can easily be replaced. It just unclips and you can unplug it from the card, then plug/clip on a new fan.

If the heat did fry the card though a new fan isn't going to help it.

I've heard of some stores forgetting to plug the fan in (Just the power cord for the fan to the card) so when the person takes it home and turns it on for the first time the card die's almost instantly.

yeah, you can buy videocard fans.

check out the usual pc part stores.

zalman make some good ones. I have one on my 7800gt, needed it fast so i regretably bought it from umart.

I had the same card. The fan broke so I replaced it with a zalman. Worked fine for about a week after that and then it just fried. Moral of the story... just buy a new card.

*insert latest dickstiffening video card here*

TNT2?

You haven't heard sick until you've heard mine.

Ignoring is the best fix.

Stalker seems pretty good at bringing out the problems with your video card. It was while playing that game when I realised my 7900GT was dying from overheating. Just within a month of warranty too :)

the fans that come with video cards are pretty crappy and they always get clogged and die, and get very noisy.

U can get good quality replacement ones which are much better. google is your friend, i think there's a place near the shaftson hotel that specialises in them

sorry, but getting a video card fan is about 5 times more expensive than getting a new video card. your best bet is to send me a check for about $300 and ill see if i can "aqurire" a new fan for your video card.

better make it $350...

Moral of the story... just buy a new card

pretty much

cue the 'Alby 6600gt for sale thread' :P

My graphics card's fan hasn't worked in about 6 months. :/

Same, I disconnected the video card fan on my 7600gs (512mb) about 12 months ago, still runs fine.

http://www.coolpc.com.au/ has heaps of cooling solutions, they are in Inala you might have to be prepared to be car jacked.

Same, I disconnected the video card fan on my 7600gs (512mb) about 12 months ago, still runs fine.

killing old busted hardware is fun.. especially old videocards and Amd cpus.


put a vid of your 7600 under load (3DMark 06 will do it) and post it's demise on youtube.. I need to wazz right now :P

Thanks heaps for suggestions. Got home yesterday and booted up machine. She lasted for about five fan grinding minutes before dying in the arse. Again, monitor not reading any signal from card.

If I hadn't been such a go-getter, I would have stuck with AGP instead of PCI-E, thereby equipping myself with a backup video card from my old computer for just such an eventuality.

Anyhoo, I will look into a replacement fan on the weekend and failing that a new card. My budget will stretch to around $300, so should be able to get something semi-decent-ish.

Any recommendations/experiences with cards around this price.*

*Please note: I fully intend to do my research wrt cards and pricing etc. and yes, I will use google (thanks in advance). Just wanted any info on cards/combos to avoid/embrace. Obviously PCI-E is what I'm after.

You can have my Radeon X800XT for $100, delivered.