I bought a video card(GTX 260) 4 weeks ago and its been running in my computer fine for about 2 weeks. Now my computer freezes everytime i play a game longer than about 10 or 15 minutes.It seems like the northbridge or MCP as it says on my bios is whats overheating the most although my processor runs a little hotter also. My northbridge is right next to my video card also.I have a 780i motherboard so i have 3 other pci express slots i tried moving my video card farther away from the northbridge but it will not let me use the other slots unless for sli. My northbridge has a heatsink on it and it came with a fan that my manual said was only needed if i was going to overclock it so i never put it on cause i was not plan on overclocking and now i do not have that fan anymore. Any suggestions for me on what i can do or a link to a fan i could use would help also.
You know, I think I have the same board (i'll have to double check). and I too, have freeze ups.. but its a little more random. I figured it was just my board getting too hot. I have 3 exhaust fans and one high RPM intake fan though.. which you'd think would be enough.. Ive also heard one of the chips (North or South can't remember which) just has a tendency to get too hot regardless of what you do. and it being so close to the video card doesn't make things any better. I will try looking into it, because it really bugs me.. I've just been too lazy to look into it. Edit: yeah I have the XFX nForce 780i SLI. Hopefully you got the evga since I think it has a life time warranty. On my manufacture's website it says:
put a fan on the rear screen if possible, moves the air in my xps 420... and i won't be buying dell again...
i took my cover off my case and put a fan on it, works like charm now, my problem was that my computer would go black and I could still hear music, vent or w/e I was doing at the time but couldnt see anything. Dropped a fan on it and now I never have that problem, yay!
Heat can cause this issue BUT so can underpowering your card with a PSU that isn't rated for the card.
I bought a new CPU fan mostly because it comes with thermal grease. To install this fan i had to remove the whole motherboard and put nuts on the bottom of it. I had a problem with one of the nuts i couldn't have the rubber and the nut on at the same time because it wouldn't fit so i just left the rubber part off. I had no idea that this little tiny thing would cause my computer not to work till like six hours later. Seems like if any metal is touching my PC it wont work.So i left that nut off and it works. Ive been running PC now for about 30 minutes and it seems like its running cool with some more thermal grease and new fan. I'm gonna check the temperatures again.But it seems that when the CPU overheats it causes my north bridge to overheat also.Does that sound about right to anyone?
I think in my case, my PSU should be fine, if anything its over kill.. 1000W? But with what Censored said "But it seems that when the CPU overheats it causes my north bridge to overheat" maybe that's my case?
I have not experiencd this for my self but from reading many Newegg posts befor buying my card I have found this to be an issue. If the PSU is not holding a steady voltage (12v) to the card it can cause problems. Fans are a lower cost option and I hope that works. IMO you can never have enough fans. I hope this works out for you.