hi i need help with my graphics card which keeps over heating whenever i try to play a game. its a geforce card by gigabyte and instead of having a fan it has duel heat-sinks. so i bought a fan to put on it, then i realized that my motherboard only has 2 little brown fan slot thingys. by the way i talk i hope you can tell i dont really know how all this works, so if you could explain to me as if i was retarded how to install a fan if its possible, and im missing somthing or maybe another easy lowcost way of cooling my graphics card. please help me!!!

It certainly would help if you told us what card you have & why you think it's overheating? If Gigabyte went with passive cooling rather than a heatsink/fan, it apparently doesn't need a fan ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

well i have a geforce 6600 i think its called and it only heats up when i play good graphics games like Guild Wars or Warcraft 3. it heats up fast and then the computer freezes and i have to restart.

I'll ask again...why do you think it's overheating? Is the card plugged into the power supply? ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2

Use a software to check the temperatures of your cpu and system to see the temperature when it's really working. The graphic card only needs to work hard if you do 3D stuff like in games so otherwise cooling isn't that much of a problem. But if it's already quite hot inside your case the passive cooling will not work very good. A fan blowing on it may help a little bit in that case but not that much because you can't cool with hot air. Check the temperatures as you leave the cover open. If it's noticably cooler you need to get the heat out of your case. About the fan there are also fans you can plug directly to the bigger power plugs used by your ATA drives like ide harddrive and optical drives. Those as missing rpm controll but work al well. There are also adapters to plug such a 3 pin motherboard fan to the other bigger power plugs! BTW: I just installe a Radeon 9600 in a friends old system and that passive cooling also got quite hot at gaming!

well its kinda warm like all the time, but when i start to play a game i have my hand on my card and i can feel it gets very hot while the game is on the screen. if i alt-tab out it will begin to warmthen again. why do i think its overheating? well i thinks its because thats the way the card was made, it was probably meant for a well ventilated machine, but i only have the 2 standard fans which isnt sufficient cooling. i figured out how to install my fan, i need to buy adapters which i will probably buy today or this weekend or somtin, hopefully that shoudl take care of it. but if their is anything else you guys know please do say, cuz like i said im not 100% what im doin here.

GPUs get warm/hot under load...that's normal. And 2 case cooling fans are usually sufficient, provided one is an intake & the other is an exhaust. Generaly the intake is in the front, exhaust is in the back...if you have a side panel fan, it should be an intake. The power supply also helps to exhaust warm air from the case. You haven't supplied any temperature readings, so I don't see how you can claim it's overheating. How about posting your average room temp, system temp, & CPU temp (both at idle & under load). Your problem may not be related to the video card at all. Also, I asked if your 6600 is connected to the power supply...some require the plug-in, some don't. If your's is supposed to be connected but it's not, it may work under *normal* conditions, but would experience problems under load. ASUS A7N8X-X Athlon XP 1800+ 8.5 x 200MHz 1024MB PC3200 2.5-3-3-7 Asus A9550GE/TD 128MB WinME/WinXP Pro SP2