EVR fry my video card?

[Humanzee]

Hey, I've been running EVR since 6.5.2 and about a week into it my video card died and the computer turned off while watching sage. The computer wouldn't start with that video card in it. I took apart the client machine and put in a video card from my server and it started back up.

Is it plausible that since the dead video card was passively cooled, (Gigabyte Silent Pipe 8600GTS) the added load on the graphics chip using EVR pushed it over the edge? Over heated and fried itself?

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by Humanzee

Hey, I've been running EVR since 6.5.2 and about a week into it my video card died and the computer turned off while watching sage. The computer wouldn't start with that video card in it. I took apart the client machine and put in a video card from my server and it started back up.

Is it plausible that since the dead video card was passively cooled, (Gigabyte Silent Pipe 8600GTS) the added load on the graphics chip using EVR pushed it over the edge? Over heated and fried itself?

Its possible. Most likely though this was going to happen sooner or later. It sounds like there isn't enough air movement in your case. The Passively cooled video cards usually run right on the edge of overheating and require quite a bit of air movement within your case in order to keep them from overheating especially if you keep your HTPC in a cabinet. I had lots of problems with a passively cooled Geforce 6600 until I put another fan in the case. It's kind of a catch 22.....do you add extra fans to the case to keep tthe air moving or do you just get a vid card with a fan on it? Usually though, case fans are quieter for the same volume of air movement because the fans are bigger and less restricted.

[HelenWeathers]

I noticed that after about 20-30min of playback with my ASUS 9600 GT silent (passive) cooled card I would start to get pixelation and horizontal tearing. I temporarily pulled the card and ordered the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118006

What a difference. And this fan has been very quiet in it's first month of use. Probably won't order a silent card again.

[Humanzee]

Well, I just broke down and bought a 9800GT with a fan. I was there, it wasn't too expensive and the wife wanted her Sage back. Now we're back up and running again. The fan doesn't seem that loud, so I'll probably just keep it.

I would have thought that the old card would have had enough cooling passively. It was a double PCI slot design with the second bay taking up space just for cooling fins. The case has a pretty good design, but I guess it just doesn't pull that much past the cooling fins. The blu-ray drive is still the noisiest part of the case anyway.

[AJ Bertelson]

Can one of you guys explain what EVR is to me? I have seen it mentioned a couple of times in regards to Ehanced Video Recording on wikipedia but I am bit confused. Is it on the client or the server side?

I read this and still am a bit confused
http://www.geektonic.com/2008/11/evr...ming-soon.html

[HelenWeathers]

EVR is Ehanced Video Renderer, not recorder. It is a DirectX based technology that allows the operating system to offload the video processing from the cpu to the chip on the video card itself, taking the load off the cpu.

You need a video card that supports EVR, and an operating system and DirectX components that support EVR. Most newer video cards support EVR when coupled with an OS (Vista) that supports it.