OVerheating Graphics Card

my bro is running a compact desktop pc small box one smaller than your average desktop ( forgot what their called ) he has a Saphire 4550 512mb Graphics card ( downsized for smaller desktop ) and was running it on a 250w power supply. the computer kept going into a sort of sleep / shutdown mode where keyboard lights n stuff would still show but the pc was unresponsive and you had to manual restart the pc via the power button to get it to restart. the graphics card doesnt have a fan but has a cooling plate over majority of its front and it runs at incredible heats so hot you can barely touch it. some people say a weaker psu makes graphics cards overheat which i dont think does but not sure and we trie sticking a 550w power supply in same thing happens - any idea what could be causing it ?

 

You haven't mentioned if you cleaned the heatsink yet. That's called a half-height card. I would disable sleep/hibernation. Look at your help file to find out where that is and change it to never. Yes, they do run hot and are built for that heat.

 

yep everythings been cleaned even cleaned the psu just to be sure, but still nothing i'll try n disable the sleep / hibernate functions soon as i get it back up