My video card is overheating. HELP!
- Thread starter Dave
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In no particular order:
-Make sure your computer is not located in front of a heat vent and that it has plenty of room to breathe around it
-Make sure the fan on it is still spinning (at its full speed!) when in operation
-Make sure the heat sink is still mounted securely on the card
-Try not to mount another card up against it (if there are more cards in there)
-Check to see if any of your other fans are not spinning OR are blowing the wrong way
-Consider installing a slot cooler or possibly even mounting a small(ish) fan inside the case to help out the GPU fan
-Check your GPU drivers. They may be out of date or they may be set to run the fan really low or the GPU really high
-See if you're running the Folding@Home client (or equivalent) on your GPU.
Odds are pretty good that airflow is restricted or the fan is shot, but the other ones are still possible.
--Patrick
-Make sure your computer is not located in front of a heat vent and that it has plenty of room to breathe around it
-Make sure the fan on it is still spinning (at its full speed!) when in operation
-Make sure the heat sink is still mounted securely on the card
-Try not to mount another card up against it (if there are more cards in there)
-Check to see if any of your other fans are not spinning OR are blowing the wrong way
-Consider installing a slot cooler or possibly even mounting a small(ish) fan inside the case to help out the GPU fan
-Check your GPU drivers. They may be out of date or they may be set to run the fan really low or the GPU really high
-See if you're running the Folding@Home client (or equivalent) on your GPU.
Odds are pretty good that airflow is restricted or the fan is shot, but the other ones are still possible.
--Patrick
Dave
Staff member
See answers.
Dave
Staff member
I looked at the specs for this specific GPU and what I got was:
80 - 90C is normal running.
115C is overheated.
127C is shut down/melt down/slag.
I was running from 90-100C with little going on. I'm now running 60-70 without too much work, 80-90 when running WoW.
So I think turning around the fan helped immensely.
Some fans (usually ones near the bottom of the case) are supposed to blow inwards. They bring in fresh (presumably cooler) air near the bottom of the case, draw it over the HDDs and shove it towards the CPU and expansion slots. The CPU/GPU fans then chew it up and heat it, then convection sends it upwards where it is exhausted by the upper fans (with the possible exception of the PSU fan). Most cases are designed to guide air along this path, but if you reverse a fan, you might spoil the air path or stagnate the flow.
tl;dr: More fans are not automatically better. It depends on how they are arranged.
--Patrick
Very true. The problem with a lot of cases is that they use the same airflow design today as was used 15 years ago when video cards didn't create much heat at all. They also weren't nearly as long and wide as a case. It seems like a lot of the video cards that aren't designed to take up 2 slots and vent the air directly out the back have a lot of hot air building up below them, unless there is a fan on the side of the case.
You are right on the money, Shakey. So many (non-Apple) cases are designed to mount the motherboard in such a way that the GPU heatsink and fan (when installed) are actually beneath the card itself, putting the hottest parts of the card away from the area of greatest airflow. This means that some cases need more help venting hot air than others. This is also why your case should be one of the most thoroughly-researched parts in any new build, since it is one of the three parts* which will probably be kept the longest.
--Patrick
*Motherboard and PSU being the other two.
--Patrick
*Motherboard and PSU being the other two.
Dave
Staff member
In my case the fan is below the card itself. So it's a design flaw. Whee!
C
Chibibar
It is not a flaw, it is a feature!!
Dave
Staff member
Some feature. I just replaced the thing last year when I couldn't really afford to do so.It is not a flaw, it is a feature!!
C
Chibibar
Well, you know those tricky company. They want you to replace your card every year! how else are they gonna make money?
On a similar note, I saw a really nifty liquid cooling system case that is pretty rad (it glows!)
http://www.thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1309&ID=1480
C
Chibibar
Capitalism at its finest eh?
How did that little modification make it into Macs and not PCs? I'm as pro-Mac as any Mac user, but that doesn't seem like a particularly radical thought.
figmentPez
Staff member
Legacy hardware support. Macs get to design things however they want, but PC makers have to build things so that they fit in old cases and work with older setups. The BTX form factor would have fixed some of these issues, but it never caught on.
Some PC cases have tried mounting the mobo in different places, but they're few and far between.
They really should just come up with a whole new design and say to hell with legacy support. The majority of components are built into the motherboard now anyways. Unless they come up with a way to rein in the size and amount of heat those video cards pump out, it's just going to get worse.
Added at: 15:42
The idea that these cards can operate at 100c boggles my mind. You could boil water on that!
Added at: 15:42
The idea that these cards can operate at 100c boggles my mind. You could boil water on that!
figmentPez
Staff member
Unfortunately cheap beats out effective. More makers and users care about price than about optimum heat management.
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