Geforce 6800 overheating advice

[Geod]

I have a Windows XP Pro system with a Geforce 6800. The card isn't overclocked, but lately I've been getting temperature warnings when I play games like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. It's gone above 127° C when this occurs, and gives me a nice little warning about it and that it'll slow down the GPU. When the computer is just sitting idle it will have an ambient temperature of 55°C, with a 74°C GPU core according to the Nvidia Control Panel. This is recent and I haven't done anything to modify the computer. I've also blown it out with compressed air which didn't have any effect.

The case is a large tower Antec case with an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe Motherboard with an AMD Athlon XP 2400+. Currently idle, the CPU temperature is 41°C and the Motherboard's is 22°C. There's currently 4 80mm fans inside the case, of course with the heatsink/fank on the CPU and the existing fan on the graphics card.

Would applying some sort of cooling method work to cool the system off? I'm a newbie when it comes to cooling my computer off beyond just using the 80mm fans or whatever. Any advice would be great! If you could recommend specific products as well, that would be cool too. Thanks!

 

[Operandi]

Zalman VF-700 or VF-900.

 

[VooDooAddict]

I've seen a few 6800s spike to 127C+ because the heatsink retention starts to fail and it no longer makes a good contact with the GPU. Most of these heatsinks are spring loaded and attached to only 2 corners. While watching the temp reading ... try pushing a little on the heatsink to be sure it's pressing against the GPU. You may see those temps drop suddenly.

How does this help you? ... you can either try to RMA the card due to a faulty cooler or then know that replacing the cooler will help.

 

[AgentJean]

I had simular problems in the past with my 6800GT. I didn't have any tools or artic silver compound so I just took a can of compress air stuck the tube between the heatsink and the board and blew out a crap load of dust. You need to get between the heatsink and board. Blowing out the fan is not enough. You may also want to take it apart and apply some new thermal compound.

My card is idleing at 63C right now but that's do to a air flow problem in my case it usually sits at around 57 though. Once my slot cooler gets here(today I hope waiting on UPS) this should fix that problem.

 

[skinnypotbelly]

Vote for vf900. Right now my 7800 gtx ko is idling at 39 C, peaks at 55 C in 3dMark06. Before it would idle in the high 50's, low 60's and peaks ~80 C.

 

[gramboh]

Seconded for blowing out dust between the HSF and card itself. I have a 6800GS AGP (NV40) unlocked to 16 pipelines and 400/1100 (GF6800 Ultra more or less but only 5 vertex shader units). Idle 55-60, peak 80. Over 120 is pretty nuts.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Be careful about your selection of a heatpipe cooler for the 6800, especially the AGP variant.

I've compared the compatibility lists for several coolers, and opened up a leak in my wallet to investigate three of them. For one, there was no excuse, but the other compatibility lists included my 7600GT (AGP) card.

There are some cards that do not follow the reference design for mounting holes. If you have two holes that are 78mm apart, then the angle to horizontal card-edge for a line running through the holes is important to know, and the high-speed-interconnect heat-sink's orientation and placement relative to the GPU is also important to know.

The Zalman VF-900 "Fatal1ty" FC-ZV9 was a "no go." the most extreme mounting holes on the cooler are only 75.5mm apart, and if there were a "kloodge" to extend the mounts, the cooler would still not sit "straight," although this fact would not make the cooling suboptimal.

The Sytrin KuFormula VF-1 will work on a number of cards, and works on mine, but not in the intended orientation contemplated by the manufacturer for mounting their barrel-fan.

The ThermalRight V-1 Ultra fits my card, and in the proper orientation, but you have to make slight modifications to the high-speed-interconnect heatsink so that the Ultra and HSI sink don't interfere with each other.

There is another cooler available -- haven't seen any reviews yet -- called the Antazone, which is a heatpipe cooler not too different in concept from the Zalman VC-ZV9 mentioned above. However, it might -- it MAY -- have a mounting system that is truly universal. But it also hangs over the motherboard enough to wonder if it can be used in SLI.

For all that, I could've picked the VF-700 and it would've been a good fit. I just insist on using a heatpipe cooler.