Video card rapidly overheating.

[Vaktathi]

Ok, I've got a video card problem here. Recently my video card has been heating up to the slowdown threshold, 127*C. It has never done this before, and starts doing it within about 5-10 minutes after entering a game (any game, Dawn of War, World of Warcraft, Battlefield 2 & 2142)

After this I start getting wierd textures, artifacts, and other assorted trippy sights, accompanied by massive video lag for 5-30 seconds which seems to slow everything in the system down, and has caused a BSOD in BF2142. I just installed the latest drivers a few minutes ago, and I'm having the same problem. I also went in and cleaned out the fan as well.

when just in windows doing things like web browsing and whatnot it sits at a fairly high 84-83*C.

this just started about tuesday, at first I thought it was network lag because the only 3D apps I had been playing on tues/wed were WoW & Battlefield, but then the artifacting started and it occured in Dawn of War as well.

The video card itself is an nVidia XFX 6800gt 256mb video card. I've never had any problems with it until this week.

basically, what am I looking at here, and does it involve buying a new vidcard? (I hope not, was saving up for a seperate DX10 system)

system specs are in sig.

-thanks!

 

[Teclis2323]

This might be a dumb answer, but have you taken a look at replacing the heatsink + fan on the card? I have had two GPUs with bad HSFs, and had to replace them...

Just a thought.

 

[Vaktathi]

I havent looked at replacing the fan yet, the fan actually seems to still be working fine (at least as far as I can tell) although if I could find some way to look at the current RPM and know what RPM the fan should be running at I could make a better judgement, but I have no idea how to go about that.

As far as I can tell though (which may or may not be saying much) the fan is still working.

 

[Vaktathi]

back to the top.

 

[stevemedes]

try removing the card and removing the dust from the fan, then take off the heatsink and clean off the gpu with some rubbing alcohol and qtips. then put some new thermal paste on the gpu, spread a thin layer with your finger (make sure ur finger is in a plastic bag or something). then put the heatsink back on. dont forget to plug the fan back in.

 

[zephyrprime]

Try a new hsf: http://www.svc.com/avc-nv5-r3.html

 

[Bill Brasky]

Before you spend any money, try remounting the heatsink with some AS5. Thermal compound does have a life span.

 

[Bill Brasky]

edit: double post.

 

[okeefe58]

two hundred and effin sixty degrees !!!! you could have a marshmellow roast while your playing vgames! how did you even let it get that high before shutting it down--seriously, you might already have ireversable damage--i bought a leadtek 6800gt refurb couple months ago, and was worried when it started going past 170F/77C when playing vgames started running pc with side off and a box fan blowing right on it-i know it sounds dumb, but at least it never went above 175F, till i could get a vga cooler-- got a mascool vf-1 plus, and now under load it never goes above 130F/95-100F idle-i would have never believed those kind of drops in temps--how long did u run it that high total time? i read somewhere that after 170F can start breaking down your cards life and some other tech terms where the electrical signals start messing up and drops performance--that other guy might be right about just redoing the paste--that would be 8bucks shipped for silver-so why not spend 10-15 more and pick up a cooler--the mascool was $30-free ship from newegg and is rated the best- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835150072 -no free shipping right now, but u could find something cheaper

 

[F1shF4t]

If its the reference cooler thats on ur card, undo the little screws on the plastic cover over the heatsink and clean out the dust from the heatsink. When i had my old 6800 ultra i had the same prob, after a while the card started to overheat, so i the above and found that there was a "cake" of dust blocking the airflow from the fan.

EDIT: also like people above mentioned re-aplying the thermal paste would help also.

 

[CurseTheSky]

I just did this to my 6800GT about a month ago.

Like others said, take off the heatsink cover (about six tiny screws), blow EVERYTHING out with canned air, and put it back together. If you're feeling a little dangerous (lol), you can take the heatsink completely off and remove the old thermal compound from the core with high-purity rubbing alcohol (90%+ is best, though I have used 70% in the past; if you have Articlean, use that). Reapply Arctic Silver 5 or MX-1, but save the tape used on the memory chips, as I'm not sure regular thermal compound will make good contact with the memory AND heatsink. Put everything back together and enjoy. If you've put in a motherboard before, this will seem like a piece of cake.

 

[trOver]

yah clean ur fan, take off hsf and clean w/ some alchol and put some as5 on

 

[trOver]

and i was worried when my 7600gt got up to 70C...

 

[Boyo]

Buy the Zalman VF900-CU HSF for the card. It brought my GPU temps down from 56C to 42C.

 

[homercles337]

I had a BFG that was overheating. RMAed and picked up a 7900 while the 6800 was in the mail.

 

[AstroGuardian]

Have you ever thought that a faulty voltage regulator can cause an overvoltage and heat up your card as well?

 

[MDE]

If it's under warranty just RMA it if blowing the dust out of the heatsink doesn't fix it.

 

[oynaz]

Your card is faulty. RMA it.

 

[Vaktathi]

GAAAK.

ok so I'm sitting here, at the desktop, only things running are Ventrilo, IE, and the nVidia control panel, and its GETTING WARMER. it went from 87* to 93* over the course of about 10 minutes...

I took off the case panel and had a room fan blowing directly in...and no effect (no idea if this usually does anything, but I thought I'd try)

I went in and removed all the dust from the fan, but I havent yet removed the HSF because I dont have any thermal paste on me right now (need to wait until I can score some from work tomorrow)

 

[Kromis]

Well, I'm gonna tell you what I've said about two other times on this forum

"The 6800GT is notorious for high temperatures"

 

[Vaktathi]

I know it usually runs hotter than it should, but before this its always been about a constant 68-75*.

I've never even gotten close to the threshold before, now it hits the slowdown threshold playing games that arent very intensive inside of 10 minutes, and hits 96*C just sitting at the desktop.

 

[MDE]

That's way too high, just save yourself the trouble and RMA if you can. Hopefully XFX will ship you a card first so you're not without a PC for a couple weeks.

 

[butch84]

Is the fan on the 6800GT actually spinning?

 

[Vaktathi]

yeah, as far as I can see the fan is funtioning just fine.

 

[okeefe58]

THE FAN SHOULD HAVE DEFINATELY COOLED IT SOMEWHAT IT DROPPED MINE AT LEAST 30DEGREES- MORE IF I HAD DOOR/WINDOW OPEN. I WOULDNT KEEP RUNNING IT IF I WERE YOU, TILL YOU RESOLVE IT-

P.S. YEAH 6800GTS RUN HOT BUT NOT 270DEGREES- (USELESS POST)