XFX HD 6870 2GB Overheating problem.

[kiasta]

This is the video card in question: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150563

I'm not entirely sure what the problem is. I started getting really high temps: 64ºC on idle and on load it would get to 109ºC and then crash my system. I let someone use the computer for a good year and a half and apparently they never cleaned it. So it was caked with dust. I removed the fan and heatsink, cleaned the dust and applied arctic silver 5 thermal paste after cleaning the old paste off. Which btw had WAY too much paste on it, it was even covering the main board. So when I put everything back together and started the computer I was getting a little better idle temps of 55ºC not great but better.

So I downloaded and installed MSi Afterburner and tweaked the fan speeds a bit and I was getting 36ºC idle and under heavy load the gpu would not get any hotter than 68ºC and this lasted a couple days. I thought everything was fixed. Then randomly while playing a game the temp got to 105ºC I immediately closed everything and now the GPU will not idle under 52ºC and on load it overheats again and gets to past 100ºC, generally I catch it before it gets to 109ºC which I think is the temp is shuts the computer down.

So what now? Is the gpu fried or perhaps the sensors? Should I even waste my money to get a 3rd party heatsink/fans or replace the sensors? I'm thinking on upgrading to a 280x anyways but I'm trying to save a bit because of the inflated prices (thanks to litecoin miners...), so should I just bide my time or is this card salvageable?

Thanks for your assistance.

*Edit* BTW my case has 2x 120mm case fans and a 140mm case fan on top. Plenty of air flow.

My build (copy/pasted from receipt, truncated):

XFX HD-687X-CNFC Radeon HD 6870 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
MSI 880GM-E43 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Rosewill Green Series RG630-S12 630W Continuous @40°C,80 PLUS BRONZE Certified, Single 12V Rail, Active PFC
Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan

 

[monkeydelmagico]

I'd disassemble and re-apply the thermal paste again.

 

[kiasta]

Hmm well maybe I didn't apply enough. I was told to only apply a small amount for gpus, I applied only maybe half the size of a pea (first time applying thermal paste for a gpu). Should I apply a little more? Or less?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

When you disassemble again you will be able to see the spread pattern. This should tell you how to adjust.

 

[KingFatty]

Also, maybe you can touch the heat pipes of the video card, perhaps they feel cool to the touch because they aren't removing heat from the GPU.

I can't see how the chip could be so hot unless the heatsink was failing in its job to remove heat.

Usually that's from the fan not spinning, extreme dust, or a gap between the heatsink and the GPU, or some other mechanical issue that is fixable by re-application.

But if your heatsink is securely attached, and the fan is spinning correctly, it would remove heat from the GPU. So if you still have high temps, then you'd have to have some weird setting that makes the GPU create huge amounts of heat. Is it having a strange very high over voltage, or some huge overclock? Maybe use a software utility like MSI afterburner to see what actual voltages/frequencies/fan speeds are being driven through the video card.

 

[kiasta]

Also, maybe you can touch the heat pipes of the video card, perhaps they feel cool to the touch because they aren't removing heat from the GPU.

I can't see how the chip could be so hot unless the heatsink was failing in its job to remove heat.

Usually that's from the fan not spinning, extreme dust, or a gap between the heatsink and the GPU, or some other mechanical issue that is fixable by re-application.

But if your heatsink is securely attached, and the fan is spinning correctly, it would remove heat from the GPU. So if you still have high temps, then you'd have to have some weird setting that makes the GPU create huge amounts of heat. Is it having a strange very high over voltage, or some huge overclock? Maybe use a software utility like MSI afterburner to see what actual voltages/frequencies/fan speeds are being driven through the video card.

I was using MSi Afterburner and there's no overclocking I even disabled AMD overdrive from the AMD control panel just for good measure. There was definitely extreme dust buildup I removed huge clumps of it when I took it apart. Next time I'll just stuff it into a warehouse instead of letting family use it while away.

When you disassemble again you will be able to see the spread pattern. This should tell you how to adjust.

As far as the spread pattern you're right, I should have looked at it before I gave my buddy's thermal paste back, now I have to wait til Sunday to buy some (because Fry's is too far away for a normal workday visit and Best Buy has nothing good and are over priced). I would chalk it up to a replaced PSU and case but it was acting up before I replaced anything (I am in the process of building a new computer, but intend on giving this to my sister).

And about touching the heat pipes I don't see how I would be able to do that with the plastic cover. It has no real openings. I might be able to from the top but I don't think my fingers will fit through the slots, we'll see when I get home.

Thanks for the advice y'all, I really appreciate it.

 

[kiasta]

OK, voltage is 1.175v according to CPUID HWMonitor and when I got home it was idling at 39ºC (I left my computer running all day with HWMonitor on and it never got past 42ºC [probably a bad idea, but at this point I don't have high hopes for this card anyways]) but when I played wow for about 15-20 minutes it shot up to 99ºC. So last shot to get it right with the thermal paste but that will have to be sunday. :/

I think I might have found the problem... I touched the copper and it burned me so at least it's transferring heat but the fan is barely moving and it says it's at 100% speed. I think the fan went out... so that's not going to be too expensive to fix.

I'm not too knowledgeable about gpus, is that a good voltage or should it be higher/lower?

 

[24601]

Just send it in for warrantee repair.

What's the point of the lifetime warrantee if you don't use it?

 

[monkeydelmagico]

OK, voltage is 1.175v according to CPUID HWMonitor and when I got home it was idling at 39ºC (I left my computer running all day with HWMonitor on and it never got past 42ºC [probably a bad idea, but at this point I don't have high hopes for this card anyways]) but when I played wow for about 15-20 minutes it shot up to 99ºC. So last shot to get it right with the thermal paste but that will have to be sunday. :/

I think I might have found the problem... I touched the copper and it burned me so at least it's transferring heat but the fan is barely moving and it says it's at 100% speed. I think the fan went out... so that's not going to be too expensive to fix.

I'm not too knowledgeable about gpus, is that a good voltage or should it be higher/lower?

Easy fix if it's the fan. You can take off the cover, remove the fan, and zip tie a spare fan to it.

 

[Stuka87]

Sounds like failed bearings on the fan(s).

That voltage is stock, so no concern there.

 

[KingFatty]

Oh, what kind of fan? You might be able to pop the fan rotor off, clean off the dried gunk in there, and then apply some fresh bearing grease. I recently did this to a failing blower fan on a 5850 that was making a rumbling/noisy sound, and it ran smooth as butter and silent after the greasing.

in fact, maybe you have some simple lint or hairs wrapped around the fan axle, and once you clear that out, it will spin like normal.

Random question: does your household have any birds, dogs, or cats?

Also, next time you are at Fry's, purchase some inline filters with the built-in screw holes that line up with your case fans. That way you can easily put a filter on each intake fan of your computer, so it will shield your GPU from having this problem in the future. Also, the external filters are very visible and easy to see when it's time to clean the computer, instead of hiding all the dust inside the GPU.

 

[kiasta]

Not sure what kind of fan it is, it's the stock fan that came with the card. Also, because I already took the card apart it voided the warranty, didn't know it had a lifetime warranty (guess I should have paid attention to that). No big deal I'm going to end up buying a 3rd party fan/heatsink anyways because there is only 1 fan on this card and the airflow (on the card) is bad anyways.

 

[Soundmanred]

The fan died on my HD6850, I contacted them and they said they didn't have any more.
I took it off and have a larger (4" I think) fan blowing on it now. It's actually cooler now than before.

 

[tweakboy]

RMA will sort it out if it comes to that.

 

[Leyawiin]

If it's a card you want to keep for a few years more maybe an aftermarket HSF would be worth it.

 

[tren001]

I just built a rig with the cousin of this board, the XFX 7870 2Gb Gigahertz edition.

While operating speedfan, the fan idles at around 35% of max rpm, which results in idle temperature of 37 C. With furmark burn in test, GPU temperature rapidly rises into the mid 60s Celcius, and speedfan quickly ramps the fan to max rpm (which is pretty loud, BTW, like a small leak blower under my table).

I didn't keep the Furmark going on too long, and without load, temps came back to idle fairly quickly.

The speedfan readings seem accurate as I kept CCC open, which showed identical fan speed and GPU core temp readings. Now I'm going to keep the temperature readings going during real gaming sessions to keep an eye on everything, but in general, are these temperature ranges considered normal for this class of GPU?

Idle at 37
Load at least 65

From the newegg reviews, I knew about the potential heating issue, so I'm not planning to OC it very much. My case is also not completely geared toward max airflow, but I will keep a close eye on core temps going forward.

But in general, how hot is too hot for this particular card, around 85 to 90?

 

[kiasta]

Figured this little bit of info would be helpful to people.

The video cards are sent throughout the world and only in some countries is the warranty voided when removing the sticker and/or screws. In North America this does not void the warranty as have been explained to me by an XFX representative. Also I've contacted them about the fan just a couple weeks ago after finding out all of this info (I left the card to die assuming it would be a huge waste of time and money to fix) so good news.

Here is the direct quote:

"XFX will not void a warranty in North America simply because someone wanted to service and re-paste their GPU, in fact, it saves us the extra work of RMAing it and servicing it ourselves. As far as the warranty void stickers are concerned, XFX is a worldwide company, not all regions allow removal of the cooler so all of our cards receive them, but they do not apply to North America."

Consider it necroing if you wish, but there was no point in starting a new thread, and thanks for all the help anyways guys it is appreciated

 

[Tweak155]

Ah the 6870... good card. I gave my XFX to a friend when I picked up a 670.

 

[XFXSupport]

Figured this little bit of info would be helpful to people.

1) The video cards are sent throughout the world and only in some countries is the warranty voided when removing the sticker and/or screws. In North America this does not void the warranty as have been explained to me by an XFX representative. Also I've contacted them about the fan just a couple weeks ago after finding out all of this info (I left the card to die assuming it would be a huge waste of time and money to fix) so good news.

Here is the direct quote:

"XFX will not void a warranty in North America simply because someone wanted to service and re-paste their GPU, in fact, it saves us the extra work of RMAing it and servicing it ourselves. As far as the warranty void stickers are concerned, XFX is a worldwide company, not all regions allow removal of the cooler so all of our cards receive them, but they do not apply to North America."

Consider it necroing if you wish, but there was no point in starting a new thread, and thanks for all the help anyways guys it is appreciated

XFX Rep here, i can confirm this is true. Thank you for reposting it

 

[kiasta]

XFX Rep here, i can confirm this is true. Thank you for reposting it

Sure no problem, I just received the fan today and replaced it and it works perfectly fine now. Though I had to remove the plastic on the side to plug in the fan because I was out of thermal paste, but that was easy enough with a pair needle nose pliers.

Card works perfect now. Thanks XFX

 

[Dylanharvey999]

XFX Rep here, i can confirm this is true. Thank you for reposting it

Good work!