Calling all nerds (gaming) GET IN HERE!

[Wschnitz]

Ya get some better fans too if you still have issues, and water cooling is fairly cheap and easy nowadays, an h100i is like $80-120 and does a great job.

[DatUtahGuy]

Okay, was able to download and enable gadgets in Windows 8 to run speedfan and HOLY shit, just right now, browsing the web and posting on r3v, no youtube or gaming, the video card is at 144°F, wtf? also, everything else like the cpu is running mid-90's. Time to put my PC in the freezer :(

I really think the fan on the GPU is malfunctioning, the card is hot to the touch but the fan is not on :/

[Exodus_2pt0]

I use MSI Afterburner.

It has a few options, but I just use it to OC +10 to keep the card from underclocking in lower demand scenes. Also flip the fan to the highest setting. Usually keeps the card consistently 10-15* lower than on auto.


As for 144*, that sounds like a fried chip. Or the cooling ducting is clogged. Get yourself some thermal compound and rip that sucker apart. I had a card once running stupid hot and found a solid layer of lint across the heat sink, totally blocking air flow. Cleaned it all out, added some new compound and everything was happy.

For what it's worth, my 660 card never goes over 70* even on BF3 with high settings.

[Cephas]

What brand is your power supply? How many amps can the 12volt rail handle. Are there 2 12v rails? Im betting your psu is shite and can't hang under heavy loads.

Also, 144 degrees F is nothing. Its only 62 degrees C. The 68xx series has the fans almost idle at those temps on purpose to cut down on noise.

Run a logger and get to gaming. What are you max temps under real stress?

[Wschnitz]

You probably got sold a crap card that the guy said worked. Try asking for a RMA or warranty with XFX. Good companies send you a new one if you send the broken one back.

[TurboJake]

Just for the record, 62 degrees C (144 degrees F) is just fine for that card, but it is on the warmer side just browsing.

It sound like its overheating though. Need to rexamine airflow and cooling. Probably just a simple issue.

[squidmaster]

check your BIOS shutdown temps. Keep tabs on system diags by using resource monitor (super+R > "resmon" > enter)

you can use Performance Monitor (super+R > "perfmon" > enter) to keep logs. If it looks too intimidating, there's a handy wizard at:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24832

best way to check PSU is to run perfmon and track voltage, or to just slap a voltmeter onto each of the +12v and +5v rails and monitor literally constantly.

why run win8? why not just 7? I have win8 on a tablet (surface), and it works pretty well, but I couldn't imagine using it on a desktop without a touch screen.... (I always find myself about to touch the screen on my laptops when I use them, because the touch screen is just so handy)

62'C is insane. In a well ventilated case with appropriate airflow you should be idling no higher than 54'C with the oem fan. Upgrade to a zalman (or similar) GPU heatsink.

My GPU idles at 37-40'C with a zalman heat sink, well placed fans, and a water-cooled CPU (x4 965 BE).

[DatUtahGuy]

What brand is your power supply? How many amps can the 12volt rail handle. Are there 2 12v rails? Im betting your psu is shite and can't hang under heavy loads.

Also, 144 degrees F is nothing. Its only 62 degrees C. The 68xx series has the fans almost idle at those temps on purpose to cut down on noise.

Run a logger and get to gaming. What are you max temps under real stress?

PSU is a Raidmax, 2 rails.
Here is my testing so far, took the side panel off, got a window fan and aimed it at the opened side of my tower, the card is idling at 61c right now, I played BF3 on mostly high settings earlier(NOTE THAT WHEN I SAY I PLAYED BF3, I SPENT MORE TIME ON THE LOADOUT MENU THAN PLAYING, STILL TRYING TO BIND KEYS PROPERLY AND GET USED TO CONTROLS. I WOULD GET KILLED IN 2 MIN AND SPEND 7 RECONFIGURING KEYS), I was able to play for about an hour before the game started sputtering, quit immediately and checked the temps, it was up to 94c. Definitely a cooling issue, I think the power supply is hanging in there for now.

I tried to go into BIOS for windows 8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGiG1oljjZI), but instead of restarting into BIOS, screen stays dark and the tower beeps 5 times, nothing else happens. I was trying to change the temps at which the fans come on for my GPU.

[squidmaster]

http://www.amazon.com/Zalman-Z-MACHI...rds=zalman+vga

[decay]

i think a good case with fans is what you want- i've been mining bitcoin with two ATI-based cards (7770 & 7950) for about half a year, which means they're at WOT all day.

this case: http://www.raidmax.com/chassis/platinum.html keeps everything nice and cool; those two fans in the lower half of the front face point right at the video cards.

[TimbyMaTombo]

I don't have any personal experience with them, but from what I've read, Raidmax isn't the best brand of PSUs. There is a chance that even though it's rated for 550w, it might not actually be producing it...

[decay]

my PSU is also a raidmax (850W) and it handles the load of two video cards fine. i don't think that's the root cause here.

[squidmaster]

Why? Maybe because you'd need two quad-core xeon server CPUs attached to a server mobo running 8 sticks of ram, 2 hi-perf SATA drives, dual hd 7970 GCs connected via cross-fire, 4 i pods charging, 6 120mm fans attached to a fan controller, a sound-plaster pci-e sound card, an AGEIA physX PPU, AND a corsair hydro 100 water-cooling unit in your computer to even warrant the power output of an 850w PSU.

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine

[decay]

i've been mining bitcoin with two ATI-based cards (7770 & 7950) for about half a year, which means they're at WOT all day.

PSUs get noisy when they're loaded near capacity all the time, and seeing as this rig's in the middle of my living room, i wanted it quiet.

[jclar]

Raidmax PSUs blow, regardless of whether it is working now you should swap it out for a decent unit. 530W is plenty for a single 6870, not that I'm confident that a Raidmax PSU rated at 530W can actually deliver that consistently. To give an idea, I'm using a quality Antec PSU @ 520W on a similar rig without issue, even with an OC'ed i5.

CPUID HWMonitor is an excellent temperature monitoring program from the makers of CPU-Z. Using this in conjunction with FurMark will give you good reliable results quickly. Similarly, if CPU overheating is suspected you could use Prime95 in conjunction with HWMonitor.

65*C for a 6870 is much too hot while web browsing. I'm also using an XFX 6870 with a non-reference(supposedly worse than reference) cooler. While typing this I am at 46*C. During full load I will hang right around 67*C or so. You may want to make sure that your HS/F assembly on the GFX card is clean, and you can likely improve your temperatures slightly by reapplying thermal paste using something of quality like AS5.

Temperature in the case is likely not the cause of the GPU temperatures you posted. If you post the temperature of your CPU idle and under load via Prime95/HWMonitor this will give me a little more insight as to whether or not that is the case. I will assume you are using the Intel cooler that came with the processor.