Did I Just Cook My 9800GX2 With Excessive Temps?

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce' started by Roger_D25, Jul 7, 2008.

  1. Roger_D25

    Roger_D25 Guest

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    Hey Guys,
    I haven't started a thread in a long time but I've got a quick question that I'm hoping someone can help out with? I recently got a new eVGA 9800GX2 graphics card which I've had for about 2 weeks now give or take. At the moment its cooled by the stock heatsink although I have been using RivaTuner (2.09) to manually control the speed of the cooling fan to keep temps at a minimum. Using this methods keeps my idle temps at about 43C-48C (depending on ambient temps in my apartment) and keeps my load temps at about 63C-73C (again depending on ambient temps and load on GPU's).

    Well for some stupid reason I decided to try leaving the cards fan control on "Auto Control" to keep the fan noise down because I wasn't using headphones tonight while I gamed. I assumed that the fan would spin up in relationship the temps (spin faster when temps rise, slow down when temps lower).

    Well I just got done playing Crysis for about an hour and a half and I checked my RivaTuner "Hardware Monitoring" and my GPU temps were both above 100C for almost the whole time, the max temps being 104C and 103C respectively for each core! The next thing I did was check out the clockspeeds to see if they started throttling due to the excessive temps but they didn't, the clockspeeds were stable the whole time.

    So my question is this guys, did I just do some serious damage to my card because of the high temps or is this normal for a stock air cooled 9800GX2 graphics card? I honestly having used "air-cooled" hardware for many years so I'm not familiar with what the temps should be or how the stock fan works in relation to temps? Thanks for any help or guidance you can give!
     
  2. Billabong

    Billabong Ancient Guru

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    I did the same thing to my 9800GTX recently, started up a game without fan speed control enabled, got called away, came back 20 minutes later to find the core at 95°C

    The card seems OK, been a couple of weeks now, I guess the lifespan may be "shortened" but if there are no artifacts or problems then the card would appear to be unscathed.

    Don't do it again, lol

    I now have my thermal monitoring programme opening at startup

    :)
     
  3. Roger_D25

    Roger_D25 Guest

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    Thanks for the quick reply Billabong, much apprecaited! I should have mentioned it above but besides my clockspeeds not throttling I also didn't get any artifacting so I think everything will be just fine. Especially since after posting my question I decided to do some quick google research (which I should have done before making up a new thread, sorry mods) and found out that many GTX and GX2 owners have seen their core temps in exess of 100C when leaving their fan control alone. Many of these owners have called the makers of their cards who said that 100C is not a problem (at least on the GX2).

    I was more worried that I may have caused damage than anything even though my card seemed to be working just fine. So thanks again Billabong for your reply!
     
  4. rimmer66

    rimmer66 Banned

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    #1 Don't really on auto control - it is optimized for noise and not for cooling. Noise is really not an issue when you are gaming and using headphones or speakers ! :D

    #2 No, you are fine. The GPU is designed to take high temperatures. You GPU will not get damaged at 100C. If not mistaken your 9800GX2 GPU past 105 it will throttle. As a rule I'd keep my GPU <115C - Some say they have run it higher, but that is asking for trouble - Even if the GPU can handle it, I don't advise it, anyways it will throttle. Now just because your GPU is not damaged by 100C, does not mean it should run like that 24/7. This will reduce its lifespan. You should always run as cool as possible - Of course you won't damage your GPU if your temps go that far from time to time or for 2 hours of gaming, but don't make it a habit of it. Some people don't like setting their fans at 80% or 100% becaus eof noise - Try setting it at 85% or better, 100% and see if noise is an issue, it will probably not be because of the noise in game - it will keep your GPU cooler by a comfortable margin compared to running it at auto :D

    Also you will likely get lock ups and other problems / symptoms before any damage is done to your GPU - however, surprises can happen - some cards are unstable at lower temps than others - so my advice - run it as cool as you can, and no don't worry about it, you didn't burn your card. Can you run your game ? Is it stable ? No artifacting - you are fine, but in my opinion 105C is a bit high, you should be able to bring those temps down with a better cooler or higher fan speed. If memory services, damage will occur @ 125C+ and this number can vary despite the rating being advertised the same. so always play it safe and keep it even cooler than the advertized specs, and you'll be fine. Don't rely on specs and say "Oh ok I'll run my card to 120C :D"
     
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2008

  5. Roger_D25

    Roger_D25 Guest

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    Thanks rimmer66, apreciate your help! I just spent the last 45 minutes playing Crysis again but this time with fan speed manually set at 100% and temps never went above 73C! I think your right about "Auto Control" being optimized for sound control and not heat control because even at 102C the fan speed never went above 62%, you would think they would set it differently. In anycase from all research I've done this cards are able to take far more heat than I would think, but like you said that doesn't mean I'm gonna run it like that 24/7!

    On a somewhat separate note I think its possible to use RivaTuner to manually set the points at which "Auto Control" work using the "Low Level System Setting" settings, just need to read up on how to make it work! Since I'll be back on air cooling for a few weeks I'd like to set it up so that the "Auto Control" is optimized for temperature control instead of noise control, well a balance between the two would be best! Thanks again for all your help and time!
     
  6. Raidflex

    Raidflex Member Guru

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    Yeah I have the same card and had mine get over 100C once no issues though.

    If you have good case cooling you should be fine I have set fan speed to 65% and I never have temps above 80C.
     
  7. jasa

    jasa Member

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    rofl the card could go up to 150 degrees C and it would still work

    these cards are desgigned to reach extreme tempetures

    lol
     
  8. Passion Fruit

    Passion Fruit Guest

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    :puke2:Erm... no the card definately wouldnt take 150c temps...

    Why dont you try it and find out. Put the card in the oven at 150c and then report back to tell us if its still in working condition.

    [/sarcasm]

    anyway seriously, yeah that post above is absolute bollocks:)
     
  9. Roger_D25

    Roger_D25 Guest

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    Yeah 150C seems a bit exessive but it could be true? Granted my original questions have been answered but I'm kinda interested in what some of these high-end cards can actually handle as far as maximum temps go? Jasa do you happen to have any links to support your thoughts on maximum temps? There must be some maximum temps these cards are capable of handling before damage sets in but its been tough informaiton to track down? In anycase guys thanks for taking the time to help out!
     
  10. Raidflex

    Raidflex Member Guru

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    Really think about 150C you could bake a cake at that temp! lol
     

  11. rimmer66

    rimmer66 Banned

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    Also the reason it is set that way is because the GPU can tolerate much higher temps than a conventional CPU so they figure it's not mandatory to raise the fan - Actually in auto the fan shuold raise, but usually at a higher threshold. Even if the chips are rated safe to operate <120C, I would never allow my temps to get that high - it's never healthy for a GPU to run that hot for long periods of time so I tend to forget the specs, and set my own, keeping it <100. :D

    Interesting, I wonder if ti's possible to dump the bios and look at the fan profiles to see how they set it up. I'm surprised, unless this specific chip is rated to run much higher, I don't think it's right. Using RIva Tuner you can set your own fan profiles, there are guides that walk you step by step on how to do this.

    It's never really advertized the true rating of those chips, unlike CPUs. From what I know, usually it is somewhere in the 120/125, actually 125C being core meltdown - although I haerd someone running his at 155C but that is f***ing hot if you ask me, and I don't know if that was true or not, would be interesting to get some official info on the rating of this GPU, I know mine is 125C core meltdown and 115C starts to throttle down.

    BTW, i'M curious to know how well can you play bioshock with your 9800GX2, at MAX settings ?
     
  12. rimmer66

    rimmer66 Banned

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    LMAO - actually the GPU diode itself might be rated for 150C, but not the rest of the card's components :D (although I know it was sarcasm really :D)

    150C - wow - I would never EVER want to run a GPU that hot, I'm very conservative and consider 115C to be critical that's just me :D imagine running at 150C, the heat that it generates in your case and out your case, makes for good heating in the winter for those who have winter :D
     
  13. Hav0q

    Hav0q Master Guru

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    I just got a set of GX2s, at first they reached around 80-85C tops after 1 hour of Crysis without any direct intake fans on, side vents, rear exhaust. I just wanted to test and see how hot they would get...and that's pretty hot for me coming from 8800GTs. 80-85C, though, is a very acceptable number for these cards.

    Now I just run both GX2s @ 100% fan speed all the time...they idle anywhere from 50-55C (and this is summertime, no AC in my diggs) and hit at most 67-73C during gaming (no matter how long)...much better.

    I figure it's best to just run any of these cards nowadays at 100% fan capacity all the time. If anything, it would probably prolong the life of your GPU and Fan due to lower temps and a static fan speed (other than booting to load fan control software).
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2008
  14. NeoElNino

    NeoElNino Master Guru

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    its happened with a lot of people. In my opinion there is a bug in Rivaturner that needs to be fixed ASAP. The same happened to my old GF6600 256Mb AGP8X the fan turned off then temps went to 98C, almost melted..

    got it fixed by putting everything back to defaults..
     
  15. alanm

    alanm Ancient Guru

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    I recall the throttle threshold on my old 6600gt as 135c. Just checked an old bios rom file for a 7900gt and thats at 125c. My current cards throttle though is only 100c according to the bios readout in NBitor.

    Roger, you can use NBitor to find what your cards throttle threshold is.
     

  16. Roger_D25

    Roger_D25 Guest

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    alanm - I just ran NiBiTor to read the BIOS from my GX2 but the "Throttling" wasn't very clear? The "Critical Core Threshold" is anything over 105C if that helps? If you know of a way to read the "Throttling Threshold" let me know and I'll try it out but I couldn't get that option in NiBiTor to show a value? I did find out however that by default the fan speed will only kick on to 100% when the core goes over 118C, then once it goes back below 111C the fan will start to slow down again. I've never had my card above 104C (and at that temp the core/memory did not throttle at all.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2008
  17. alanm

    alanm Ancient Guru

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    Thats what I get on my gts 512 bios as well, except mine is a 100c. The only card I had which listed all the missing values was a 6600gt. I only assume that throttling occurs at the critical core threshold and is maybe why the other values arent listed with newer cards.
     
  18. Denial

    Denial Ancient Guru

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    At critical your card should just shut itself off. Heat is really becoming an issue with these new GPU setups. If you go to the AMD forum it's filled with complaints about 4870's and such over-heating. Both companies should really spend a few extra $ applying better thermal grease, I wouldn't mind paying a little extra for it.

    I think your card is fine though, as long as theres no issues now you'll be aight.
     
  19. junx

    junx Member

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    yeah a 100C heat spot in the middle of your casing isnt fun.my cpu rise at least in 10C after installing 8800gt
     
  20. THEBIG360

    THEBIG360 Maha Guru

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    I got a cosmos s with the massive intake fan on the side one in the front and one on the floor. My temps only ever hit 85 whilst playing crysis then the fan kicks up to 70% and cools it to 70-73. My idle temps are 62c but thats with auto fan still set at 45%.
     

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