Hi guys, I need some advice with my Gainward GTX 470 graphics card. My problem is that it has been getting very hot lately. We all know Fermi cards run hot but this is too much. Case well ventilated Ambient temp: 24C Idle temp (fan@40%): 80C! Idle temp (fan@66%): 58C This is my fan profile: When playing games, the fan really kicks in and manages to keep temps below 85C (except Crysis or similarly demanding games where it can exceed 90C), but quite frankly I'm annoyed by such high idle temps, not to mention the hurricane force noise coming from my gfx card. I've tried vacuuming the card (there was little or no dust in it to begin with) but with no result. I'm a bit worried about trying to reseat the heat sink, as I've read many stories where people just made things worse by doing that. What do you think? What should I do? I'm worried about voiding my warranty and even if I decide to sell it, who's going to buy a card that goes up to 80C in idle on default settings. If I do decide to reseat the HS, which paste do you think I should use? I've got a tube of AS5, but I've heard some people advising against it for GPUs as it is electrically conductive. Thanks
driver issue? I had a P-state issue with any 280.xx ~50-52C (just web browsing), usually its max 39-42C like now with 285.xx..
The case is well ventilated and was recently cleaned of dust, so unfortunately that's not it. According to MSI Afterburner, the card volts down completely (51 MHz for the GPU and 100 MHz for the VRAM) when idle. I'll update the drivers and see if that helps.
80C is in idle at 40% fanspeed or playing games with 90% fanspeed (see the fan profile above). I'm not so worried about load temps, it's a fermi after all, it's the idle temps that bug me. BTW, my card's VID is 0.912V at default (downvolted to 0.865V) and it's not overclocked. When overclocked I can get to 800MHz with 0.965V but it gets really hot then.
what happens with older drivers - 275.xx? If its the same, then yea could be dried out thermal paste or something like that..
The latest 286.62 drivers make the card run considerably hotter due to them making the voltages higher I've done a soldered volt mod on mine and I've had to dial back the overvolt to compensate. with 285.62 installed it was pushing 1.5v through the core! (actual multimeter measurement). Lucky thing these First gen Fermi's are double-hard bastards! So yeah, try putting the voltage down...
The card has already been downvolted from its original setting. I run it at default frequencies and the voltage has been lowered to 0.865V from the default value of 0.912V. Yeah, the old drivers were 275.33. Anyway, thanks everyone for your advice. I'll go get some TIM (the best I can get in these parts is Arctic MX4) and I'll reseat the heart sink. I hope I don't screw up the card, though!
Dont be too worried the GPU sink is separate from the pcb sink - at least for reference models. Just gently twist the sink off, it will (should) be stuck on there. Just don't over-tighten the screws they strip easily. Just turn the screws until they stop and don't force them anything beyond. Re-paste works great for me.
dude that thing has to be clogged with dust. Did you actually take iti apart an look? or did you just look through the IO shield on the back of the card. My 480 gains in tempature over the months and it is always because of dust and I just take it out every couple months an blow the dust out with an air compressor.
Thermal paste should not be needing to be reapplied....the card isn't even two years old yet is it?? I have never applied thermal paste to my 480 and I game daily with it.
at default fan settings my 470 idles hot (70-80c mark) aswell i just force a profile to keep the fan at 60%@40c ramping upto 100%@75c... this keeps this card at about 45c idle (a secondary 9400GT idles at 52c!!)... its hitting about 90c max (averaging ~80c) in games (3D clocks profile set to 750/150/1800/1.000v and only kicks in when 3D app starts..2D clocks run default)
I took the plastic shroud off which gave me a full view of the heat sink and I got rid of what little dust there was in it. Oh, and I don't have access to a compressor, and cans of compressed air are unbelievably expensive over here. 1 costs about 1/4 of the price of a Zalman VF3000... nuff said.