I'm not sure if I'm right in saying this but I think their is a compatability issues between AMD's latest preview driver(s) and Afterburner 2.1.0 The auto fan simply didn't kick in under load and my 6870 got to 102 degrees! wouldn't have noticed it if I didn't realise it wasn't making any noise until it peaked and them only a short burst at 100% alarmed me! just putting this out there.
Actually, scratch my last post - user error! I must have turned the auto icon off and then pressed apply or something like that. It seems to be fine now, just hope I haven't done any permanent damage to my card. yes- I am a douche!
I had it yesterday, the fan was stuck at 34% and I noticed almost by accident that my GPU is well over 90 degrees Celsius shortly after starting the game. The MSI AB was set as always, Auto was on and everything, but it didn't react at all. When I disabled Auto and move the slider, it was still on 34% all the time. If I didn't have the OSD on, my GPU would fry... 11.9 WHQL by the way.
Something similar happened to me last month. Found it was because I had logged off my user session in Windows while using an user-defined auto profile. After I logged back in I started playing a game for a couple of minutes and all of a sudden my fan speed was at max with 100 degrees. Good thing the GTX 480 was made to handle high temperatures... I immediately closed and noticed that "Auto" was de-selected, and fan was stuck at the last speed it was. Re-enabled auto and it was working again. Never logged off or changed users from them onwards and didn't have it happen again.
i prefer my fan @ auto since its HW controlled and not SW like my old 250gts or probably your 6870 too.. heh i guess AMD uses same shift it to driver level as well, esp. cheaper/mainstream models.
I did this once with my 470GTX. I forgot to tick the auto button and my card got up to 99C when I looked at the temp after a few minutes of Crysis Warhead. The max temp is 105C on mine but I don't even like going over 90C. Good thing you caught it when you did.
