GTX 280 Temperature Issue

P

Phas3Zer0

n00b
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Oct 11, 2011
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This card has been good to me until I messed with it. I decided to clean out my case and redo the wiring and put new thermal paste on the cpu (1090T) which lowered my idle temp by about 7-8 degree's (33c Idle). Since that worked out so well I thought I might as well do the same with my video card.

Taking apart
http://imageshack.us/f/822/sdc10923w.jpg/

Old Thermal Paste

http://imageshack.us/f/152/sdc10922.jpg/

Temperature Increases rapidly once it hits 65c.

http://imageshack.us/f/542/gtx280tempissue.png/

Before this I was using AS5 compound using the pea method/ light spread/ X method, but I ran out of AS5 and actually had worse results. I had some no name brand laying around and did the spread method again and those are my current results. I don't know if it needs time to cure or what, but I can't run any games or it starts to lag when it reached 105c (max safe temp for this GPU). I'm surprised it still runs at this temp and has yet to shutdown on me. What is actually weird is once it hits the 100c range it stays between 100c-107c no matter how long I run furmark for. Any ideas?
 
Sounds like the mount might not be the best or it isn't quite matched properly. Even with the worst paste that is still high. I'd take it off, clean it and redo I think the pea method works best for GPU cores?. :D
 
Some pastes take a while to cure, AS5 being one of them.

I would get some better paste, and not AS5, which has been outclassed. MX-2 and MX-4 are highly recommended nowadays, and so are many others, which are as cheap if not cheaper than AS5. I use Arctic Ceramique 2, which has been shown to be as good/better than AS5, and was $6 for a 22g tube :D
 
That is a weird temp arc, you sure you aren't running anything to control fan speed? It looks like your fan speed ramp might be fucked up.
 
Using Nvidia control panel for fan control. Going to try a dif thermal paste later.
 
Having taken apart many 260s, 280s, and 285s it kind of sounds like you dont have the heatsink tight enough as mentioned above. I have put them back together with really cheap ebay white thermal paste and not had that problem - posting from a machine with a vanilla 280 with cheap white thermal paste right now.

Usually you want to tighten the heatsink until it is actually bending the pcb.

The card could also just be going out, if the chip has gotten loose at all (and needs to be baked eventually) temps can go wild, even without the obvious signs of artifacts.
 
Stupid question, but did you make sure to plug the fan in?
 
I agree the arc of the temperature read out is odd. It almost looks like you lost contact due to a phase change. Take it apart and look at the past contact (and post pictures), and then try again. TIM is 90% application and 10% what you use.
 
make sure you do the screws in diagonal pairs (tighten top left/bottom right a bit then top right/bottom left, repeat until it's firm). Check the threads and screws beforehand for defects. It does look like it came out slightly onesided from the print (though only slightly).
 
So I ran out of thermal paste and have to wait a few days to get some more. Until then (out of curiosity and desperation) I found some wall spackle, filled my empty thermal paste tube, put a pea sized drop on my gpu, and put the thing back together. Anyway here are the results of the spackle.

http://imageshack.us/f/716/gputemp2.png/

Same issue still occurs, but it's not as bad. Maybe happens during phase change? Anyway going to remove the spackle lol
 
Last edited:
DeathPrincess said:
make sure you do the screws in diagonal pairs (tighten top left/bottom right a bit then top right/bottom left, repeat until it's firm). Check the threads and screws beforehand for defects. It does look like it came out slightly onesided from the print (though only slightly).
Click to expand...

Thanks for letting me know. I will remember that next time I get some thermal paste and see if that makes a difference. Should also get some thermal tape while I'm at it.
 
Alright so got some Antec Formula 7 compound and cleaned the old stuff off with 91% isopropyl alcohol. put a pea sized dot in the middle of the gpu and screwed the heat sink on in diagonal pairs. Booted up and idle at 45'C. Then ran furmark...

gputest3.png
 
Pulled the card back apart and re-applied by spreading a thin layer all the way across the GPU and then wedged a piece of cardboard between the back of the GPU and the backplate before I screwed it on to add more pressure. Then I added 2x80mm and 1x120mm fan right above the video card.

So far these are the best results. The strange temperature arc is still present though. At least it's not going above 100'C like before. Actually a little afraid to keep running furmark for any longer...

gputest4.png
 
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