Retro PC help: 9800 GT SLI overheating issue on top card

Mr. Bluntman

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 25, 2007
Messages
7,065
Hopefully one of you [H]ard|Forum veterans can help shed some light on this. Over a year ago I obtained an ASUS P5N-D and two 9800 GTs for some SLI fun in a trade from another forum member. The build quickly turned into somewhat of a nightmare. When using Yorkfield processors 32-bit OSes BSOD upon boot and the top 9800 GT's fan spins quickly up to 100% under an uncapped 3D load. It doesn't matter which card (although one is significantly worse) I use the 100% fan speed persists. Temperatures go above 85C and keep climbling slowly. The bottom card is inaudible over the top one. I've already tried replacing the thermal compound twice (AS Ceramique 2) and if I attempt a third time I'll need new thermal pads, and this had some effect, but still the fan on the top card reaches 100% fan speed. It's annoyingly loud. So the questions are:

1. Is this normal for 8800/9800 GT cards to be so loud in SLI?

2. If it is not normal, are my cards defective/burnt out? They produce no artifacts outside of normal game/driver bugs.

3. Do I need to find a motherboard with wider spacing between PCIe x16 slots (ergo more than 1 slot spacing, which will be difficult since this isn't 2008 anymore)?

4. Should I replace my cards with other samples or just use better thermal paste/new pads?

Any help would be great so I know if I should invest more time/money into this setup or just give up on it and SLI different cards.
 
The chipset and fan are your killer. They dump a ton of heat into the top card. It bakes the back of the card and pushes heat into the gpu. You can try reversing the chipset fan to blow up rather than down. Or go with a case that has a side fan that blows directly onto the chipset/gpu section. Or try directing a fan at it to blow (front of case) across towards the back of the case. I dont remember much about the p5n-d in regards to the fan being reversable or not. You could try replacing the fan with a high cfm 70 or 80mm. Alot of gpus had to be water cooled with 750i/780i sli rigs for that reason.
I never tried to aircool the gpus with my evga 780i sli rig. I went straight to a coolermaster haf x case(200mm side fan), wced the gpus and modded a 80mm fan to the chipset. It worked great for both ocing and sli but was expensive.
 
What case are you using currently?

297966_64123_20160731_193614_-_Copy.jpg


Are you able to zip tie a fan like this to the case near the gpus?
 
The chipset and fan are your killer. They dump a ton of heat into the top card. It bakes the back of the card and pushes heat into the gpu. You can try reversing the chipset fan to blow up rather than down. Or go with a case that has a side fan that blows directly onto the chipset/gpu section. Or try directing a fan at it to blow (front of case) across towards the back of the case. I dont remember much about the p5n-d in regards to the fan being reversable or not. You could try replacing the fan with a high cfm 70 or 80mm. Alot of gpus had to be water cooled with 750i/780i sli rigs for that reason.
I never tried to aircool the gpus with my evga 780i sli rig. I went straight to a coolermaster haf x case(200mm side fan), wced the gpus and modded a 80mm fan to the chipset. It worked great for both ocing and sli but was expensive.
My example didn't come with the chipset fan in the box. I've been running the board passively cooled, which, is what I assumed the giant heatsink was for - to give you the option of attaching the fan. I've encountered no stability issues thus far. Still, that's a really good insight and one I hadn't thought of. It's good to know seeing as how I'll be acquiring a 780i and 790i SLI board as well. As for watercooling, finding all the parts 14 years later for watercooling will be a challenge and sadly beyond my budget. I may have to invest in some high RPM fans that can be speed controlled. The poster below you suggested a specific case, but I'll address that directly coming up.
Find a used Silverstone TJ09, I still have mine. Best Case ever for SLI I use to run two dual GPU cards in SLI with no heat issues. The secret is the 140 mm fan that draws cool air into the intake vents and on the sides of the case and dumps directly on the GPUS https://www.silverstonetek.com/legacy.php?area=en&model=tj09
Only one example on eBay for just shy of $300, and it's ending in 3 days. :/ I'd rather use higher RPM fans in the front and back/rear of the case and save the rest to go towards a 1080 Ti FE and 32GB of RAM. Still, if I come across some extra dosh I'll keep my eyes peeled for one. It's really elegant looking.
What case are you using currently?

View attachment 331615

Are you able to zip tie a fan like this to the case near the gpus?
Antec Three Hundred. Unfortunately no. There isn't ventilation grating by the expansion slots like there is in your (server?) case that's pictured.
 
My example didn't come with the chipset fan in the box. I've been running the board passively cooled, which, is what I assumed the giant heatsink was for - to give you the option of attaching the fan. I've encountered no stability issues thus far. Still, that's a really good insight and one I hadn't thought of. It's good to know seeing as how I'll be acquiring a 780i and 790i SLI board as well. As for watercooling, finding all the parts 14 years later for watercooling will be a challenge and sadly beyond my budget. I may have to invest in some high RPM fans that can be speed controlled. The poster below you suggested a specific case, but I'll address that directly coming up.

Only one example on eBay for just shy of $300, and it's ending in 3 days. :/ I'd rather use higher RPM fans in the front and back/rear of the case and save the rest to go towards a 1080 Ti FE and 32GB of RAM. Still, if I come across some extra dosh I'll keep my eyes peeled for one. It's really elegant looking.

Antec Three Hundred. Unfortunately no. There isn't ventilation grating by the expansion slots like there is in your (server?) case that's pictured.
Put a higher cfm fan in the side panel?
 
Put a higher cfm fan in the side panel?
I'll try that, although it will be a couple weeks at least before I can order some not just for the side, but for the front as well. I have two fans as intake (120mm) but they don't put out very much airflow. It's better than before I put them in, but still, not good enough it seems. I just bought what the local Mom & Pop shop had on hand.
get creative and rig up a fan to blow over the side or from the end of the cards to feed more fresh air to the top one.
Tried that a couple months ago. It only had limited success. I am just going to need more airflow all around.
 
The chipset and fan are your killer. They dump a ton of heat into the top card. It bakes the back of the card and pushes heat into the gpu. You can try reversing the chipset fan to blow up rather than down. Or go with a case that has a side fan that blows directly onto the chipset/gpu section. Or try directing a fan at it to blow (front of case) across towards the back of the case. I dont remember much about the p5n-d in regards to the fan being reversable or not. You could try replacing the fan with a high cfm 70 or 80mm. Alot of gpus had to be water cooled with 750i/780i sli rigs for that reason.
I never tried to aircool the gpus with my evga 780i sli rig. I went straight to a coolermaster haf x case(200mm side fan), wced the gpus and modded a 80mm fan to the chipset. It worked great for both ocing and sli but was expensive.
I ran tri-sli 8800gtx rig in a 780i board for quite a while without issue. Wasn't so much into tracking temperatures back then, but they never shut down.
 
That's plenty enough clearance in my opinion. I'm sorry I can't help much more than suggesting throwing fans at it in a janky way.
When some money comes in I'm ordering a round of higher RPM fans for the front and side. The top and rear ones already push a lot of air, even on medium (Antec Tri-speed molex). I just need ones for the front and side. Hopefully that will be enough airflow for these single slot monstrosities.
 
When some money comes in I'm ordering a round of higher RPM fans for the front and side. The top and rear ones already push a lot of air, even on medium (Antec Tri-speed molex). I just need ones for the front and side. Hopefully that will be enough airflow for these single slot monstrosities.

I hope the fans help but have you tried re-doing the compound on those GPUs? I had similar problems with a xfire 5970 setup that extra fans helped some but ultimately had to do a little underclocking/volting. Witcher 2 would cause the top one to crash because it was sucking in all that hot air from the bottom card. Really made me understand why people used blower HSFs for SLI.
 
I hope the fans help but have you tried re-doing the compound on those GPUs? I had similar problems with a xfire 5970 setup that extra fans helped some but ultimately had to do a little underclocking/volting. Witcher 2 would cause the top one to crash because it was sucking in all that hot air from the bottom card. Really made me understand why people used blower HSFs for SLI.
He replaced the compound.
 
Must be my first day, as I didn't even think that they should be dual slots. Never owned a 9800.
Here's the fan side of a non-working sample. (It was working when I lent it out, then the person let water get to it - last time I lend out hardware to a layperson)

20210221_143349.jpg

I just wanted to run them because they were the last gaming grade single slot GPU reference design from nVIDIA. What a great idea that turned out to be :rolleyes:
 
I'd probably stick a fan blowing in between them and take out the slot covers well so it has some exhaust there for the back. If there's no room because of the power location you could just tie a fan on top of them as well. I've got a fan like that in my file server blowing on my SAS card since it has passive cooling and gets super hot on its own.

Issue with these cards is they exhaust back into the case but the cooler also sucks so it's a double whammy.

Kinda like this

1613948388158.png
 
Last edited:
I would remove blank for the empty expansion slot betweed the cards that will alow heat to vent out passivley. Edit, I gues you beat me to it above
 
^^^ I had nearly forgotten about those single slot coolers. Even with the additional fans there simply was not enough heatsink to pull the heat away. I used to mount low profile CPU coolers to them.
 
My 8800GTX SLI system had the top card run 86-92C all the time while gaming. Those cards lasted me almost 7 years without issues. They had the reference-style dual slot blowers on them.
 
Single slot gtx9800

Eeeeww there's your problem
Those are 9800 GT GPUs, which were rebranded 8800 GT GPUs, which were all single-slot.
I used them back in the late 2000s, and never experienced severe heat issues as long as they had one slot open between them like the OP has.

That's actually a really optimal system build from that era, and I'm pretty shocked that those temperatures, but then again, just like D-EJ915 showed, there is no where for the air to escape to.
Those two slots below the GPUs definitely need to be open since those single-slot blowers do blow the hot air toward the back of the case.

The Quadro RTX 4000 is a single-slot GPU as well, which is essentially around an RTX 2060 or downclocked 2070 performance-wise, and that GPU was released in 2018, so it isn't like single-slot GPUs don't exist any more. ;)

90746623729BEFD79F874F20AB2F53CC.jpg
 
Those are 9800 GT GPUs, which were rebranded 8800 GT GPUs, which were all single-slot.
I used them back in the late 2000s, and never experienced severe heat issues as long as they had one slot open between them like the OP has.

That's actually a really optimal system build from that era, and I'm pretty shocked that those temperatures, but then again, just like D-EJ915 showed, there is no where for the air to escape to.
Those two slots below the GPUs definitely need to be open since those single-slot blowers do blow the hot air toward the back of the case.

The Quadro RTX 4000 is a single-slot GPU as well, which is essentially around an RTX 2060 or downclocked 2070 performance-wise, and that GPU was released in 2018, so it isn't like single-slot GPUs don't exist any more. ;)

90746623729BEFD79F874F20AB2F53CC.jpg
Optimal was exactly what I was going for with this build. It's about to get even more optimal with a QX9650. I'll order some vented expansion slot covers to replace the solid ones in there now, for both Antec Three Hundreds that I own. Thanks to everyone who provided advice and tips.

I think it's kind of a shame the single slot GPU went the way of the dodo outside of Quadro (and FirePro?) cards. Now triple slot is a thing thanks to the 3090.
 
Optimal was exactly what I was going for with this build. It's about to get even more optimal with a QX9650. I'll order some vented expansion slot covers to replace the solid ones in there now, for both Antec Three Hundreds that I own. Thanks to everyone who provided advice and tips.

I think it's kind of a shame the single slot GPU went the way of the dodo outside of Quadro (and FirePro?) cards. Now triple slot is a thing thanks to the 3090.
Single slot cooling solutions are fine if you no longer want the kinds of 3D features and performance we have these days. The 9800 GT had a 125W TDP, and that was really pushing it for single slot on air. Cards today are 250-320W in a package that is 100x more dense than the 55nm node the 9800 GT was made on.
 
Single slot cooling solutions are fine if you no longer want the kinds of 3D features and performance we have these days. The 9800 GT had a 125W TDP, and that was really pushing it for single slot on air. Cards today are 250-320W in a package that is 100x more dense than the 55nm node the 9800 GT was made on.
I agree that 125 watts is pushing single slot to the limit on air based upon my recent experiences with these cards. Still, the Quadro RTX 4000 that Red Falcon posted is proof that mainstream mid-range performance is still possible to do in a single slot.
 
Last edited:
Are the cards the same as the one in the pic?
I'm asking because there were 2 different shroud/fan designs. One had a bigger fan and hole than the other. The small hole cards were a known problem.
If you have cards with the small fan and hole there probably isn't much you can do besides trying to improve case air flow.

Small hole: https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-8800-gt-512-p3-n801-ar/p/N82E16814130318
Big hole: https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-8800-gt-512-p3-n802-ar/p/N82E16814130319
 
I see only one solution here - buy 2x waterblocks and go all-in. Apparently, 8800 GT blocks fit.

But, joking aside, that top card is choked for airflow. It's taking in hot air warmed up by the bottom card, so what do you expect, ya know.
 
As others have mentioned, there simply isn't enough cooling with a single slot blower. I think you may be forced to find alternative ways of cooling in that setup. Maybe liquid or if you can find dual slot coolers that would fit the board.
 
Single slot cooling solutions are fine if you no longer want the kinds of 3D features and performance we have these days. The 9800 GT had a 125W TDP, and that was really pushing it for single slot on air. Cards today are 250-320W in a package that is 100x more dense than the 55nm node the 9800 GT was made on.
Not quite, the RTX 4000 has a 160 watt TDP, and is single-slot, and that is capable of ~7 TFLOPs FP32, not counting the Tensor or ray tracing cores computation as well.
It isn't going to outperform anything above an RTX 2070, but for a single-slot GPU it is very capable, especially for 1080p - I know, because I currently use one at 2K resolutions.

Case in point with the 9800 GT GPUs, which for their time were very powerful for the form factor and TDP.
We also aren't expecting 2021 performance levels out of a 2008/2009 GPU.

As others have mentioned, there simply isn't enough cooling with a single slot blower. I think you may be forced to find alternative ways of cooling in that setup. Maybe liquid or if you can find dual slot coolers that would fit the board.
No, that simply is not true.
The expansion bays beneath each GPU should definitely either be open or have vented covers, but aside from that not much more should be needed than perhaps a fan on the lower-front of the case to push cool air directly at the GPUs.

Non-OC'ed 9800 GT GPUs do not need liquid cooling - I know, I ran them for years without issue in the late 2000s and early 2010s when they were very mainstream and one of the most popular solutions.
The 8800/9800 GT was one of the most popular GPUs of its era, and for good reason - that didn't happen because of poor cooling, so lets please not rewrite history on this one.
 
Last edited:
Are the cards the same as the one in the pic?
I'm asking because there were 2 different shroud/fan designs. One had a bigger fan and hole than the other. The small hole cards were a known problem.
If you have cards with the small fan and hole there probably isn't much you can do besides trying to improve case air flow.

Small hole: https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-8800-gt-512-p3-n801-ar/p/N82E16814130318
Big hole: https://www.newegg.com/evga-geforce-8800-gt-512-p3-n802-ar/p/N82E16814130319
They are definitely ones with the small hole. These were Dell OEM cards originally. Most reference cards on eBay are either OEM pulls, ealier partner cards, or Founder's Editions.
 
Not quite, the RTX 4000 has a 160 watt TDP, and is single-slot, and that is capable of ~7 TFLOPs FP32, not counting the Tensor or ray tracing cores computation as well.
It isn't going to outperform anything above an RTX 2070, but for a single-slot GPU it is very capable, especially for 1080p - I know, because I currently use one at 2K resolutions.

Case in point with the 9800 GT GPUs, which for their time were very powerful for the form factor and TDP.
We also aren't expecting 2021 performance levels out of a 2008/2009 GPU.


No, that simply is not true.
The expansion bays beneath each GPU should definitely either be open or have vented covers, but aside from that not much more should be needed than perhaps a fan on the lower-front of the case to push cool air directly at the GPUs.

Non-OC'ed 9800 GT GPUs do not need liquid cooling - I know, I ran them for years without issue in the late 2000s and early 2010s when they were very mainstream and one of the most popular solutions.
The 8800/9800 GT was one of the most popular GPUs of its era, and for good reason - that didn't happen because of poor cooling, so lets please not rewrite history on this one.
lol, I know they don't need liquid cooling, nor do I desire to re-write history. I am just saying, that if a beefier cooling solution were to be applied, it might solve the problem. Now, I'm certainly no graphics card expert from this particular era, but I would suspect that the vast majority of these single slot cards were meant for cases with higher volume air to assist with the removal of heat.

When I suggest liquid, I only mean that it would be affective removing heat from the cards while keeping sound manageable. A custom loop for the two cards would work very well, even if it is overkill.

Also, depending on how that PSU is functioning, any heat generated with the fan off is going to feed the case. It looks like the two top fans are blowing out. Then you get the PSU fan competing a little bit. I mean, from what I see it certainly isn't an optimal flow setup. Maybe taking some time to make certain that you have positive pressure inside the case will help.

But, I'm just throwing out ideas to solve a problem, not arguing stock thermals for some 12 year old cards.
 
lol, I know they don't need liquid cooling, nor do I desire to re-write history. I am just saying, that if a beefier cooling solution were to be applied, it might solve the problem. Now, I'm certainly no graphics card expert from this particular era, but I would suspect that the vast majority of these single slot cards were meant for cases with higher volume air to assist with the removal of heat.
They really weren't, though I will say the RTX 4000 does need a case with higher air flow through it, but then again it does have a higher TDP.
When I suggest liquid, I only mean that it would be affective removing heat from the cards while keeping sound manageable. A custom loop for the two cards would work very well, even if it is overkill.
It could work well, just depends on what the OP wants to do with it, and if it is worth it.
These 9800 GT's are using the older 8800 GT stock coolers, which have a smaller opening for the fan, and was later revised with a bigger opening for better airflow on the 9800 GT.

Also, depending on how that PSU is functioning, any heat generated with the fan off is going to feed the case. It looks like the two top fans are blowing out. Then you get the PSU fan competing a little bit. I mean, from what I see it certainly isn't an optimal flow setup. Maybe taking some time to make certain that you have positive pressure inside the case will help.
I agree with this, and that is a good observation.
The PSU probably should be flipped over so the fan is on the bottom of the case - assuming the case has an actual vented opening for it.

But, I'm just throwing out ideas to solve a problem, not arguing stock thermals for some 12 year old cards.
Nah, I get you.
 
With a half assed vented slot cover these are the idle temps after a few hours of gaming and a few hours of youtube on loop, then about an hour of idle/web browsing.
idletemps.png
 
Back
Top