• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

290 crossfire heat issue.

P

Pitbull

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 21, 2004
Messages
361
I swapped out my 2x 6970s for 2x powercolor 290 cards with gellid icy vision 2 sinks.
My components sit in a Rosewill Thor case.
The top card runs extremely hoooot will reach 95c if i allow it, while the bottom will stay at a nice and cool 55c. There is nearly no space between the cards. I thought that perhaps switching the 230mm fan for 2x 120m fans on the side panel would help as the mounting for 120s is few inches higher and more direct over the top card, but things did not change much.
The fans i stuck there are some low rpm 120s i had lying around from an old case. Do you guys think i should get some proper faster fans that can really blow the right onto the card, or is there something else i should try.
 
Sounds like the top card isn't getting enough air into the dual fan system. Can you put a small spacer between the cards to increase the airflow? I had to do this with my crossfire 7950 "core" editions, and my temps on the top card dropped by 7c.
 
What do you mean by a spacer? I cant move the card down to any other slot on my motherboard.

MrC4 said:
Sounds like the top card isn't getting enough air into the dual fan system. Can you put a small spacer between the cards to increase the airflow? I had to do this with my crossfire 7950 "core" editions, and my temps on the top card dropped by 7c.
Click to expand...
 
Pitbull said:
I swapped out my 2x 6970s for 2x powercolor 290 cards with gellid icy vision 2 sinks.
My components sit in a Rosewill Thor case.
The top card runs extremely hoooot will reach 95c if i allow it, while the bottom will stay at a nice and cool 55c. There is nearly no space between the cards. I thought that perhaps switching the 230mm fan for 2x 120m fans on the side panel would help as the mounting for 120s is few inches higher and more direct over the top card, but things did not change much.
The fans i stuck there are some low rpm 120s i had lying around from an old case. Do you guys think i should get some proper faster fans that can really blow the right onto the card, or is there something else i should try.
Click to expand...

You need something with high pressure in this case. Think radiator appropriate fans. Faster fans alone will not help.
 
That's a massive difference. Have you tried reseating that heatsink or checking the contact of the thermal paste? Even with it having limited air flow those sinks are fantastic, 40deg is a huge difference.

Check the seating to be sure, better than frying a card. I suggest this because a close friend who decided to watercool 2 7800 gtx's back in the day had the same issue. Once I took the block off the card to check, i saw he had left the protective film on the block lol.

I'm not saying you'd do something like this, but it could very well be a contact issue.
 
Is this the case?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147053

Mount some fans blowing along the PCB of the cards. Ideally you want the point where the fans touch each other to be aimed directly between the 2 cards.

Something like this: http://i.imgur.com/TDPy1NW.jpg
If you can't fit the extra fans, well... Time to buy a new case maybe.

That's a massive difference. Have you tried reseating that heatsink or checking the contact of the thermal paste? Even with it having limited air flow those sinks are fantastic, 40deg is a huge difference.
Click to expand...
This is a good idea... Try running the top card by itself and check the temps to see if there's a difference.
If it runs at ~55C then you know it's an airflow problem.
 
I tested the cards before purchasing 1 by 1 at the sellers house they each ran 63c top durring furmarks burn test. The card idles at 36c, the sink gets realllly hot when running games so it is set properly.

Tainted squirrel yes, that is the case, but my cards are mmmmuch closer together. I should be able to fit in fans just like that without any issues.
 
I had the same issue with my 2x MSI 460GTX Hawks in SLI. Only solution was to move the bottom card to the third x16 slot. The cards were touching and no matter what I tried the top card wasn't getting enough air.
 
the 3rd pci slot is only 8x (and does not support sli/cross fire) on my motherboard. It also shares bandwidth with other components such as USB etc.

IcedEmotion said:
I had the same issue with my 2x MSI 460GTX Hawks in SLI. Only solution was to move the bottom card to the third x16 slot. The cards were touching and no matter what I tried the top card wasn't getting enough air.
Click to expand...
 
motherboards need to have a three slot spacing between x16's. I don't know why some Mobo's do 2x2x2x2 besides needing to fit 4 cards.
 
Unoid said:
motherboards need to have a three slot spacing between x16's. I don't know why some Mobo's do 2x2x2x2 besides needing to fit 4 cards.
Click to expand...

This is why I do not own an EVGA board. :(
They don't get it.
I looked at the z97's and it looked like they still have it wrong.
 
Bluesun311 said:
This is why I do not own an EVGA board. :(
They don't get it.
I looked at the z97's and it looked like they still have it wrong.
Click to expand...

Most mobos are guilty of this, not just EVGA. PCI-e spacing needs to be optimized for 2x or 3x cards, honestly, with a few models offering 4x to the guys that need it. I would love to have a mobo that I could crossfire two cards, one in slot 1 and one in slot 3 or 4 and have all that room in-between for airflow.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top