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Help with overheating video card

S

Some Random Guy

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Aug 13, 2014
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10 months ago I bought 2 MSI R7950-3GD5/OC BE Radeon HD 7950 3GB from Ebay. One of the cards a few months back started to overheat to the point that while gaming it crashes to desktop.

It currently runs at 90c even when I downclock it to 700 MHz from its default 840 MHz. The other card runs normally at 80c.

I already removed any dust and even reapply thermal paste and that hasn't help much.

The reason I'm asking is because I'm planning to watercool my rig but if one of the two cards is hitting 90c I'm afraid it might cause an issue with the water cooling setup. Any help would be appreciated.
 
Make sure you did not under/over apply the thermal paste and check again if the heatsink is firmly attached to the GPU. If that is not the issue, see if turning up the fan speed would help.
 
Actually the thermal paste reduce the temperature by 5 degrees. Yet it still sitting at 90c. it sometimes when 94 or so.
 
When you're using it are you monitoring the fan speeds? Is it keeping roughly the same rpm as the other fan relative to the temps?
 
The fan runs at 4000+ rpm when it reaches max temperature. So its quite audible.

The other card didn't crank up that high since it didn't reach those temps, but they ran at the same speed at the same temperature.

Also forgot to mention when I did a visual inspection of the card nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
 
If you cant find a problem with the cooling it is likely that the card has run too hot for long enough to degrade a lot.
Water cooling will help and is probably the only thing left that will substantially.
 
What might be happening (this is speculation) VRM might be overvolting the card. I do not know if heatsinks might help. If you can compare voltage of each card under similar conditions.
Watercooling (or an aftermarket or nonreference cooler) might help

It could be a defect in the stock cooler. Swapping coolers ( or fan and shoud assemblies?))might show if this is the case.
Check the fan for any problem. Fan wear or failure seems common to used mining cards (replacement fan assemblies are common on ebay).
Anyway I am a not expert guessing.
 
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msi afterburner fan curve to push them to 100% fan speed above high temps would help as well
 
IMO , Sounds like you got 2 options and Both cost a little money. 1. Get a Watercooler for your GPU 2. Get a aftermarket aircooler. Both will end your struggle with this.

That is basically the only 2 methods you have with fixing this.
 
berettagtkid69420 said:
IMO , Sounds like you got 2 options and Both cost a little money. 1. Get a Watercooler for your GPU 2. Get a aftermarket aircooler. Both will end your struggle with this.

That is basically the only 2 methods you have with fixing this.
Click to expand...

Already going the water cooler route. I just need to get a few more fittings and tubing. I was just worried that even at those temperature it would be problematic for the loop.

Anyway it seems there a slight difference in voltage and I can just lower it down and seems to solve lower the temperature by a few more degrees.
 
Have you tried moving the cards (swapping the orientation of them) to see if the same card has the overheating problem? Maybe its a problem of airflow in your case and your top card is getting to hot (or vice-versa.) As primetime said use afterburner so u can monitor temps/fanspeed easier, you can have the fan speed scale to your temps. I would say the other card running at 80C or above isn't good either.

I've heard that the cooler on your cards is probably the worst one that was made for the 7950 so going to WC may solve your issues there as well.
 
ssnyder28 said:
Have you tried moving the cards (swapping the orientation of them) to see if the same card has the overheating problem? Maybe its a problem of airflow in your case and your top card is getting to hot (or vice-versa.) As primetime said use afterburner so u can monitor temps/fanspeed easier, you can have the fan speed scale to your temps. I would say the other card running at 80C or above isn't good either.

I've heard that the cooler on your cards is probably the worst one that was made for the 7950 so going to WC may solve your issues there as well.
Click to expand...

I only had one card at the time in the case (CM HAF 922). But yeah the coolers on this card are pretty bad.
 
Are the heatsink fins getting hot? If not, or not gettig as hot as the fins in the other card, I am betting that one or more of the heatpipes started leaking.

Back in the day I saw this on a number of Dell machines. The heatpipes would fail and then the only thing that was drawing heat away form the CPU was the base of the cooler.
 
Are you sure the heatsink its completely touching the gpu? I had that issue after I took one apart. If you've taken it apart once it wouldn't hurt it to take it apart again. My 6990 sits in the 80's when playing bioshock on ultra.
 
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