Radeon 6870, 74C idle

J

Jerec

Weaksauce
Joined
Oct 22, 2009
Messages
109
Typically, my routine in Florida is to enjoy the relatively lower temperatures during the winter, then clean out my case of dust and notice the temperatures in my computer once spring comes in and the Florida heat starts pushing things.

I've found my Radeon 6870 temperature is now 74 C doing nothing. It is in the 90s when playing a game. Unfortunately, I don't remember if it's always been like this.

My brother, who's in likely a warmer house and has a Radeon 6850, has much more reasonable temperatures. I can't recall the exact numbers this moment, but nothing to worry about.

I think my CPU is in a more reasonable temperature range of 45-65 C. Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be with my video card?
 
Have you checked for dust inside the card? Most people just clean the exterior but not interior of the card... The other reason can be the TIM too dryed and lost capacity of transfer heat... You checked your fans/blower on the card working well? According to the showed speed on the desktop?...
 
Would TIM be another term for the thermal material (I bet that's the T and M) between the heatsink and chip? I hope it's not that, I don't think that's ever happened to me before..

I guess I can look into opening up the heatsink and seeing what I can blow out of it.

According to SpeedFan, my GPU fan is at 33%. I can definitely increase it and bring the temperatures down, but of course it gets unreasonably loud.
 
Yep, TIM = Thermal Interface Material. I'd recommend replacing the paste, the stock paste is most always junk and hardens and crumbles away after a year or more. Something cheap like MX2 and you'll be good to go. Give it a blast with compressed air and you'll breate new life into your card.
 
Yes sorry for not explain... TIM its thermal interface material or conductive grease... What you can do its make a custom profile automatic fan with custum fan curve on the EVGA precission.. I do that i start on 30% that are the minimum speedfan on the 600 series and tweak the dots on the fan curve to 40C=40%, 50C=50% and so on.. Until 80% (max speed for the 600 series)... That should work keeping low temps..
 
Jerec said:
Typically, my routine in Florida is to enjoy the relatively lower temperatures during the winter, then clean out my case of dust and notice the temperatures in my computer once spring comes in and the Florida heat starts pushing things.

I've found my Radeon 6870 temperature is now 74 C doing nothing. It is in the 90s when playing a game. Unfortunately, I don't remember if it's always been like this.

My brother, who's in likely a warmer house and has a Radeon 6850, has much more reasonable temperatures. I can't recall the exact numbers this moment, but nothing to worry about.

I think my CPU is in a more reasonable temperature range of 45-65 C. Does anyone have any ideas on what the problem could be with my video card?
Click to expand...

My steambox has a single fan 6870 in it, after doing a quick check it's idling at 42-51c under load it hits 60 something (the quick test I did only got it to 62c and it was holding)

Echoing what others have said, check to make sure it isn't packed full of dust and hair and clean up and replace TiM
 
Definitely sounds like bad TIM. Even in 90+ ambient temps it shouldn't idle that high. My 6850 in 90+ ambient would still idle in the 40s and 50's
 
Blargh, not excited with the idea of redoing the thermal material. I know Arctic Cooler is everyone's favorite with CPUs and I still have some.. would that work or is there something better for GPUs?

And is the process much different from redoing things for a CPU?
 
Arctic silver will work fine, some will complain that it's conductive material, but as long as you aren't glopping it all over it's perfectly fine.

The process is about the same as doing a cpu. Most gpu's have 4 screws securing the heatsink to the card. Take those screws out, lift up and it should pop right off. You may have to unplug a fan connector on the card depending on the model. If you've done a cpu before then this will feel almost the same.
 
If you determine that thermal paste isnt solving your issue, contact the company who mfr'd the card, they might send out replacement fans free of charge.
 
Redoing the thermal paste on the gpu is no harder than doing it for the CPU. Just use smaller amounts, because the die surface is less.
 
sakerfalcon said:
Redoing the thermal paste on the gpu is no harder than doing it for the CPU. Just use smaller amounts, because the die surface is less.
Click to expand...

yea this is very important.. and that its one of the greater mistake on the MSI Twin Frozr IV cooler, idk why in MSI just put that huge amount of TIM that just make the card to perform hot..

apply the TIM just like on a CPU a small amount and spread evenly for the die surface do not have to be a very tiny layer as CPU do not worry much about that, but yes to make the more evenly spread possible..
 
Finished, idles in the high 50s, hits the mid 70s on load. Doesn't seem quite as good as what I'm seeing everyone else getting, but I think I'm, at least, out of the danger zone.

Had a little trouble figuring out how to remove the GPU cooler, didn't realise I had to sorta pry the damn thing off after removing the screws.

Now I gotta figure out if I should return these new case fans I got. It's my own fault because I just bought some fans with good reviews and didn't bother to compare the numbers to the stock fans. I figured the stock fans would be crap that could be bested easily, but it turns out the stock fans can push more air with the same noise level.
 
Jerec said:
Finished, idles in the high 50s, hits the mid 70s on load. Doesn't seem quite as good as what I'm seeing everyone else getting, but I think I'm, at least, out of the danger zone.

Had a little trouble figuring out how to remove the GPU cooler, didn't realise I had to sorta pry the damn thing off after removing the screws.

Now I gotta figure out if I should return these new case fans I got. It's my own fault because I just bought some fans with good reviews and didn't bother to compare the numbers to the stock fans. I figured the stock fans would be crap that could be bested easily, but it turns out the stock fans can push more air with the same noise level.
Click to expand...

what are your stock case fans? and what fans you bought?..
 
Idle at high 50s seem high. Even if it were reference mid 40s should be the maximum.

1) What is your case and what sort of fan configuration do you have? Do you have any (lower) side intake fans to give it fresh air?

2) What sort of driver / overclocking setting do you have? It seems that the card doesn't want to idle properly. You should have a go at uninstalling CCC, MSI Afterburner, then driver sweeper, and fresh install to reset all previous settings.
 
Stock fans, out of a Cooler Master RC-690 case, are A12025-12CB​-3BN-F1. One lower front input, one upper rear output, no side fans, although I could screw the fans into the side and see how much noisier it gets.

I bought two Thermalright TR-X-Silent-120 120mm fans as replacements.

Drivers are CCC 13.4, never overclocked. I guess I'll try a full slash and burn sort of uninstall, haven't done that in awhile.

*EDIT*
Sweeping and reinstalling CCC didn't help.

Also screwed in my new fans to the side to see if the additional input helps.. there doesn't seem to be much of a change in the past few minutes.

The GPU's clockrate, at idle, is 300 MHz.
 
Last edited:
Jerec said:
Finished, idles in the high 50s, hits the mid 70s on load. Doesn't seem quite as good as what I'm seeing everyone else getting, but I think I'm, at least, out of the danger zone.

Had a little trouble figuring out how to remove the GPU cooler, didn't realise I had to sorta pry the damn thing off after removing the screws.

Now I gotta figure out if I should return these new case fans I got. It's my own fault because I just bought some fans with good reviews and didn't bother to compare the numbers to the stock fans. I figured the stock fans would be crap that could be bested easily, but it turns out the stock fans can push more air with the same noise level.
Click to expand...

That seems about right at least for my 6870 it is. I have the sapphire reference 6870 and I will idle at roughly 40c and will go up to 65c on load so that seems about right.
 
i can't attach anything on my side panels that pass from 1200rpm.. get a annoying whistle X_X solution put it 2 140mm at 1000RPM.. try to attach one of the fans the more near possible of the cards inside the case..this generally take some work to do depend of the case that help a lot..
 
I've got the two new fans on the side panel. One fan seemed fine, noise-wise, but it's noticeably louder with the second. Not sure if I'll keep things like that.
 
My 6870 idles at 75c and loads at 100c

Don't worry about the temps, the 6870 is rated for far more than what you are experiencing
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top