Should my 4870x2 be idling at 84c with 201% gpu activity?

H

Harb

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 10, 2007
Messages
155
So I just built a new rig with a 4870x2 and 2 displays yesterday, and I'm seeing some very strange figures in CCC depending on which display I have selected in CCC. Here's a pic showing the 4 possible combination's of the "Graphics Adapter" and "Select GPU to Configure" drop-down menus in CCC:

CCC.jpg


(the second drop-down box is titled "Select GPU to Configure", it's covered up by the first box's menu)

As you can see, the temp is either low 50's or mid-low 80's depending on which combination I have selected, while all four show 201% GPU activity. I honestly don't know what the different combination's mean, or if they are completely inconsequential...if someone could explain it to me that'd be good. But what I'm mainly concerned about obviously is that this thing is supposedly running at 84c and operating at an impossible (by conventional thought) 201% activity while simply staring at the desktop. I havn't even tried gaming yet. The air coming out of the back of the card is pretty hot, but my last card was an x1800xt so I'm not really familiar with how hot a card of this caliber should feel. The airflow in my case is very good; I've got a Centurion 590 with 2 front intakes, 1 rear exhaust, 1 top exhaust, and a side intake blowing right onto the 4870x2.

Is this normal? Should I try other drivers? Thanks!
 
Run a game and quit and both cores should idle normally. It's a driver bug that I've seen on all current drivers (at least the 8.8 official and 8.9 beta).
 
On my 4870 X2 the GPU activity thing never worked. As for the idle temperature I got similar idle temps and I had to do the fan fix in order to get reasonable idle temperatures. Basically the card needs the fan to be at about 40% to idle at a temperature that can't make toast.

For a single card I didn't find this necessary but for dual 4870 X2's I had to create a second profile for the fans to run at higher speeds. I set them to run at 80%. Now in some driver versions the fans throttled up correctly and in more than a few it didn't. So I'd have to make the change manually before loading the game or I'd have lockups.
 
Yea this is a known bug and although it has been submited to ati they have so far been unable to do anything about. Besides starting and quiting the game I might make a suggestion of creating a profile for idle fan speed and hack chaning it from 27% to 32% (this grealy droped my idle temps).
 
Whew, that's good to know. I was starting to fear that I was going to be another one of those people who can't get a 4870x2 to run correctly no matter what.

One thing I did notice after I posted this is that the GPU closest to the back of the card (the DVI port side) runs noticeably hotter than the other one, so at least CCC is noticing the temp difference correctly. I just wish that it was a bit less confusing...I still don't know which combination of display/GPU drop-down boxes are the 'correct' ones...but I guess it doesn't really matter.

Thanks for the quick replies!

*edit*

What's the best way to change my fan speed? I downloaded RivaTuner and am fumbling around with it, but if there's an easier way...I'm all ears.
 
By the way the hd4870x2 has very high temperature tolerance so despite 80 degrees seeming incredibly hot it's ok for the chip.
 
unrealsword said:
By the way the hd4870x2 has very high temperature tolerance so despite 80 degrees seeming incredibly hot it's ok for the chip.
Click to expand...

While that's true the card can get dangerously close to 105c which is the upper limit of what it can reasonably handle.
 
Just link two profiles to hot keys. For instance, make one 40% and correspond it with CTRL+ALT+F11. Make another one with 75% speed and link it to CTRL+ALT+F12. Don't forget to change the profile before you start a game, or it will hit 100C and the fan will cycle to 100% and the screen will flicker. 8.8b driver gives me idle of 73-74C and a load of 85C or lower. For me, the temps are about the same as my 8800GTX (idle was a bit lower) but the X2 is much quieter.
 
Dethred said:
Just link two profiles to hot keys. For instance, make one 40% and correspond it with CTRL+ALT+F11. Make another one with 75% speed and link it to CTRL+ALT+F12. Don't forget to change the profile before you start a game, or it will hit 100C and the fan will cycle to 100% and the screen will flicker. 8.8b driver gives me idle of 73-74C and a load of 85C or lower. For me, the temps are about the same as my 8800GTX (idle was a bit lower) but the X2 is much quieter.
Click to expand...

Well G15 owners could make that a bit easier. They could create a custom macro to do it with one key. I can't because I have no extra BS on my keyboard.
 
Dan_D said:
Well G15 owners could make that a bit easier. They could create a custom macro to do it with one key. I can't because I have no extra BS on my keyboard.
Click to expand...

You can set it to any key plus ALT or CTRL. Yeah its annoying, but its better than overheating or entering CCC every time. I'd personally try to get auto fan control working. It might idle high but its quiet and keeps load temps under control. I set it to CTRL+ALT+F12 because I didn't want to be playing a game and change it back to low on accident.
 
Dethred said:
You can set it to any key plus ALT or CTRL. Yeah its annoying, but its better than overheating or entering CCC every time. I'd personally try to get auto fan control working. It might idle high but its quiet and keeps load temps under control. I set it to CTRL+ALT+F12 because I didn't want to be playing a game and change it back to low on accident.
Click to expand...

With the 8.8 official drivers I'd set the fan speed profile to 40% and it would increase the fan speed of both cards when needed. Using the 8.7, 8.9 (8.54) beta drivers or the latest 8.53 drivers I couldn't get the automatic fan speed control to work at all.
 
I'm hearind that the next Riva tuner, due out next week, is expected to have support for the 4870x2.

We'll see.

-S
 
i find the hotkey is best trick. idle CTRL SHIFT X and high spins CTRL SHIFT Z

next trick is to water cools. aaaah no more jet fans.
 
Dan_D said:
On my 4870 X2 the GPU activity thing never worked. As for the idle temperature I got similar idle temps and I had to do the fan fix in order to get reasonable idle temperatures. Basically the card needs the fan to be at about 40% to idle at a temperature that can't make toast.

For a single card I didn't find this necessary but for dual 4870 X2's I had to create a second profile for the fans to run at higher speeds. I set them to run at 80%. Now in some driver versions the fans throttled up correctly and in more than a few it didn't. So I'd have to make the change manually before loading the game or I'd have lockups.
Click to expand...

I noticed that 0 was for 1 4870, 1 was for the 4870x2 and 2 was for dual 4870x2's in the fan guide. Just look for anything ending in 2 and that would allow you to adjust the settings for the dual 4870x2's.
 
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