Sli setup overheating

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balkanwolfy

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Jan 1, 2015
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I recently started running msi gtx600 gaming edition cards in sli. I already had the 660 so decided to sli them. They are in an alienware aurora R3 with I7 2600k and 16 gig of ram. My problem is...they are very close together. There is only two PCI slots so I can't space the cards together. Gpu 1, the top card, got to 91c ...the bottom card was only 81c after playing far cry 3 for 4 hours. I'm worried this is going to damage my card. I love the performance I'm getting but I'm not sure it's a good trade off if my card dies. If it will last me 2 years at these temps I'll be happy as I'm upgrading the whole rig in two years about, maybe sooner. Thank you !!
 
with limited space you'll need a side fan to blow outside cold air directly at your video cards.
 
I'm out of luck then, my auroras R3 case doesn't have a side fan unless I do some heavy modifications :(
 
That doesn't look like a particularly terrible case, but it also doesn't look like it would have great airflow to begin with. Assuming that the motherboard, PSU, CPU cooler, etc are standard components, a different case, with better airflow, and as rennyf77 suggests, a side air intake bringing cool air to your cards, might be a relatively inexpensive solution. Some Dell models use standard mATX motherboards, ATX PSUs, and conform to the Intel specification for mounting CPU coolers. A lot of Dell models do not, unfortunately.
 
Try running with the case in open air and see if that helps. Unfortunately boutique cases are often designed for form rather than function.

Back in the day when I was running SLI 8800GTX, I stood a box fan next to the side of my case to keep it cool before modding the case itself.
 
That's a fun case to mod :)

But I'd you don't want to, start by putting the PCI fan up as high as is tolerable manually in the alienware settings and take off the side panel. You can try putting a little spacer between the cards for air.

Also make sure the bottom card is getting enough air stuck the to bottom sheetmetal, put a little spacer there also if needed.
 
the top card ingests the heat from the bottom card, so finding a way to cool the bottom card faster should be your first priority. try increasing the fan speed of the bottom card to see if the top card cools down by any degree.
 
Well unfortunately, this is why you have to plan things a little better before just throwing in any random component. A case like this that lacks additional fan mounts for better GPU cooling absolutely require blower coolers to maintain acceptable temps. Not only are the cards heating each other up, they're also greatly increasing your case's internal air temp and heating up your CPU as well. Rather than more intake, you need more exhaust so you might definitely want to look into modding the case for at least a 140mm side fan.
 
Wow I didn't expect this many replies so fast. You guys are awesome! I will try to modify the Side panel for either intake or exhaust on cards see which one works best. For now I'll up the pci fan speed as high as I can! Thank you again you all are very helpful.
 
balkanwolfy said:
Wow I didn't expect this many replies so fast. You guys are awesome! I will try to modify the Side panel for either intake or exhaust on cards see which one works best. For now I'll up the pci fan speed as high as I can! Thank you again you all are very helpful.
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Sounds like a good plan. As far as the cards and their safety, you can run them at around 95 degrees Celsius just fine, though above about 100 they will lock up and shouldn't be run anyway (they'd either crash or failsafe at that point). Let us all know how you do with the suggestions and good luck :).
 
For sandwiched cards like that, you definitely need fresh air coming in from the front or the side. I assume the MSI 660 Gaming is an open air cooler? I wouldn't recommend trying to SLI cards with open air coolers unless you had exceptionally high intake and exhaust capabilities in your case. The heat will really stagnate, where blower coolers would help to remove it from the case.

This video has some good information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAKyh-qqQCw
 
you can't just ramp up the gpu fans and think you'll be ok. by increasing the fans on the top card all you're doing is allowing it to eat the heat off the bottom card that much faster. assign an aggressive fan profile to the bottom card first. once you see the top card temps going down, then you try to add some fan speed increases to the top card to see if it cools any further. the r3 aurora case has vents up top that open with a mesh below right? take out a tape measure and see if you might have room for 15mm fans. making the side port an exhaust won't be as effective for your video cards as making it an intake.
 
FYI, the Aurora has an adjustable PCI case fan which i was referring to so as to feed the cards more cool air, not GPU fans themselves.
 
the little 80mm fan under the shroud in front of the gpu array, right. that should help a bit.
 
Well you guys are awesome, ive tried toms hardware and other forums and no one was nearly as helpful. I turned up the 92mm PCI fan to 75% turned the bottom card fan to 85% left the top at auto. I also installed two 85mm fans on top of my case where the grill is as exhaust...my ambient temps went from 32 to 28c and my card temps are now 69c for card on and 78c for card 2 (top card) after playing far cry 3 and other games at max settings for past 5 hours. Thank you all so much.. you rock!
 
You can also upgrade the case fans to move more air - and take out the PCI slot covers for air flow out down there - or switch to perforated pci slot covers. You can also secure some other fans blowing over the cards with the help of zipties ;)
 
balkanwolfy said:
Well you guys are awesome, ive tried toms hardware and other forums and no one was nearly as helpful. I turned up the 92mm PCI fan to 75% turned the bottom card fan to 85% left the top at auto. I also installed two 85mm fans on top of my case where the grill is as exhaust...my ambient temps went from 32 to 28c and my card temps are now 69c for card on and 78c for card 2 (top card) after playing far cry 3 and other games at max settings for past 5 hours. Thank you all so much.. you rock!
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:) Glad to hear it's all set.
 
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