okay abc, you might get to say I told you so. - Modern Warfare 2 Forum: Free Call of Duty MW2 Community

**GhostHands** · 04-21-2011, 09:44 PM

You might recall a few months ago I asked if 67C was too high of a temp for my gfx card,to which you replied "not really". As you know, I swapped out my old 250w PSU for a new 600w PSU. My boyfriend played Half Life for about 4 hours today and I noticed when I got home that the gfx card temp was 97C. I don't need to convert that to know it's hot as fuck! The b/f says there were no cues during his gameplay that would indicate a problem. Fans didn't run louder, no changes in quality during actual gameplay etc.

So...would this be caused by the higher wattage of the power supply? Need advice as I can't possibly afford a new computer at this point, but I can certainly return this PSU if need be.

Schosch · 04-22-2011, 05:36 AM

Quote:

I swapped out my old 250w PSU for a new 600w PSU

Why? Did you upgrade something?

Besides, up to 100°C is still tolerable and not problematic for GPUs.

**abc** · 04-22-2011, 08:35 AM

My guess is that 67 degrees was in winter after about an hour of gaming when ambient air was cold... and now 97 degrees is after 4 hours bordering on summer?

Obviously it isn't 30 degrees hotter in your room, but a 10 degree difference in air temp is capable of making a much bigger difference in GFX card temp.

**GhostHands** · 04-22-2011, 11:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schosch

Why? Did you upgrade something?

Besides, up to 100°C is still tolerable and not problematic for GPUs.

I haven't upgraded anything, yet. I anticipate over the next few months to be upgrading or adding another HDD, HD Drive, and/or CPU. I also recall someone on the forum suggesting that my 250W wouldn't be exactly enough juice to properly run my 9600GT. That's also why I assumed that an upgrade would be beneficial to my GFX card, simply because at higher temps, the GPU fan was only running at 15% and I don't have the ability to adjust the fan speed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by abc

My guess is that 67 degrees was in winter after about an hour of gaming when ambient air was cold... and now 97 degrees is after 4 hours bordering on summer?

Obviously it isn't 30 degrees hotter in your room, but a 10 degree difference in air temp is capable of making a much bigger difference in GFX card temp.

My apartment is temperature controlled and has stayed roughly the same temp for months. It hasn't gotten warm enough here for me to turn down the thermostat.

I swapped back to my 250W PSU last night to play Portal 2 and had no issues. I bought the upgrade because a) it was on sale and a good value for money, b) I was thinking ahead to my future build where a more powerful PSU will be necessary and c) I haven't bought anything for "myself" in a long time and felt deserving of a new PC component. I guess I'll be returning the new one this weekend if it's not really necessary for me to have such a high wattage power supply.

**abc** · 04-22-2011, 11:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GhostHands

the GPU fan was only running at 15%

I swapped back to my 250W PSU last night to play Portal 2 and had no issues. I bought the upgrade because a) it was on sale and a good value for money, b) I was thinking ahead to my future build where a more powerful PSU will be necessary

There is your inherent problem - 15%. If you were interested in doubling your cooling capacity, try blowing at your GFX card through a straw.

Don't really have any sensible suggestions for why it gets 30 degrees hotter just by using a different PSU. A 600w PSU running at 200w will be less efficient than a 250w running at 200w, but without the PSUs being like-for-like it's impossible to say "and that's your problem, the 600w one is extremely unefficient and creates loads more heat." That'd just be an option. TBH sounds more like the fan on the next PSU doesn't work or hell it's on the wrong bloody way and is spewing hot air into your GFX card (wait no this doesn't work if your PSU is at the top of your case?)

I'd say that there is no particular reaon why there should be a 30 degree difference. If you continue to play for the same length of time on the same game and it is continuously 30 degrees hotter than the 250w then I'd probably return it citing it as unwanted (or just tell them it's crap if you're that type of person)

Olaf Vikingsson · 04-24-2011, 01:24 AM

I can't give you an answer but I can tell that anything sub-100c is of no concern for post-2007 Nvidia cards. Not sure about ATI.

oneinchwunda · 04-24-2011, 07:46 AM

ATI cards (in my experience) generally run cooler, and therefore there is much less information on tolerable levels of heat for their chips. If memory serves correctly though, I remember some discussion about the 4870X2 which ran extremely warm, close to 100c in a case with sub-par cooling.

I would suggest downloading something like MSI Afterburner for it's capability to monitor your cards performance and temperatures, as well as alter fan speed.

**GhostHands** · 04-24-2011, 04:01 PM

I went ahead and returned the PSU. I was surprised to see when I returned it, the price had dropped an additional $10. I've not had any more increases in temp since I swapped back to the old one.

**abc** · 04-24-2011, 04:11 PM

Swings and roundabouts. nVidia used to run pretty cool until Fermi. ATI runs pretty cool when they don't use pathetic heatsinks (4850 & 4870) Frankly all dual-GPU cards run very hot even when the clockspeeds are slowed down a bit. These days practically no ATI cards have the refference design heatsink, so should be relatively cool. nVidia cards about the GTX 460 seem to have adequete refference designs so they stick with that for costing reasons.

Termperatures are such a vague and undefined concept. For a start it usually takes a PI to find any official documentation of max temperatures. Then we usually have no idea what "max" means. How long do they expect it to last at the "max" temperature? How "safe" is their estimation of the "max" temperature. Then consider that everything would appear to be driven by noise not temperature - default fan speed settings mean the fan on your graphics card will probably never see more than 40%, leaving a lot of cooling capacity completely wasted. But how long would a fan last at 60% (usually the limit of tolerable everyday noise) Temperatures seem to fall into catagories:

Deserving of posting on forums

Pretty chilly tbh, rather happy with that

Bleh

Gets a bit warm after a bit of serious gaming

This is rather warm, but no-one has any idea how bad this is

So how long will my GFX card actually last running at 80+ every day?

Err, guys, when does thermal throttling happen?

The temperatures corresponding with each "answer" of the "is this temp good" question differ with every generation of card and each cooler. Not set in stone at all. TBH this is a really long way of saying "I dunno."

Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, no-one has a habbit of running 3 identical cards (every time a new generation is released) at different temperatures until death then posting answers on internet.

As such it's rather pointless me saying "Well my HD4830 runs "pretty chilly tbh, rather happy with that" and it's lasted for 3 years absolutely no problems. Likewise any comments about my 8600GT are void due to being overclocked to varying degrees for most of its life.

What even is the question in this thread? Right, this is what I'd do:

put 250w PSU in. Play a game for 2 hours or a stress-test for 15 mins. Monitor temps.

put 600w PSU in. repeat.

maybe put 250w PSU in. repeat.

if you've done the previous step: put 600w PSU in again. repeat.

use a procces of elimination - should be rather easy when you have 2 things therefore have to eliminate one thing. If there's nothing between them or evidence is inconclusive, bury this thread or if not satisfied do more tests or think of a better test.

EDIT: Nevermind...

**GhostHands** · 04-26-2011, 10:37 AM

Thanks for going through the trouble to write that, only for me to post that I'd returned the damned thing while you were actually typing it.

**abc** · 04-26-2011, 11:43 AM

^^^ I'm used to that happening now

Do things seem to work better now?

**GhostHands** · 04-26-2011, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abc

^^^ I'm used to that happening now

Do things seem to work better now?

Since swapping back to the 250W, the temp has been hovering around 67C during game play, though I had noticed some slight stuttering after several hours of play. It may have been due to some rather large elements moving rapidly on my screen and the processor not being able to render it fast enough.

**GhostHands** · 05-01-2011, 01:22 PM

UPDATE: the day after I posted ^^^ the temp rose to 100C and several times the sound would stutter (broken record style) and the video would cut out completely. The computer would still be powered up, it lost audio and video entirely. Hard restart was the only thing I could do, but it was pointless as it continued to shut itself down. I swapped back to my 8400GS and all is well, except for the fact I've now had to downgrade.

I'm at a loss here. I can only assume the 9600GT was overheating or is faulty. Ideas???

**GhostHands** · 05-03-2011, 02:30 PM

Where did everyone go? I can has answer pl0x.

OzballO · 05-05-2011, 09:27 AM

Err maybe cause they read your initial last post and didn't notice the date change for the succeeding posts? I'll post to bring attention back to your plight as I am only a lowly consoletard.

**abc** · 05-05-2011, 12:08 PM

See how the 8400 goes. Sounds like Mr 9600 is poorly. Warranty period?

**GhostHands** · 05-05-2011, 03:47 PM

Warranty for 2 years I just need to locate my receipt. Would you agree that it might be faulty? I've not had any issues since switching back to the GS.

**abc** · 05-06-2011, 08:47 AM

You need to be able to repeat the results with different drivers etc to be confident enough that the GPU has gone sour before sending it off for RMA otherwise they'll charge you a $30 or so testing fee if they can't find a problem.

RMAs will be questioned etc if you haven't been using it with a sufficient PSU etc. Even then, if the company is particularly annoying, they may just say "tough" as your PSU is not on their list of "approved" units or some other get-out-clause.

If it's broken beyond doubt, companies are usually really good about returning GFX cards. Depending on the company it may take a while though as a fair few have their testing labs in Sweden IIRC so everything gets posted there...

Olaf Vikingsson · 05-07-2011, 10:38 AM

If they refuse to RMA and give the card back, remove the heatsink and everything else that can be detached and back it in a 200C oven for 8 mins. If it's a matter of solder breaking apart, as is the cause of most electrical problems, this may fix it for you.

**GhostHands** · 06-28-2011, 03:24 PM

The approved the RMA within 24 hours. They are out of stock on the 9600 GT so they are sending me a GT 430 DDR3. I'm hoping/assuming this is comparable to the 9600 GT? As long as it's better than the 8400 GS I'm totally fine with it.

**abc** · 06-28-2011, 03:56 PM

The GT430 replaces the GT220 but is apparantly 1.5x faster and appears to replace the 9600GSO which is disappointingly (if you have a 9600 GSO (aka 8800GT 256) that is) the same pace as a 9600GT.

It would appear that you have got a fair swap.

I guess one benefit of rebranding everything constantly is that RMA people can actually swap cards for very very close matches even 2 or 3 years on.

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