105C 5770 and Performance Problems in Cataclysm.

[mingsoup]

I have a XFX 5770 with the original cooler (vacuum non-egg) I bought from a person the forums. Ever since I started running it it gets up to 105C under load. I've tried two different spots in my crossfire setup and I have even tried changing the cooler to an after-market Accelero L2 and it also loads to 105C. My case is a P180. My other 5770, only loads to 80C max. What is wrong with this card? I am also seeing problems with severe performance drop while playing World of Warcraft Cataclysm that happens the more I play, until the game becomes way unplayable. At first I just let the card load to 105C as it came that way....but now I'm seeing the high temperatures seems to be affecting my performance. I think that near 100-105C there is some internal throttling going on in this card. On the WOW support forum, it suggested that this was due to overheating, and I do believe that this is the case. It seems that the performance of the games tanks whenever the card goes over 100C. If I alt-tab out of the game and come back, performance improves, for a little while. Even with the Accelero L2 at 100% fan, the card still will load to 100-105C. I am thinking that the problem is either the BIOS on the card or that the heat-sink isn't mounted correctly. Any tips to try and mount correctly? Thermal compound suggestions? Stock blower heat-sink versus my Accelero L2 and which to use? Thoughts? XFX wouldn't replace this card would they, under lifetime warranty?
Thanks.

 

[badb0y]

When the card gets hot, it throttles to protect itself from self-destructing, that's why performance tanks as for why this happens, I have no clue.

Is it the main card or the slave? If it's the slave card, did you try the other way around?

 

[mingsoup]

It WAS the main card. Now its the slave card which gives it more room to breathe. However it still gets up to 100-105, but more often 100 than when it was main and at 105. Performance seems to bottom out when the card hits 100C. Cataclysm stutters, I go out to MSI AfterBurner and see that cards one and two just recently hit 95% usage and the problematic card just hit 100C. Sure, putting it in the second position shaved off 5C, but I need to get rid of like 20C. Something has to be very wrong. Bios? Mounting?

 

[badb0y]

Try running it in single mode and see what happens with the temperature.

 

[nanaki333]

sounds like somebody offloaded their problem to you

try it in a completely different PC by itself, if it still happens, you have a paper weight.

 

[Termie]

Also, what is the idle temperature like? 105 with an Accelero seems near impossible, so I wonder if there's a temp diode problem. Have you monitored the voltage using afterburner? That temp only seems possible if it's overvolted.

 

[Imp]

If it's an XFX, it should have a life-tiem transferable warranty. Hope the guy you got it from bothered to transfer the details.

My XFX 5770 sits 2-3mm (egg cooler) from my sound card, and only managed 87C on a 30C day in the summer. It's in a P182, so lots of room around.

If you know what you're doing, maybe the thermal paste isn't done right, or the cooler isn't sitting properly on the chip. You could try fixing these things yourself, but this may void your warranty. I'm RMAing my 5770 this week thanks to idle crashes that never went away with driver updates, sends to Ontario, CA, so if you're anywhere close, might not take long.

 

[mingsoup]

He did transfer the Lifetime warranty to me. Whether I can redeem it having redone the thermal paste is another story. .
Guess I can at least try. I'll try it in single mode. Try reseat the original stock cooler with some ceramic paste. If still no go, I'll try RMA it. If they won't take it, I don't know what I'll do.

Yeah I thought something was fishy. Probably the last time I trade on forums. SO much more trouble than its worth.

EDIT: How can I make Afterburner show me the voltage?

EDIT2: Idle temperature in the second slot is 36C.
EDIT3: XFX will still support GPU's where TIM has been replaced. SUHWEET! Just got a support ticket back. Gonna try replace TIM with Arctic Cooling MX-2 with stock cooler. If that doesn't work, I'll send it back it.

 

[Termie]

He did transfer the Lifetime warranty to me. Whether I can redeem it having redone the thermal paste is another story. .
Guess I can at least try. I'll try it in single mode. Try reseat the original stock cooler with some ceramic paste. If still no go, I'll try RMA it. If they won't take it, I don't know what I'll do.

Yeah I thought something was fishy. Probably the last time I trade on forums. SO much more trouble than its worth.

EDIT: How can I make Afterburner show me the voltage?

You can access voltage monitoring by selecting voltage in the options menu. There are a number of check boxes, like temp, GPU usage, FPS, etc., and one of them should be voltage. By the way, I don't believe that the 5770 can actually be manually overvolted, but maybe something is wacky with the automatic voltage controller, which monitoring the voltage would show.

 

[mingsoup]

Huh.

Card 1 (The good one) shows 1125 in the Voltage box of AfterBurner) Card 2 (The hot one) shoes 1200 in the Voltage box. WTF?

I still can't get any voltage graphs to show up in the monitor however. However MSI AfterBurner WILL let me turn the 1200 down to 1125 and hit apply.

 

[Termie]

Huh.

Card 1 (The good one) shows 1125 in the Voltage box of AfterBurner) Card 2 (The hot one) shoes 1200 in the Voltage box. WTF?

I still can't get any voltage graphs to show up in the monitor however. However MSI AfterBurner WILL let me turn the 1200 down to 1125 and hit apply.

Give that a try and let us know what it does. 1.2 volts sounds way too high.

Here's something I read in an article on the Asus voltage-tweak edition of the HD5770:

"As standard, the card ships with engine/core voltage at 1.125V. This can be reduced (under clocked) to 0.95V and increased to 1.4V, but any setting over 1.28V is considered red-line territory. We do recommend to not take the voltage over 1.3 Volts unless you apply some serious cooling."

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-radeon-hd-5770-voltage-tweak-review/3

So, yeah, 1.125v is where you should be, although apparently the cards can be run at 1.2v.

 

[mingsoup]

Just did a 3dMark Vantage Performance 1920*1200 Disabled PPU run, with the voltage turned down and max temp was 97C. Better, but I still think its not quite fixed. Max temp on the other card was 82C. Both are supposedly running at 1125mV. Any additional help is much appreciated.

 

[mingsoup]

Fixed? This is about 45minutes to 1 hour of Wow Cataclysm at 1920*1200 on Ultra.

I have highlighted a height of the temperatures in Afterburner.

I took off the Accerlero L2 and put back on the Leaf Blower. This time using AS5 AND using a plastic bag to smooth out a thin layer of thermal compound. (Doing the rice pea on GPU's seems to NOT work at all, holy crap, the thermal compound only covered about 75% of the GPU - making me think if my CPU is okay.....) Performance has been much much better. I still am getting a judder every once in a long while, but I think that might have to due with background process or loading off the HD, not temperatures. Thoughts?

I also ordered a bunch of new fans for my P180. I ordered at 1600RPM Scythe S-Flex for intake. Gonna take the Scythe fan that WAS on my Mugen 2 Rev B and put it on the top vent of the P180, pulling out. Then I'm going to put two Yate Loon's on the Scythe Mugen in a push/pull/push config out the back, in combo with a third Nexus on the case.

GPU1 is the Saphire I have never didled with and has been fine. GPU2 is the troubled hot XFX. The stats and and clocks are for the XFX, which are shown on the left. Now I'm wondering if I should still RMA this GPU.....

 

[Termie]

So you're saying that your troubled card is now running cooler than your "good" card. Sounds like a win to me. What's the verdict? Was it the thermal compound application?

 

[busydude]

Now I'm wondering if I should still RMA this GPU.....

I would wait a couple of days.. just play and see if you encounter any issue with the card.

 

[RavenSEAL]

I would wait a couple of days.. just play and see if you encounter any issue with the card.

I second

 

[Modular]

Sounds like you fixed it! It must have been an ill fitting cooler or poor thermal compound.

 

[mingsoup]

Do you think running at 105C Max for so long on this card could have permanently damaged it in some way?

I've never seen the card produce an artifact. My 3DMark Vantage scores are approx where they should be (barring driver to driver differences). The first time this has really been a blatant problem has been with WoW.

 

[No3dalefan]

I have a XFX and an MSI Hawk 5770, and for some reason, MSI Afterburner shows temps 25% higher than GPU-Z, HWMonitor, and Catalyst Control Panel. I have the most recent version of Afterburner. This is with either card installed by itself.

 

[Termie]

Do you think running at 105C Max for so long on this card could have permanently damaged it in some way?

I've never seen the card produce an artifact. My 3DMark Vantage scores are approx where they should be (barring driver to driver differences). The first time this has really been a blatant problem has been with WoW.

Hard to say. 105 is considered the max for most cards, I believe. Perhaps you try just the XFX card for a while to see if you notice and glitches, artifacts, or other errors. You might also just call them up and talk to tech support (not the warranty people) about it.