6970 103c woes

[throwaway10]

Obvious throw away..... I was tinkering with my manual fan speed control and I set it down to 25% and walked away from the computer. A short time later I was back at the computer with my brother near and I loaded up BC2 to show him the game with the new GPU. On a separate screen I had HW Monitor running but I was't paying much attention to it. Out of no where the 6970's fan cranked up for 100% for atleast a second and that's when I quickly glanced at the GPU temp and the reading was 103c. I quickly alt tabbed and set the fan speed up to 60%... Everything seems to be fine. No artifacting or performance hits that I've noticed. Tell me, what have I done?

tl;dr: 6970 ran 103* C at 25% fan speed for a short while. What have I done?

 

[Elfear]

Your card is probably fine. It automatically shuts down at a certain temperature before it gets into the danger zone.

 

[MentalIlness]

What case and type of cooling do you have ?

 

[throwaway10]

Your card is probably fine. It automatically shuts down at a certain temperature before it gets into the danger zone.

Just to reiterate, the card did not shut down when it hit 103c but it did crank the fan up to 100% for a second or so. The game never crashed or anything of that sort. I tried finding the design specs to see what the thermal limit is but I haven't been able to find anything like that yet.

 

[happy medium]

Make sure you take the card out of the machine , tell it your sorry, put it back in and don't worry about it.

Wecolme to the forums.

Edit: and set the fan on auto for gods sake.

 

[throwaway10]

What case and type of cooling do you have ?

Generic case, generic cooling w/ 3 120mm fans.
6970 900/1375 idles @ 40c
6970 900/1375 load @ 57c
Q6600 2.4 idles @ 35c.
Q6600 2.4 load @ 54c

 

[Qbah]

The card probably has some low level backup thing either in the driver or in BIOS. Or maybe the display driver restarted and it caused the fan to ramp up?

You're most likely safe though - it's really hard to damage a card like that (unless you're upping voltage crazy high - this may permanently damage it). As long as everything is working fine, you can relax. And leave the card's fan profile on auto, like happy said

 

[happy medium]

Generic case, generic cooling w/ 3 120mm fans.
6970 900/1375 idles @ 40c
6970 900/1375 load @ 57c
Q6600 2.4 idles @ 35c.
Q6600 2.4 load @ 54c

Before someone else tells you , your cpu is too slow for that card. You need to overclock it to 3.0 or more at least.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Yeah, don't set the fan profile on 25%. It's probably nice and quiet, but if my 4870 is anything to go by it's also the lowest setting possible and it just won't cut it for games. Set it on auto or have it ramp up fan speed as temperature increases.

 

[throwaway10]

Before someone else tells you , your cpu is too slow for that card. You need to overclock it to 3.0 or more at least.

Of course. I'm waiting for sandybridge. This G0 chip heats up like hell with a basic overclock so maybe when we're closer to a sandy purchase, I'll fry it then.

 

[happy medium]

Of course. I'm waiting for sandybridge. This G0 chip heats up like hell with a basic overclock so maybe when we're closer to a sandy purchase, I'll fry it then.

Your only at 54c load now, I believe the cpu is easily good for 70c+. WHy not give it a go? Even a few hundred mhz will give you great gains.
Try to do it at stock voltage, it wil heat up less.

 

[throwaway10]

I was pushing 74c in prime @ 3ghz stock VID of 1.2625. I'll revisit my Q6600 overclock once sandy is within grasp.

Thanks for the responses everyone. My concerns are slightly subsiding though I wish I could find out the max operating temp of the card. My google foo is failing me right now.

 

[happy medium]

My concerns are slightly subsiding though I wish I could find out the max operating temp of the card.

If it didn't shut down you didn't reach it. I would think it's 105c but I'm not sure.

 

[CitanUzuki]

Your card is most likely fine, but as others have already said don't lock it at some ridiculously low rpm while under heavy load.

 

[Idontcare]

Welcome to the forums throwaway10! :thumbsup:

 

[Spike]

Generic case, generic cooling w/ 3 120mm fans.
6970 900/1375 idles @ 40c
6970 900/1375 load @ 57c
Q6600 2.4 idles @ 35c.
Q6600 2.4 load @ 54c

Dang, my 6970 at stock idles @ 59c and hits 91c at load... and I was even thinking about overclocking it!

 

[StinkyPinky]

Of course. I'm waiting for sandybridge. This G0 chip heats up like hell with a basic overclock so maybe when we're closer to a sandy purchase, I'll fry it then.

I get in the high 60's playing Civ 5. I think the Q6600 can make it to 90 before it shuts itself down. I think anything under 75 is okay.

You should overclock it. The Q6600 overclocks well and you will get better gaming performance at 3+

 

[Qbah]

Dang, my 6970 at stock idles @ 59c and hits 91c at load... and I was even thinking about overclocking it!

Do you have two screens? Cause idle @ 40C looks like one screen. Your 59C looks like standard idle with 2 screens.

 

[Spike]

Do you have two screens? Cause idle @ 40C looks like one screen. Your 59C looks like standard idle with 2 screens.

Yup, 2 screens. GPU idles at 500mhz core.

 

[Modular]

My 4850 was hitting 100C (stock cooler) before I added an Accelero S1 to it. Your card is fine. If you ran it at that temp for an extended period of time it would have killed it sooner than you would like (probably within 2 or 3 years), but it's not like it even hit the thermal limit. No problem found here.

 

[SolMiester]

Kentfield Q6600 is the easiest CPU to clock...straight out of the box, bump vCPU to 1.325, set FSB to 333 and Thunderbirds are Go!