8800GT idles at 73°, safe?

[minmaster]

the video card is the biggest heat generator in my PC, even at idle it's routinely above 73°. room ambient temp is from 85-95 usually but i think the video card contributes to the high room temp, so i'm guessing without the video card the temps would be much lower.

if i buy one of the newer video cards, can i assume it will run cooler than my current one? my PC is turning my room into a sauna.

 

[Dark4ng3l]

Temperature if different than heat. High idle temps might just mean that you have a poor cooling system on it. Even upgrading to a cooler card like say a 5770 would save you maybe 25w at idle or something really insignificant. I mean at worst your card generates as much heat as a couple incandescent light bulbs definitely not enough to bring the temperature up in a reasonably sized room by a significant amount.

 

[happy medium]

I'd be looking into a 150$ room AC unit before a video card.

Those temps are a little high. Try dusting out your case and video card.
I just did it and temps dropped 10c.

 

[Capt Caveman]

That's really high. It's 80F ambient here and my 8800GT SSC (700/1000) is idling at 55C. I do have my fan manually set to run at 65%.

However, it goes into the 80s while gaming and heats up my room a significantly. Just bought a 470 which will make the problem even worse.

 

[minmaster]

yea when the AC is blasting in the house, it is much cooler but i can't have it running all the time for the whole house cuz of the PC in my room. i might get a window AC unit just for my room but its a big headache installing in a sliding window.

today i installed a 80mm fan in the front of the PC case and plugged in a PCI blower exhaust fan next to the video card i had lying around. PC is noiser but i think it its cooler now. with those and the AC blasting, i am now seeing 65° idle temp on my 8800GT.

btw i did dust out my video card and also my CPU HSF as well as my rear case fan.

 

[tweakboy]

That is safe but not safe at the same time.

72c is nothing for the card, its supposed to get hot.

Now if this 72c turns into 100c during game time then we got a problem. Soo check out your load temps. YOur idle temp is a little high but nothing to worry about mines 60c at times depending on room temp but I got my fan @ 56 percent at all times cant hear it,, keeps my system quiete so I can do my profession, Producing Music...

If you want to fix this download ATI Tray Tools and adjust the fan speed, if your nVidia get riva tuner and adjust the fan speed. good luck let us know

 

[RaistlinZ]

My single-slot 8800GT idles around 74c and gets up to 95c during torture tests. This is with an ambient room temp of only 75F. Damn single slot coolers.

 

[minmaster]

dang yours is worse than mine!
mine is PNY what brand is yours?
i checked it out and it only fans around 45% even when it is like 80°. the fan should be higher. and this is my 2nd one, the first one got fried from being too hot so they sent me a warranty replacement. i'm thinking just PNY brand is running too hot.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Use Rivatuner or EVGA Precision to adjust your fan speeds, it'll make a significant difference running your fan higher. I know a little after they came out, a firmware/bios update was available that increased the fan speed based on load.

Note, as long as it's a reference card, brand shouldn't matter much unless they've been binned for o/c'ing.

 

[Seero]

the video card is the biggest heat generator in my PC, even at idle it's routinely above 73°. room ambient temp is from 85-95 usually but i think the video card contributes to the high room temp, so i'm guessing without the video card the temps would be much lower.

if i buy one of the newer video cards, can i assume it will run cooler than my current one? my PC is turning my room into a sauna.

There are 2 parts from your question. First, the amount of heat produced can't be changed unless you lower the voltage to opponents, but that requires a lot of knowledge to do so. Unless you redirect all the heat coming from your pc so that it goes out of your room, your room will always be hot. Turn off your PC when you are not using it helps a lot.

As to the temperature, you can take off the cover of the heatsink and remove dust that have been gathered through the years. If you do know how to take video cards apart, it will be wise to change the thermal pasting on the GPU as it should have dried out. If everything is done properly, your video card should not go above 80c.

 

[bryanW1995]

don't take the card apart, you'll either void the warranty or mess something up most likely.

If you want better idle heat output to reduce your room temps, get a 5 series amd card or a gtx 460. If you want less heat output while gaming then you're out of luck.

 

[minmaster]

i did take the cover off the heatsink/fan and blew the dust out of it. doesn't really seem to help. at around idle, fan is at 30%, it goes to like 45% under load (gaming). i feel like it should be a lot higher.

btw, i believe 80° isn't that bad for this card, i googled it and other ppl have it go up that high too when under load.

 

[minmaster]

guess what? i downloaded rivatuner and manually set fan speed at 65%. now its over 10° cooler! it's noisier now but much cooler. much much better!

btw, what's better? low-level system fan control or forceware driver fan control?

update: it even went all the way down to 56° idle... new temp under load is 70°, which is lower than the old idle!