8800gts 320mb ???

[EliteRetard]

Idle stock speeds with 100% fan 53c. Play any old game and I get into the 70s, something more demanding pushes it close to 90c. If I loaded it 100% itd probably burst into flames. I think thats bad, yes? In a case with good airflow (4x120MM + PSU fan) OC'd E6600 @ 1.425v runs at 32c, max at 53c. Why is the GPU so hot (I already pulled the dead rabbit out of this thing)? Three of the 120mm fans are blowing air towards it, one in the side panel blowing air over the top/backside of the card and two in the front of the case blowing air towards the GPU fan.

And drivers, do we still need some kind of voodo dance and offering to the computer gods if we want to remove them? As in what if I decide to toss in an ATI card? I just recently inherited this system and none of the fan plugs on the MOBO work so all the fans (including CPU) have been rigged directly to the PSU and run 100%. Im trying to figure out how to get it to last me a few years. Havnt done a video card swap without a reformat in a long time.

Theres a small chance I might get someone to do some buying and card juggling and end up with a 4850 512mb I could put in here for like 50$ or something, but theyre as poor as me right now. Has a horrible core only orb cooler and no sinks for anything else and seems to be having weird screen glitching (black screen of death?!) but it still runs a bit cooler (80c) and would be faster yes? I did have to underclock it to reduce the screen glitching (still happens). I cant figure out what the hell is doing it...every now and then windows pops up with a driver error but reformats and different drivers dont do anything. Still...

Rent alone is about 95% of my take home pay, utilities take the rest, food is whatever I can get for free, no idea how theres gas in my car...so Im not exactly ready to buy new and a bit affraid to do anything that might break the card. Slowly roasting is better than nothing at all. I do have to wonder if its the system itself somehow, or these cards just suck ass...because there was a 640mb version of the same card that died the same way (roasted to death).

So I dunno why the huge ass post, I think the primary issue right now is figuring out why the GPU is so hot and how to stop that. Any ideas?

 

[frozentundra123456]

I had the same problem with a 9600GT low profile from Galaxy. I would be in the 60 degree C range at idle and 95-100 degC under load. Plus the fan was running 100 percent at load and screamed like a banshee. Never did solve the problem but the card continued to work.

I finally replaced it with a PNY 9800GT which is very quiet and never goes to even 70 degrees C.

 

[SolMiester]

Could be the thermal paste has given up or poor contact between the GPU and heat sink...I know the 88GT ran hot, but not up that high!

If you have some thermal paste, I would remove and reset!

 

[EliteRetard]

Im kinda scared to reseat the cooler, tons of bolts and lots of thermal pads from what I can see. Afraid Id make it worse with less/uneven pressure and not enough contact on parts with just grease. Perhaps if there is a good clear guide for n00bs somewhere...

What about buying thermal pads? Does anybody know anything about that, like which ones are the best for each thickness and which thickness I might need? I know for my old 939 rig I had to use a few small squares of tinfoil layered in the center to get good contact with a cooler (I still cant figure out where/how to get something flat enough to do any good lapping) but with a GPU theres RAM and other tiny parts that would be impossible to do with tinfoil (and a higher chance of shorting something out).

 

[cubeless]

had this same issue on some older 8800's... the cheap tim they use on the gpu gets crumbly...

if you take the thing apart, just be careful with the crappy pads between the hsf and the memory and they can be reused... you can't replace them with as5 because the gap is too big... be real careful using anything conductive as a replacement...

it's not that hard to replace the tim on the gpu... just go slow and careful...

 

[Rhoxed]

My brother has an 8600GTS that idles at 61C and loads ~85C... not matter what i do the card runs hot, replaced TIM with AS5 (no change) 6 months later cleaned the dust, since you need the HS off to remove the fan shroud, i went ahead and added some MX-2 paste... still no help. Card has been running @ 100% fan speed and 60/90C for ~3 years now....