Card dying?

[TechBoyJK]

My rig started shutting down randomly, and sys logs are saying 'shutdown due to gpu over heating'. It would happen when I wasn't even doing anything. More often if I am gaming (I can't run skyrim for more than 10 minutes) but sometimes even when it's idle.

I checked out AMDEngine when it was idle and it is saying the gpu temp is around 99c!

I used compressed air to clean out the heat sink (it was pretty dirty) and plugged it back in. I also air dusted the entire case, filters, etc.

I was able to watch 3 hd movies in a row on it, and at most it got to 92c, so cleaning it helped, but that's still way too hot. After the movies, I turned on Skyrim, and it shutdown only after about 5 minutes.

I thought it might be the thermal compound on the gpu, so I popped off the heat sink, cleaned it, and reapplied some compound.

I also had a few spare 3" fans, so I hooked them up and rigged them to be pointing at the gpu.

That got the idle temp down to about 78C. I tried it without the additional fans, and it was around 87c.

So with the fans and the lower temp, it still shutdowns down after playing Skyrim for 10 minutes.

I think the fan is burned up on the card. It seems to struggle to spin up sometimes, and I noticed that when it wasn't moving, if I flicked it it would start spinning. If I try and spin it when there's no power, it's not very loose at all. If AMDEngine says the fan is at 100%, it still doesn't seem to be going very fast.

Thoughts? Adding the fans helped, and I'm wondering if it's overheating because the onboard fan is busted and struggling.

Card is an XFX HD4870 1GB DDR5. It was bought used about a year ago ( been fine ever since) so I don't think I can apply for the warranty.

 

[TechBoyJK]

anybody?

 

[Borat]

deleted

 

[superjim]

Download GPU-Z and use that to monitor temps/fan speed. If the fan was at 100% on a 4870 it would sound like a jet is taking off in your room. 90C at load is still within GPU temp limits however 99C is not (anything 100C and over). Load up Skyrim, sit in a town and just watch your GPU fan and temps. You should be able to hear/see it spin up slightly faster as the GPU temp ramps up.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Download GPU-Z and use that to monitor temps/fan speed. If the fan was at 100% on a 4870 it would sound like a jet is taking off in your room. 90C at load is still within GPU temp limits however 99C is not (anything 100C and over). Load up Skyrim, sit in a town and just watch your GPU fan and temps. You should be able to hear/see it spin up slightly faster as the GPU temp ramps up.

That's what makes me think the fan is dying. It still spins, but it sputters. When it says 100% on the fan, it doesn't seem as loud as I'm used to, which makes me think it's not really spinning at 100%. When I stuck a few fans blowing towards the card, it helped out a bit. I still think not having the fan blowing full speed 100% directly on it is what's causing it to fail. It's XFX, and out of warranty. I wonder if they will sell me a replacement fan?

 

[Tweak155]

Can you check out the following?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2226255

 

[TechBoyJK]

Thanks! I haven't tried changing the drivers yet, but I will when I get home.

Here's what I rigged up last night. If I keep my case side off and the fans running, it doesn't get up past 90c when playing skyrim. I'm going to add a side fan and get a pci slot fan.

 

[thejunglegod]

thats a lot of fans for a single GPU. But then the 4870 is a very powerful card. Also, those temperatures are seriously high, even for the 4870. My initial reaction when i saw this was something to do with the thermal compound. But then since you've eliminated that and pointing directly to the fan then i would advise you to stop using the card till you get your fan fixed or replaced. There are serious chances of the GPU getting fried. The side fans positioned as shown in the pic won't help cooling at all atleast in my opinion.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Ha! Well, a huge fix came after pulling the fan off and giving it some wd40. It was pretty jammed up, and the wd40 seemed to free it up. So my guess is that since it was jammed up it wasn't spinning fast enough to cool the gpu. Just doing this dropped the gpu temp almost 20c degrees. It dropped to 49-50c at idle.

 

[thejunglegod]

Congratulations, u can finally heave ur sigh of relief after all that head scratching and return those fans to their default positions.