So my X-fi muffles my HD7770... Problem?

[DerekZ06]

Just built a new PC, with a TV tuner and a half height X-Fi in its only two PCI slots. In the PCIe slot directly about the half height X-fi is a HD7770 with dual slot cooler featuring a centralized fan that exhausts half the air out the rear of the PC and the other half inside. The X-Fi is about half a centimeter away from the fan and blocks half of the surface area.

All those parts are carry-over from the last PC that had 3 PCI slots.

Today I played some battlefield 3, for about 3 hrs, it played really well with absolutely no perceivable graphics lag or microstuttering. But look at these temps!!!!





Now I've tried the onboard audio on this ASRock Z77 Extreme4 because I figured heat may be a problem. It sounded decent for music and I actually like how it virtualized stereo audio over my 5.1 system slightly better than the X-Fi. But then I plugged in headphones... With headphones, it is god awful.

So it played Battlefield 3 flawlessly, but at 104-107C (224F), what would you do in this situation?


Edit: I guess I should mention the computer has two other monitors at 1920x1200 resolution; In case anyone's wondering how I got a screenshot of the computer under load from battlefield 3 when there is seemingly no Battlefield 3 running. I cropped it out. And yes, that means I was fully aware of the temps as I was playing... I was having a lot of fun.

 

[p_monks33]

Swap the sound card and the video card. Put the video card in the bottom slot. Check temps again and let us know. Might be a bad seating of the cooler on the GPU.

 

[KingFatty]

Another option would be to sell the sound card, and buy a very inexpensive USB dongle for headphone use.

My personal experience with very poor-quality headphone sound using the motherboard built-in sound card: some issue in my computer causes some analog electrical noise to come through the headphone jack. But, I have a headset that also came with a USB adapter that adds a sound device. Using that USB dongle, the audio device shows up and I can send all the sound output there. When I plug my headphones into that dongle, there is no electrical noise at all, it's crystal clear and free of any analog noise because the digital/analog conversion takes place in the USB dongle/adapter.

This way you'd free up the internal slot for another device (or more airflow), but you'd use up one of your USB ports. I'm using one of the two USB ports on the top/front of my computer so I don't mind losing one of those ports. Also, I think of the USB solution as more of an extension cord for my headset, because that's how the dongle appears to work, just an adapter extension cord type of interface. They are inexpensive enough to include with some headsets, and are also sold separately.

Here is what mine looks like. It adds a separate audio device to your list of devices, and you can send audio to that device which will provide clean sound to your headset without using up one of your PCI slots:

 

[Rvenger]

The fan/heatsink is definitely not mounted properly. Those temps are way way to high.

 

[Ferzerp]

That's what happens with most of the non-blower cards when you sandwich them in like that.

This is why the reference coolers are always blowers. They heat up in that situation too, but they don't get as hot as this. They just get loud.

 

[DerekZ06]

I added two 120mm case fans that intake air from the front where the hard drives are as well as add an additional 120mm case fan mounted to the side panel door directly over the graphics card. They didn't help the graphics card at all but did lower the hard drive temps by 10C.

I'll check the fan/heatsink mounting now.

 

[DerekZ06]

Well damn, re-seating the cooler worked. I took it off, wiped the old thermal paste off and applied generic Cooler Master paste that came with my cpu heatsink. Now it doesn't get hotter than mid 80's.

Also when I had it apart I noticed the bottom of the heatsink is painted black, I'm going to need to get some sandpaper soon.

I am pretty amazed because I don't know how it could have came unseated like that, I wonder if it was always unseated and I just never noticed the problem before on my old computer? Or maybe the old thermal paste was cheap? It was pretty much a crust.

Here's what I'm getting now:

Sure is good news, I almost bought an Asus Xonar DX because it was PCIe 1x and would go above the graphics card.

 

[BrightCandle]

Sure is good news, I almost bought an Asus Xonar DX because it was PCIe 1x and would go above the graphics card.

When I bought my current machine over a year ago I bought a motherboard without PCI and upgraded from Xfi to an Asus Xonar D2X. I prefer the surround sound rendition that dolby headphone provides over the Xfi's 3d effect.

 

[Rvenger]

You are still running at 100% in the mid 80s. Something is still wrong.

 

[Ferzerp]

You are still running at 100% in the mid 80s. Something is still wrong.

Read the post. He has a center fan-type cooler with another card covering the fan. Frankly, I'm surprised he's got it down to 80C. That design needs space.

 

[DerekZ06]

You are still running at 100% in the mid 80s. Something is still wrong.

I'm actually using user defined fan control I set in MSI Afterburner here:

I set this because the default fan speed is 41% at idle and it is extremely loud due to the sound card covering half the fan --It creates a lot more noise when the front of the fan is covered I noticed. The default fan profile was also extremely annoying because it would teeter between the two fan speeds 41% and 50%. It also would not hit 100% fan speed until the temperature is just under a 100C.

Here it is on the default fan profile running furmark

Only 90% fan speed at 91C. Fan speed was 72% when the temperature was 82C. The fan control profile I set ramps fan speed up to 100% after 80C.

 

[p_monks33]

Still too high for a 7770 I feel like . Can you not swap the sound card and the GPU? What motherboard do you have and how many add on cards are you using?

 

[SithSolo1]

Still too high for a 7770 I feel like . Can you not swap the sound card and the GPU? What motherboard do you have and how many add on cards are you using?

If you read the OP he states he has an ASRock Z77 Extreme4 which has PCIe/PCI in this:

= PCIe
====== PCIe - HD7770
*space*
===== PCI - X-Fi 1/2height
====== PCIe
===== PCI - TV Tuner
= PCIe

configuration.

 

[DerekZ06]

Still too high for a 7770 I feel like .

The HD4850 I had before this idled at about 80C and would reach mid 90's under full load. I had it for about 3 years. However it limped along the last several months of its life. It would no longer run at stock clocks and I had it underclocked to 500mhz to get by. I let go of it when I purchased a second monitor because the added load was causing frequent BSODs.

3 years of life is about all I would need.

Can you not swap the sound card and the GPU? What motherboard do you have and how many add on cards are you using?

The layout is exactly how SithSolo1 stated it.

= PCIe
====== PCIe - HD7770
*space*
===== PCI - X-Fi 1/2height
====== PCIe
===== PCI - TV Tuner
= PCIe

A visual:

 

[p_monks33]

Sorry, didn't see the mobo model. That sound card is definitely hurting your temps . If you are happy with it, I don't feel 80c will decrease your lifespan on the card too much. Just gonna be a noise maker.