XFX 6870 Temp Issue

[justin4pack]

So i got a this card free off of a buddy, he said it was overheating. So i checked it out and the fan was failing. So i contacted XFX Support and they said to use an approved After market cooler such as the ARCTIC Accelero L2 Plus. Ordered the heatsink/fan and got it installed. After running some tests its getting into 80's. Anyone use this cooler or have some knowledge of these cards and heating issues?. Im pretty sure 75-85 is a bit hot but mabey not?

 

[dragantoe]

Yep... my brother had this card and my friend currently uses one of them in his crossfire set up. The card is an all around POS, unfortunately no matter what you try it seems to run extremely hot and seems to start throttling around 80...

But, maybe there is an answer for your card in particular :/

does your friend have cats, dogs, or any other animal with excessive hair? cuz they can gunk up a fan's bearings pretty good
does the case have enough ventilation?
lastly, what thermal paste was used and how did you apply it?

 

[nwo]

Have you tried manually setting the fan speed to 100%? What program/game/benchmark are you using when you are monitoring temps? 75-85 shouldn't be a concern if the card is at full load. Although it does sound a bit warm, especially if your ambient temps are low.

I had heating issues with my practically brand new 7870 DD. XFX sent me a replacement HSF for it thinking that it was a faulty HSF. After installing the replacement, I actually got higher temps which would easily pass 100*C even with less than 100% GPU load which is definitely a cause for concern and card throttling.

I tried reseating the HSF 5-6 times, switching back to original HSF, using different amounts of AS5 on each application. None of that made a difference.

 

[dragantoe]

Have you tried manually setting the fan speed to 100%? What program/game/benchmark are you using when you are monitoring temps? 75-85 shouldn't be a concern if the card is at full load. Although it does sound a bit warm, especially if your ambient temps are low.

I had heating issues with my practically brand new 7870 DD. XFX sent me a replacement HSF for it thinking that it was a faulty HSF. After installing the replacement, I actually got higher temps which would easily pass 100*C even with less than 100% GPU load which is definitely a cause for concern and card throttling.

I tried reseating the HSF 5-6 times, switching back to original HSF, using different amounts of AS5 on each application. None of that made a difference.

it's this kind of stuff that makes me stay away from xfx... (and sapphire sometimes)

 

[KingFatty]

But really, I think it's important to point out that at this point it doesn't matter that it's an XFX card.

What I mean is it's an AMD chip, and an accelero cooler. So really, I think the issue is, that chip will get hot depending on the voltage you give it and the frequency you run it at, just like any other brand of video card using the same AMD chip.

The chip gets hot, the accelero pulls off the heat. Maybe there is an unmentioned issue here - could it be that XFX mounted something around the chip that is too high, and prevents a good interfacing between the heatsink because that thing is blocking it?

Otherwise, it's a basic AMD chip with basic voltage/frequency settings that generates a predictable amount of heat.

 

[Sunburn74]

I'm surprised they told you to use an aftermarket cooler. Doesn't that have warranty implications?

 

[nwo]

I'm surprised they told you to use an aftermarket cooler. Doesn't that have warranty implications?

I'm not sure... XFX told me that I could replace the HSF myself without voiding the warranty. They told me that the warranty void stickers do not apply to North America. So, you can remove the stickers, HSF, reapply thermal paste, and most likely change the HSF to one other than XFX, without voiding the warranty.

 

[justin4pack]

I'm not sure... XFX told me that I could replace the HSF myself without voiding the warranty. They told me that the warranty void stickers do not apply to North America. So, you can remove the stickers, HSF, reapply thermal paste, and most likely change the HSF to one other than XFX, without voiding the warranty.

Yes this is what they told me as well that why I ordered it. I used antec diamond f7. The heatsinks provided fir the ram and vr are a thermal adheasive so now I can't remove them even if I wanted to put the old heatsink back on.

 

[dragantoe]

But really, I think it's important to point out that at this point it doesn't matter that it's an XFX card.

I'm just saying I've had experience with this very card twice, and they both had the same problems, it might just be a problem that can't be fixed