GPU fan going mad on idle?

[sad_muso]

Hi,

I've just recently inherited an Nvidia GFX 480 graphics card but tonight I noticed that the fan is speeding up and is really loud at random times (when I'm just browsing in Windows and not doing a lot.)

It eventually settles down - is this normal behaviour?

System specs:

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/W...aefMkJRG8bLmU3

Thanks

sad_muso

[Midknyte]

Did you make sure the heatsink is clean?

[Train]

Fan blades clean, air passages cleaned out.

[sad_muso]

Hi,

I opened up the PC tonight and had a good clean out. It was still running hot (80ish) and I was getting weird errors so I uninstalled the Nvidia drivers and reinstalled. Touch wood it's been 30 minutes without any loud fan action whilst doing low key web browsing and the GPU temp is around 50. I'll keep an eye on this one.

Thanks for your help

[Train]

Thanks for the update.

[CincyJim]

A MASSIVE heat sink (15 lbs) with a 20" box fan keeps my CPU wondering; "Who left the window open? It's COLD in hear!"

[sad_muso]

Hi all,

Sorry to reopen this thread, but I'm randomly experiencing issues again and wondered if you could help. I've been using the GTX 480 for almost a year without changing my setup - it's always been a bit temperamental and will usual appear hot (circa 90c) shortly after turning PC on but then settle to more comfortable temperatures after about five minutes or so (circa 60c).

Over the last couple of weeks the card is taking a lot longer to cool down - today it took about 30 minutes to get down to an idle of 65c and until then it was hovering between 80c-90c (and that was with the fan on 100% using MSI Afterburner). I have taken the card apart and cleaned it but there wasn't really much dust/dirt in it so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what's going on here. Once the card gets down to about 60s it will remain there until I play games (obviously) or turn it off and on again.

Options I've thought of are:

1. Avoid shutting the PC down and putting it to Sleep instead (but that isn't working for me - when I turn on again it seems to boot up as if I shut down!)
2: Look into getting a better front case fan and better exhaust
3: Give up and write the card off as faulty

Any suggestions?

Thanks

sad_muso

[jdc2000]

It could be time to remove the heatsink and fan from the card and then remove the old heat sink compound and replace it with some Arctic Silver.

[sad_muso]

Yeah, maybe so. So replacing the old thermal paste yeah? Did it a year ago but not with artic stuff - would that really make a big difference?

[Train]

Seen 3 years between arctic silver and a couple other brands, Silver won .

[Derp]

Do you have that thing placed next to a heating vent? Looking over the Speccy report I see everything is running very warm plus with some work you can get a lot more performance out of what you have. Personally I'd stick a closed loop liquid cooler on that 2700K, get the case cooling in order then let that great CPU stretch its legs with the P67 Sabertooth set to some overclocking. That CPU will easily do 5GHZ with a good liquid cooler on it and it should be running cooler than it is now at 4.5GHZ. My P8P67 Deluxe Rev 3.0 & 2600K @4.8GHZ runs at less than 100 degrees F using a Corsair H100 cooler with Silverstone FM121 fans on it. Your issue appears to be case cooling and it's affecting everything inside of it.

If your GPU is still under warranty I'd RMA it for a new one if at all possible, Nvidia GPU's run hot anyway but the temps you state are far too high and are approaching failure temperature. What are you using for a case and how is the airflow configured? Even though this isn't your exact motherboard all of the drivers listed are the same and are the latest available: http://www.station-drivers.com/index...8-p8z68-deluxe Update the drivers, clean everything out inside the case, improve the airflow, turn as much stuff off as possible in msconfig and if you want to unleash the potential of that 2700K get back to me and I'll give you a link on how to safely do it.