How-To Geek

I have been having issues with overheating since I built this new computer. I have been monitoring my temperatures, and found one of my graphics cards is heating to about 80-90C, and freezing my computer. I have no idea where to go from here.

I have 2 video cards (BFG 280s), in a NZXT Tempest computer case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047)

I really am looking for any suggestions how to fix this problem. I am looking into a new side fan for this case, and hope to have suggestions for that as well. If anyone has had good luck with a certain fan for overheating with this case (or a similar case), please let me know.

If anyone has any other suggestions what to do, I'd appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Does the card make a funny noise when its on?

Normal load temperatures should be about 70-80c. According to BFG and NVIDIA if the temp is around or above 100c it means hat the card is defective and should be RMA'd. Right now there are a lot of 280s that overheating.

The settings in the NVIDIA control panel should not affect the temp of your card.

90 is a pretty high temp and is most likely the reason it is freezing. The first thing I would like to know is the size of your power supply and its model( name etc.) before we make you spend any money. :)

Okay just making sure it was not a power problem.
Looking at the design of the case it could possibly be that your fan is picking up heat from one(or if you have more) of your hard drives. Is there a HD close to the overheating card?

Hawk, since you built this PC yourself, is there a chance you could switch to watercooling. Running at those high temps all the time does not sound very healthy to me. For testing, I would open the sides of the box and run it for a while with a big room fan next to it. If that still leaves the temps up, then adding a fan here and there inside the box may not buy you much. Also, did you overclock any of the units?

Do you realize that 100C is boiling water (212F). I would not think that this is tolerable at all. Usually they say that 70C (168F) is the maximum one should allow. My systems (including the quad core) usually run between 40 and 50C. Looking at the data you posted, I would think you have to do something more dramatic than an extra little fan. (maybe ice packs - LOL).

I don't know whether that is a waste of money. But if a big external fan with the panels open does not help, I don't know how much good a couple of small internal fans can do. Maybe you need better heat sinks and better paste. Here are a few interesting articles that you may want to study:

http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm

http://www.tomshardware.com/re.....,1053.html

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articl.....alman.html

Hawk22, in all of this discussion I don't see mention of which fans you have and how they are running. The key to good cooling is airflow. Based only on the specs, that NZXT Tempest case should have plenty. There are 2 120mm intake fans on the front and 2 140mm exhaust fans on the top. The side and rear fans make for 6 total case fans, plus the PSU will have a fan as well. Do you have all of these fans installed and running? Are they variable speed fans, or fixed? Either way, are they running at high speed?

Another key to airflow is the balance of intake and exhaust and elimination of recirculation. The 2 front fans should be intakes and the 2 top fans exhaust. This will cause air to flow from front to back and bottom to top. Hot air rises, so top exhaust is good. The rear fan can assist with exhaust. I have never been a fan of side intake fans because they move air transverse to the normal airflow and set up turbulence. I would suggest that you experiment with leaving the side fan unplugged which still allows cool air to be drawn in as a result of low pressure. Finally, the PSU fan is oddly situated at the bottom of the case. If the fan is facing up, it is drawing air down near the back of the case in opposition to the other airflow. If the fan faces down, it might have less of an adverse affect.

As always, you want slightly more exhaust pressure than intake pressure, which is another reason to leave the side fan off. Finally, the only way to be sure of what cooling is good cooling is by experimenting with different fans on or off, running at different speeds, and measuring the resulting temperatures.

Obstructions are limited, since I'd tied all the wires down, and left enough space for the fans to push air adequately.

I am looking into getting 3 pin to 4 pin converters, so I can actually run all the fans on the tower. I am noticing a conflict with the power-supply on the bottom, next to the lower video card. There isn't really enough room down there for much airflow at all. Also, the hot air from the hard drives is flowing right into the intake for the graphics cards as well (especially the bottom one), and I don't see a fix for this at all. All I can hope for is that with all the fans operating the airflow will be enough to fix this problem.

I hope running all the fans at once will fix my problem, otherwise liquid cooling is my only option, which would be pretty tough to implement at this stage.