Graphics Card Heating Issue

Graphics card is an ATI 4650 with 1GB on board memory and has an integral on board fan with heatsinks.

When idle the temperature (using GPU-Z) is about 88 degrees C with fan speed of 99%. Is this temperature OK? It seems a little high. Also a benchmark test showed that the temperature rose to around 108 degrees C. Haven't tried running the test for longer than a couple of minutes, so don't know what the cut-off temperature is. Note, all dust has been cleaned out.

After playing Left for Dead 2 with 4x MSAA the computer turns off (between 30 mins and an hour) probably due to overheating of the graphics card.

I'm considering getting a PCI slot fam to sit alongside the graphics card.

The question is this a good idea or would it work against the small fan already on board the graphics card?

 

Does it look like this?

http://www.madshrimps.be/vbulletin/...-hd-4650-performance-tested-57425/#post223129

That needs pulling down and decent TIM applied. Personally with the fan cranking 99% it is indicating the card has a reasonable fan profile in its BIOS. The HS is not making good contact or it gets no air.

 

I would check the card to dust. The heat-sink and fan could be clogged.

 

Any temperature over 85 degrees is not good for a GPU. Anything over 100 degrees is likely to cause permanent damage if left running for too long.

As plover suggested, I would dust out the whole inside of the computer. Make sure you purchase a compressed air can or two and a small paintbrush to do it and DO NOT use a vacuum cleaner, as these create static electricity that can kill a computer very quickly.

 

My own GPU isn't a very expensive one, but I'm not willing to let it destroy itself due to overheating. At least once a year, or more often in a dirty environment, those cards should be taken out, the fan removed from the heatsink and the heatsink thoroughly cleaned with a stiff brush, to dislodge all the dirt that's stuck to the heat sink fins.

I actually remove the heatsink and scrub it in the kitchen sink, with soap and water.
But that's food for another thread.

Then the fan itself should be carefully cleaned and even re-oiled, by injecting a fine machine oil into the bearing cavity on the back of the fan.

When my own GPU cooling fan burned up, I took it out and replaced it with a much larger fan, fastened to the heatsink with HOT GLUE. Works great!
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g90/DrWho1943/GPU_Cooler.jpg

This video card is already about four years old, but with the new fan it should be good for several more years to come or as long as I need it.

Necessity is truly the mother of invention.

Happy Holidays, everyone!
The Shadow :cool

 

The card I have is (which is discontinued): http://www.powercolor.com/eng/products_speci.asp?ProductID=6164

I'll give a good clean with compressed air, although there doesn't seem to be much dust on it.

I haven't considered the possibility of removing the fan and replaced it on-board the graphics card or even removing the heatsink and using a good thermal paste - both seem drastic to me and may lead to damaging the card.

What I was considering was something like: http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/blitztorm/p1.htm and wondering if there would be any conflict with the on-board fan - hence the question.

 

You're totally ignoring the age old adage "you can't get something for nothing".
First you waste your money on that cooler.
Then you increase the noise level of your PC
Then you also increase the current draw of the 12 volt rail on your PC Power Supply,
possibly pushing it closer to an early failure.

I just worked on a PC that had one of those coolers installed and it was noisy and completely redundant. Don't waste your time and money on it.

Every video card is equipped with a heatsink and fan to keep it within normal operating specifications, if the cooler is clean and operating properly.

:cool

 

Didn't go with that cooler or a PCI slot fan in the end.

Using compressed air to remove dust knocked off about 10 degrees C and so averaged around 78 when idle but still heated and cut out at around 95 when playing a graphics intensive game.

When I took the small on-board fan and heatsink off, I found that it looked like the TIM had dried out and I wasn't too impressed with the tiny on-board fan.

So, rather then improvise or getting another card, I decided to go with:

Akasa AK-450-5G silver based thermal compound
Akasa Tim Clean AK-TC

and

Zalman VF1000-led VGA Card Cooler

Now the average idle temperature is about 37 degrees rising to about 44 degrees under heavy load, which I think is a good result.

 

Wow, impressive results! Glad that you posted how it worked out for you. I am amazed at how little detail is paid to cooling on a lot of video cards these days.

 

Well done and it is so rewarding to do it yourself.....;-). I pull my Video Cards and mobo down at new and reapply a decent TIM.

 

Thanks, it was the first time I took apart the card and saw how puny the original on-board fan looked along with its short black heatsink. I wasn't that confident that if I took it apart that bits and pieces would fall out or pull away. I was careful to use a wrist strap to keep electro-static discharges to a minimum by equalising my electric potential with the desk and computer case.

One of the first things I noticed was how small the graphics chip was, no bigger than half inch square (not much bigger than my thumb nail) with an embossed ATI logo. I guess the logo didn't help to create a good contact with the original heatsink since it was visible with the original dried out or caked TIM around the lettering. Dabbing the TIM clean on with a cloth helped make this nice and shiny.

The cooler itself was quite heavy, made out of solid copper and takes out a PCI slot that I wasn't using. The computer case now has a nice blue glow through its grilles and windows and there is an external manual fan controller that you can use if it is felt that the fan is too noisy - it wasn't and have set this on maximum.

In addition to the nice shiny copper heatsink with an integral fan (plugged into the MOBO), the kit also came with small blue metallic heat sinks for the on-board memory chips. I stuck all 8 of those on the memory (1GB in total) chips as well, each blue heatsinks had a self-adhesive pad making it easy to fit - so I guess these also helped in cooling. It is also recommended to have a case exhaust fan and fortunately already had one fitted.

One thing I notice now is that after boot up that the temperature is about room temperature and rises very slowly to about 35 degrees on idle.

Can now play Left for Dead 2 on max graphics settings without graphics cut out and the end temperature after playing for a long time was about 48 to 49 degrees, cooling back down to an idle temp of about 40.

Just have to remember to blow out the dust once in a while and probably re-apply TIM when required if the temperature increases significantly.

 

Very nice HS there and later you could probably sell it for scrap metal and it will be worth just as much as new......lol.

Keep your eye on the RAM sinks as they can sometimes fall off and may need to be reapplied.