Hello driver advice re GTX 280 OC2 (BFG)

Hello all Major Geeks,


Having logged on to this site after a number of years and am happy to see its still going strong, and that my account is still active, which I am thankful for. Having benefited from the help, generosity and expertise of this community in the past, and being one who is not an expert by any means, I wanted to say hello, best wishes chocs away chaps, and that i still talk too much

Around three moths or so ago I finally bought myself a half decent set up on the cheap. I stumbled upon a nice GTX 280 OC2 (the BFG one), which had its problems, but after a very nice man gave it a "sonic clean" (Wayne's World style!) and a repaste it has been running fine. I've been playing SC2 and Left4Dead 2 and similarly lower demand games, which has been fine, occasionally pushing the fan speed up a bit, but ive been really careful not to overheat it, and have even turned the game off if the fan speed dramatically increased. Having literally just installed CPUID Hardware Monitor, she's idling in the mid 50's at 40% fan speed in "browser mode" and Ill have more idea about fan speed and temps when greater demand is being placed on the system. As the fan is pretty intense when it rarely does push on, ive been a bit paranoid about not overexerting the GFX card, but sufficed to say its been running really nicely.
I havent checked the fan speed or temp when its been kicking on but to be honest I dont think ive been pushing it anywhere near to its limiits which is fine by me, as id rather sacrifice a little performance for longevity of card life. As it was second hand, I err on the side of caution. I installed Crysis yesterday which certainly pushes things up a bit, running on high (as the optimal settings button in game recs) on all the various settings so i dropped a few settings to medium but it doesnt look as pretty. Knowing that these cards run quite hot, I will run it on high and keep an eye on the temp. I guess up to 70c isnt too horrendous. I would appreciate a little advice on driver choice. Currently running the standard Nvidia 280 driver, where the app chooses the settings (MB is a Gigabyte G41 Combo, 8Gig DDR3 HyperX Ram, Q660 chip- not OC'd)

1) Would you suggest any alterations to the Nvidia Control Panel settings?
2) Would you recommend installing the specific OC2 driver (the Driversbay site seems to be the prominent source for this) or suggest i stick with the standard Nvidia Drivers, (the fan response seems good when more cooling oomph is required)
3) Would you recommend thin lint layer over the holes in the PC tower to prevent dust incursions or will this negatively affect cooling? And as the fan exit of the GFX is very near the edge with no holes near it would it be prudent drill a few small holes in the case near the GFX fan exit area to aid GFX cooling?
4) What temp would you suggest I look at as a ceiling for long term card health? I'm thinking again about 70 to 80 Anders as a ceiling
5) Do you think its worth OC'ing the chip, im not too bothered as I think my limitation is the GFX card and the RAM, and as im a OC total beginner I;d rather not risk it unless performance and stability is solid and safe.
6) I need more HD space as im currently down to 20gig, will this -vely impact on performance to a greater or lesser extent? I will have to get a larger/2nd HD at some point clearly, but for now if i can manage then ill leave it.
7) And finally...What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? That ones optional

I think thats everything, thanks in advance to anyone who is kind enough to take the time out of their day to help me, I was genuinely surprised to discover how nice people are about these things and Im sorry about all the Q's but I thought rather than have a back and forth it would be better to do it this way.

Many thanks and best wishes from blightly

Scott

 

Dear David,

Q7 answered, now you're just showing off! Thanks a lot for the info, thats a big help. The card is getting pushed above 70 on heavy load, as much as 88 at one point, but Ive knocked the settings down a bit and only play on high load for fairly brief periods. I suppose thats the pitfall of older cards but for £65 you can't go wrong I hope! I'll look at case cooling as you suggested, it would improve performance I dont doubt,

I appreciate your time, and wish you a happy life, thank you,

Scott