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GTX460 Industrial Heating Edition

19ninety

19ninety

19ninety

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Joined
27 Jun 2007
Posts
577
Location
England
Does anyone know of any better cooling solutions for the GTX460? I use two monitors (one for gaming the other will have speedfan, notes, chat or whatever on display). Since installing the 460 I've noticed that the second screen flickers when gaming and eventually blacks out - I've also noticed the 460 is running at 81C playing games in higest possible settings, when I exit a game and the card cools down slowly but surely the second screen comes back to life! I've taken the side off my case which helped a bit (was in mid 80's with sealed case). I've tried swapping leads/DVI ports and re-installing the drivers too just to be sure.
Any ideas on a better heat sink? :confused:
 
I'd say, take the card out you have for physx, completley pointless, is probably throwing out a lot of extra heat and blocking cooling, unless you don't have it in anymore.

Heat vs noise is how most cards run, 81c isn't hot, the card shouldn't crash up to 100C+, its not cool either though.

Some manufacturers go for higher temps and the lowest noise output possible, others go for higher noise and lower temps, some have high temps and high noise, because they're retarded.

First suggestion would be to increase the fan speed, even above acceptable levels just to see if the second screen cutting out continues to happen or not.

Basically, it shouldn't, and normally 81c full load shouldn't be enough to cause a card to simply stop running the second screen. I'd think it would be more likely a fault with the card.

Depends what version you got, first try afterburner from MSI install, see if you can change the fan speed with it, I'd imagine you can if its a default 460gtx or a MSI one obviously. If not try whatever software the card came with, or from the manufacturer you bought from.

If for some reason theres no fan control, try downclocking the card for now and dropping voltage a little if at all possible see if that causes a reduction in temps and the second screen to not shut off.

My first thought is, faulty rather than better cooling required, though I'd also google, maybe its a driver issue other people have, I don't think its particularly common if it is a driver problem as I've not seen it mentioned.
 
I have to agree with DM on this occasion, you really need a second card for PhysX by having two cards that just like having an SLI solution so your primary card will be running 10c hotter then it normally would under normal circumstances.

If you really must use the 2nd card invest in a 80mm spot fan and get it to directly blast air at the 460 which might help a bit but to be honest 81c isn't that hot for the sort of card it is (performance).
 
How about one of these bad boys? :D

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-050-ZA&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=787

Failing that, take off your existing cards' cooling system, clean it and the GPU, put some good quality thermal paste on spread evenly and well, and re-seat the card. Might make a difference.

And yes, ditch the PhysX card unless you're doing tons of games that absolutely require it and use it a lot!

Have you benchmarked to see what the difference is between using it on a PhysX capable game and not using it?
 
this is why you shouldnt skimp and buy the cheapest 460 cards the gigabyte dual fan carsd barely goes above 60c at full load and the fan is still only around 60%

the msi ones are suposed to be cool aswell some of the dirt cheap cards dont even have pwm heatsinks maybe yours is one of those
 
Thanks for the replies!
The case is an Antec Sonata (Not a gaming case I know but with the side off its a start), card is a Palit GTX460 1GB Sonic. Current setup did 15513 3DMarks (31700 CPU, 13000 GPU) - will try again and see what difference is without the independent Physx card.
My main concern was is 80C right? Having done a load more googling today I haven’t found any other comments that match exactly the same problem I'm getting. Though from the symptom, what I’ve read and how the flickering occurs it points right at the temperature.
I'll take out the Physx card later (8800GTS 512) and see if that helps the air flow, though it’s not extremely close to the 460, I guess with the volume of air the 460's sucking in a 100% fan speed the other card is making a fair difference to the flow.
(On a side note, if the GTX460 isn’t running outside its specified temps then why is it flickering??)
If this doesn’t make a reasonable difference to the temps then I'll have to consider either and RMA or a non stock cooler. After all I've read today this card is not running overly high (the OC version is booked at 79C - in an ideal environment), which would point to a faulty card if the flickering continues even in the 60’s & 70C's.
 
i had similar overheating issues with a HIS 5770 (no screen flickering though). Anooyingly id got it second hand. The person i bought it off blamed my PC as being the problem. I have no idea what the problem was (flogged it on the bay ;) ), but the sapphire replacement worked straight out of the box and much cooler. Didnt even need to reinstall the drivers that time!

My conclusion? Either some crazy driver conflict or a potentially duff card.
 
Hmm, will pop the fan off later and have a look and see what cooler is under it. Was in a rush to get t all built and play and didnt have a good look at the card :) I could always strap a 120mm fan on there instead and see how that helps ... but that's getting ahead of things for now. Dont want to void the warranty really, but then the first thing I did to the 8800gts was strap a accelero s2 and 120mm fan on it .. and that cost more than the 460 so who knows!
 
19ninety said:
(On a side note, if the GTX460 isn’t running outside its specified temps then why is it flickering??)
If this doesn’t make a reasonable difference to the temps then I'll have to consider either and RMA or a non stock cooler. After all I've read today this card is not running overly high (the OC version is booked at 79C - in an ideal environment), which would point to a faulty card if the flickering continues even in the 60’s & 70C's.
Click to expand...

Flickering wouldn't be caused by heat, but more likely a driver bug causing the cards to clock down too much, or possible a faulty card...
Either way it sounds like a lemon tbh...
 
Well, took the 8800 out, better airflow, 73C max now and less flickering, still seems to happen only over about 60C, wonder if its a dud card and the expansion of something when it get that hot causes to problem? Gonna ride it out this week and see what happens.
 
Forgive me if I'm missing something here (reading in squint-o vision on my phone) but can't you just run the second screen from the second card?

460 will idle cooler assuming nvidia still use the dual card, high idle clocks workaround and your second screen will stay runningduring gameplay.
 
Geckovich said:
Forgive me if I'm missing something here (reading in squint-o vision on my phone) but can't you just run the second screen from the second card?

460 will idle cooler assuming nvidia still use the dual card, high idle clocks workaround and your second screen will stay runningduring gameplay.
Click to expand...

Didn't know that would work but will give it a go!
 
Well, last night in summery;
Updated the VGA bios after reading an article on guru3d.
Re-installed the 8800.
Carefully placed a 120mm fan which blows air onto the 8800 heatsink (previously passive cooled due to space restrictions) and also directs air flow into the 460's cooler.

Result:
3DMarks initial GPU test produces max 75C, average 71C under continual load on the 460 and 54C on the 8800 under load (previously 61C).
No more flickering of the second display now its running off the 8800 which is still set up as the dedicated physx card.
Gotta love nVidia!

As a bonus also squeezed another 200mhz onto the CPU giving a bit over 3.4ghz and 61 max under Prime95.
Didnt get a chance to run 3DMarks with out the 8800 in but will try that tonight and see. Looking forward getting giving the GTX460 a little OC to bring it up to the Sonic Platimun speed as that has done really well on the guru3d GTX460 shootout.

Now I can finally play Crysis :D Happy Days!

On a side note, its been a while since I tinkered with the P5Q bios OCing ... why oh why did Asus put the ******* CMOS battery so you cant reach it without having to take out the graphics card, scumbags ... and just as bad ... with a card in the 3rd PCI-E slot you cant reach the damn onboard power and reset buttons lol

460 OC'd to 850/1700/2000 and not pulling 18000 in 3DMarks (15000 GPU 34000 CPU).
 
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