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6950 Temperatures - help please!

fRostiE

fRostiE

fRostiE

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
6,212
Location
UK
Hi,

I installed a 6950 graphics card running 6970 shaders & default 800/1250 GPU clock speeds into my machine yesterday evening and kept a keen eye on the GPU temperatures as I threw Battlefield 3 at it on auto detected full settings (only at 1680x1050).

I started to wonder if i was having a bit of a temperature issue as it quickly rose into the high 70s and eventually topped out at 86degree's C... I'm guessing this is not normal operating temperature? In all that time the fan didn't go above 38%

So my question is mainly, what's a safe limit to keep the GPU at (if possible), and why would the fan not reach higher levels for these temperatures (which to me seem high!)

I'm using the graphics cards (catalyst centre?) interface to show the GPU temperature and fan speeds... if there is another utility which might be more accurate, or allow me to override the fan speed then could someone link it to a GPU novice please?

Thanks :)
 
fRostiE said:
So my question is mainly, what's a safe limit to keep the GPU at (if possible), and why would the fan not reach higher levels for these temperatures (which to me seem high!)

I'm using the graphics cards (catalyst centre?) interface to show the GPU temperature and fan speeds... if there is another utility which might be more accurate, or allow me to override the fan speed then could someone link it to a GPU novice please?
Click to expand...
You gonna get lots of "MSI Afterburner" and "^This" "+1" replies :p

Unfortunately catalyst centre doesn't really increase the speed of the fan as temp goes up...best to use Afterburner to set custom fanspeed profiles.

As for temp, with your fanspeed being higher, it should keep it at under 85C no problem...but if you want to lower the temp by even further, you'd probable have to look into your case cooling and airflow, such as "are there enough cool air being fed directly to the graphic card cooler" etc.
 
Thanks, is MSI afterburner the go to software for all ATI cards rather than just the MSI ones then?

I wondered if the graphics card might be intelligent to go "Hang on, I'm a bit hot... how about i make an effort to cool myself" :o

Is there a set 'safe' temperature which should not be exceeded.

For my 2500k processor i was told don't go over 75 deg C for example.
 
fRostiE said:
Thanks, is MSI afterburner the go to software for all ATI cards rather than just the MSI ones then?

I wondered if the graphics card might be intelligent to go "Hang on, I'm a bit hot... how about i make an effort to cool myself" :o

Is there a set 'safe' temperature which should not be exceeded.

For my 2500k processor i was told don't go over 75 deg C for example.
Click to expand...
MSI Afterburner would work with pretty much all modern graphic cards regardless of the brand. For it's custom fanspeed profile, it is actually a line graphic which you can set it up as as certain % fanspeed at a certain temp. See below for more info on features of Afterburner:
http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overview.htm

For the 6950, I would say "ideally" it should be at under 80C...but if the card is on a reference cooler, then it would be more difficult to achieve than cards with manufacturers' custom coolers, so aimming for below 85C would be more realistic and temp is still "ok". But at over 85C, it is starting to get a bit toasty in my opinion, so yea...with your card currently max at 86C, you are right to look into trying to drop it temp.
 
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Just for comparison, my MSI 6950 with unlocked shaders and running at 910/1375 never goes above 75 degrees when having a good session of BF3.

Does your card have the stock cooler fitted? Whats your case cooling like?
 
thanks all,

if i can profile the fan to run based on the temperatures then i'll just set the rule for it to run at 100% if the temps exceed 75 and work back incrementally. It'll take some adjusting to find a sweet spot but im sure it'll come down from 86, hopefully to the high 70's at least.

i don't know the history of the card, other than its 1 year old so probably not the most recent cooling solution on-board... I'll see how tonight's tinkering goes, thanks again.
 
fRostiE said:
if i can profile the fan to run based on the temperatures then i'll just set the rule for it to run at 100% if the temps exceed 75 and work back incrementally. It'll take some adjusting to find a sweet spot but im sure it'll come down from 86, hopefully to the high 70's at least.
Click to expand...
Probably not a good idea to set 100% fanspeed at 75C...as what it means is if your card can't reach as low as 75C (most likely it won't), it would be pretty much at 100% at all time, which can kill the fan bearing much sooner, and not to mention it would be noisy as hell. Also, don't think you can reach as low as 75C if you are on reference cooler, and may be average to poor case cooling.

May be set it as 70% at 85C, 60% at 80C, 50% at 60C.
 
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Thanks,

Its a Lian Li PC7 with cables fairly tidyy... 120mm case fan front and back and 120mm to help air over the large heatsink... also a dual fan PSU but they're standard these days...

only thing missing is a roof case fan and a side panel but thats overkill IMO, should have good airflow! will get afterburner set up and go from there :)

Thanks,
 
fRostiE said:
Its a Lian Li PC7 with cables fairly tidyy... 120mm case fan front and back and 120mm to help air over the large heatsink... also a dual fan PSU but they're standard these days...

only thing missing is a roof case fan and a side panel but thats overkill IMO, should have good airflow! will get afterburner set up and go from there :)
Click to expand...
Well as I mentioned, it is probably gonna be difficult to keep the graphic card at 75C if it is really with a reference cooler. Can you confirm what brand/model/type of cooler your 6950 got?
 
The card seems to have had its cooler replaced from the reference to one which says HIS:

Fan profile set and it now doesnt exceed 65 deg C even when at 880 / 1375 - fan at 50-55%

thanks again for the help :)
 
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