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4850 temp gradually increased to unusable level, what to do :(

MURDEROUS G

MURDEROUS G

MURDEROUS G

Associate
Joined
10 Dec 2007
Posts
445
OK, so I hadn't really played any games for a long time and my 4850 has sat effectively unused for a while, up until this weekend when I decide to install Mirror's Edge. I start to play, and after a couple of minutes in the game, the fan on my 4850 starts making a hell of a noise. I alt-tab back to the desktop and open up CCC - the card is at nearly 110°C and the fan is going crazy trying to stop it from melting. After testing out various different fan settings, the absolute lowest I can get the temperature under load is 105°C, and that's at stock clocks and with fan speed at 100% (which is so loud that it's almost defeaning).

When I first bought the card, idle temps were in line with what you'd expect, and I remember that after a few months they'd crept up quite a bit which concerned me, but summer had arrived at that point so I wrote it off to ambient temp increase - obviously I was wrong about that and the card itself was getting hotter over time. Today, the card idles at 80°C even with the fan speed manually increased to 45%.

I know the stock cooling on these cards is accepted to be poor, but does the fact that the temp started out perfectly normal, and has gradually crept upwards over the course of a year or so possibly indicate a problem with the card rather than the cooler? I know I need to replace something, but I would hate to spend money on aftermarket cooling for a broken card. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Bonus comedy picture of card idling at 80°C at stock with fan set to 45%

ay4ift.png
 
Is there a lot of dust on the card? It may be worth cleaning out the heatsink if you can do it without voiding the warranty - some canned air should do the trick.

If there's very little or no dust then there may be a fault and you should try to get it replaced under warranty. If the warranty has expired, then I think the other likely problem is either the heatsink coming loose or the thermal compound drying up - try applying some new thermal grease to the core and reseating the heatsink.
 
Skalaberg said:
Did you try taking the card out and cleaning it up?..maybe just a build up of dust etc.
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Yeah, took it out, had a look at it, looks perfectly clean, and looking inside the works of it as far as I'm able I can't see any dust at all. Blew through it as thoroughly as I could and no dust came out, though that isn't a very scientific method. As soon as I get my hands on a screwdriver small enough to get those stupidly tiny screws out of it I'm going to take it apart and have a proper look at its innards, but it certainly doesn't appear to be a dust problem from the exterior.

e:

Lightnix said:
If there's very little or no dust then there may be a fault and you should try to get it replaced under warranty. If the warranty has expired, then I think the other likely problem is either the heatsink coming loose or the thermal compound drying up - try applying some new thermal grease to the core and reseating the heatsink.
Click to expand...

Yeah, when I take it to bits the first order of business is to put some Arctic Silver 5 in there and see how it likes that, hopefully that will at least make it usable again. It's about a year and a half old so I don't know where I stand in regards to warranty, I'll have to investigate that.
 
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MURDEROUS G said:
Yeah, took it out, had a look at it, looks perfectly clean, and looking inside the works of it as far as I'm able I can't see any dust at all. Blew through it as thoroughly as I could and no dust came out, though that isn't a very scientific method. As soon as I get my hands on a screwdriver small enough to get those stupidly tiny screws out of it I'm going to take it apart and have a proper look at its innards, but it certainly doesn't appear to be a dust problem from the exterior.

e:



Yeah, when I take it to bits the first order of business is to put some MX-5 in there and see how it likes that, hopefully that will at least make it usable again. It's about a year and a half old so I don't know where I stand in regards to warranty, I'll have to investigate that.
Click to expand...

Normally get 2 years minimum, so you may be in luck and still be inside. :)
 
LoadsaMoney said:
Normally get 2 years minimum, so you may be in luck and still be inside. :)
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Oh sweet, that would be awesome if I'm still covered. Thanks for the heads up :)

e: actually having looked through my emails to see where I got it from I see that I bought it from OcUK. The order was submitted almost 14 months ago now so I must've had the card for at least 13 and a half, and it says on the site that they generally only extend 12 months' warranty except "in certain circumstances". Am I out of luck there? :(
 
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ambient temperature?

with the stock fan as it is it would be around 60 degrees on idle but I doubt it's just down to the room temperature, but if you take into the consideration that you have had it over a year and it may not have been cleaned and that the internal air flow is poor then those 20 degrees sound plausible.

vortexx neo would be best bet imo
 
Talkie_Toaster said:
If you have a cooler like the above you get a hell of a lot of dust build up just behind the fan which eventually blocks the airflow completely.
A tooth pick & 30 minutes of poking/scraping sorts it out.
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As I said earlier (though I guess I didn't go into so much detail), I did spend a good long time blowing air through the heatsink from all angles and picking out even the tiniest specks of dust from the fan, though instead of toothpicks I used a bunch of those little earbud things that I moistened a little bit. I'm pretty sure it's as close to dust-free as I'm going to get it without taking it apart, but I'll get it out of the case again later on today and have another look at it with some toothpicks at the ready as per your suggestion.

dr4g0nf1y said:
ambient temperature?
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I don't have an ambient temperature measurement to hand, but as I have said already in this thread, the card runs much hotter now (these temp measurements are from the dead of the night at the end of September) than it did some time ago in the middle of a hot summer. Other factors like in-case airflow have not changed. I think we can discount ambient temperature as a cause, therefore.

dr4g0nf1y said:
with the stock fan as it is it would be around 60 degrees on idle but I doubt it's just down to the room temperature, but if you take into the consideration that you have had it over a year and it may not have been cleaned and that the internal air flow is poor then those 20 degrees sound plausible.
Click to expand...

I'm working on the assumption for now that it isn't dust buildup; in order to have gone from <60°C idle to 80°C with clocks set back to stock and the fan manually ramped up a bunch, you'd have thought there'd have to be a great thick layer of dust in it to set the temperature back quite so much.

I appreciate your vote for the vortexx neo, I guess from the recommendations I've had so far that's the route I will go down if it comes to that. OcUK open their phone lines soon so I suppose I will shortly know one way or the other.
 
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I had a simillar problem with mine ,fan spinning to 100% at load.

Cleaned out case, fans , filters etc.

Used a can of compressed air on the card, which looked clean I might add, now at load

it never spins up above 60% and temps stay below 85 degrees C.
 
I currently have a very simlar problem to you with my 4870x2. I am hitting similar temps but am not confident in taking the back off etc. Am going to buy some compressed air tonight and give it a blasting. Hopefully that will resolve the situation. If not then I may return it.
 
I had massive temp increases on my 4850, removed hsf cleaned it, put back on and reduced em a bit but within a few days were back up at 110c+ (might have been more tho) at load causing games to crash and pc to reboot

went and bought one of these

dropped temps to 40 idle and 55-60 at full load fan is set at whatever cos its connected via a molex and not to card so ccc fan control dont work but v happy with the result and was a doddle to fit
 
Thanks all for your responses.

Well, I called OcUK this morning, and it is still within warranty. After confirming that airflow through the case is good and describing how I've cleaned it of dust as best I can, they agreed to take it back for RMA, but what other people have added about dust buildup has me in two minds.

I'm not going to get it any cleaner than it is without taking it apart, but if I take it apart I've invalidated the warranty, haven't I? I wouldn't like to RMA it and have OcUK find out it was just dust buildup that I couldn't actually see.
 
All products have a 2 year warranty under Article 5 of the EU Product Warranty Directive (1999):

Time limits

1. The seller shall be held liable under Article 3 where the lack of conformity becomes apparent within two years as from delivery of the goods. If, under national legislation, the rights laid down in Article 3(2) are subject to a limitation period, that period shall not expire within a period of two years from the time of delivery.

There is UK law covering up to 6 years, but then you have to prove the unit was defective at the point of manufacture. Not worth it considering how quickly technology goes out of date. :)
 
Seriously, just today I bought a can of compressed air and sprayed it right through the fan and down through the heat sinks and it fixed my 4870x2 and is now back to cool and stable temps.

PS: was quie surprised that I got ID'd when buying compressed air!?!?! Whats all that about?
 
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