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6970 Lightning heat issues

SiberianExpress

SiberianExpress

SiberianExpress

Associate
Joined
6 Dec 2011
Posts
9
Hey guys, I bought a 6970 lightning not too long ago (not even 2 months) which has been operating fine until today where I noticed that my fan was going crazy out of nowhere. Now, the temperature is 62 degrees as I am writing this which seems to be awfully high considering nothing is really occuring.

I am running dual 24" screens but never game on more than one at any given point in time so I don't see that as being a factor; obviously the graphic card gets hotter since there's two screens but nothing as drastic as I am currently experience. As soon as I load up a benchmark or a game (say BF3) for no more than 2 seconds, the temperature shoots up all the way to 100-102 degrees which is completely unacceptable. The fan starts whining and the temperature refuses to come down at all.

I have no idea of what to do without voiding my warranty. In fact, I am considering RMA'ing this card since stuttering occurs seconds into a game at such high temperatures.

The card itself operates at stock settings, I have not tweaked anything. I read somewhere that it might be due to the fact that the lightning is heavy which causes it to hang once it's in place causing the contact between the GPU and the cooler to loosen which would explain the temperatures. I forgot to include I am running everything in an antec 1200 so case airflow is not an issue.

Any help would be great. Thanks in advance

My specs are:

Intel i5 2500k @ 3.6
Z68 ASROCK Extreme4 Gen 3
12GB DDR3 1600MHz CORSAIR Vengeance
Akasa PowerMax AK-P100FG 1000W
MSI 6970 Lightning - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-123-MS
 
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Seems like a common thing for this card to overheat, I had the same issue, the card reached 103c max.

I fixed it by reapplying thermal paste & reseating the heatsink, now it maxes out at <65c when gaming.

So yeah, either you can do that or RMA. (RMA recommended)
 
Seems like I am screwed essentially since I have no previous experience messing with the cooler and from what I am aware, it voids warranty as well.

Is RMA or reseating the heatsink honestly the only two options I have?
 
If you're careful about it, they won't notice that you've taken it apart.

If you don't want to go down that route, then RMA it.

edit: Try disabling CCC and just use Afterburner to set clocks/fan speed, that helped with the heat issue for some.
 
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Don't mess about with it.

Trying to re-seat the cooler is just asking for trouble if you've not done it before.

You could end up making matters worse and leaving signs that you've messed with the card.

Just RMA it.
 
Yeah, that seems to be my best bet. Such a shame really, not even a 2 month old card and it's doing this to me. I'll try using it a bit and see whether the temps are still playing about, if so I guess it's RMA time. :(
On a side note, what do you guys reckon is the cause of this? Heatsink being too heavy and causing the card to bend and therefore loosening contact or are these cards prone to such problems?
 
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SiberianExpress said:
Directly to MSI? I thought OCUK was supposed to handle the RMA? :confused: Technically, this is a real lightning, just without a fancy box and slightly underclocked :p
Click to expand...

No it isn't a real lightning because it hasn't been tested properly, if at all.

A real Lightning has been tested and will net you over 1ghz all day long.

OCUK will simply send you a replacement using stock. So it's up to you I guess.

£10 to send it back to OCUK, or £18 to send it to MSI and get a red boxed Lightning brand new spankers.
 
blacblu said:
You looked over the temperatures today or before wasn't like this?

Check if your browser is not hardware accelerated.
Click to expand...

With that cooler it still shouldn't get anywhere near 62°C at 'idle' and 100-102°C at load.

Several peeople have had the same problem with these cards.

It's knackered.
 
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Yeah, I've re-checked my temps using different software (catalyst, afterburner) and they're still reading temps of around 55-62 idle. I loaded up AC: Brotherhood today just to double check and it jumped straight to 81 degrees in less than 10 seconds. I dare try BF3... RMA it is - cheers guys
 
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