ASUS GTX 970 running temperature

sijones · 9 Mar 2015 at 00:02

Hi all - was 50:50 whether to post this here or in the cooling forum, but here goes...

I've been having a mysterious black screen at the same time every night recently - PC doesn't crash, but nothing on screen. An image reappears when I CTRL-ALT-DELETE to choose Task Manager, but goes black again when I start the Task Manager. Don't think it's a cable, as it happens on both screens at once (one DVI, one HDMI). I'm inclined to blame something weird that our home server's doing on a scheduled basis, such as a backup. The server launchpad crashes at the same time. Haven't got to the bottom of it yet.

Anyway, whilst I was trying to identify the culprit, I started looking at the system temperatures. I was a bit surprised to see my Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU II OC Strix idling at around 60-65 deg C. This is just me pottering online & doing email, it's my son that plays the demanding games. The card is configured as it came out of the box, not clocked. I thought a card like this would idle in the 30-somethings, spiking much higher under load. Can anyone confirm or correct me on this?

The card / fans / sinks aren't dusty, I checked. The ambient temp in the room is warm (about 22 degrees C, we keep the house pretty warm, as we're wimps). Might stick a 120mm fan blowing inwards on the front of the case (currently only has the rear fan that came pre-installed).

Anyway I digress... my question is: how warm should a card like this idle? Thanks for reading.

Gilbert89 · 9 Mar 2015 at 02:05

My MSI 970 idled at 40c with 0RPM Fans and max under load 60-65c in games such as BF4 for several hours I believe these cards are designed to throttle at 70/75c therefore something isn't right.

Divine Pain · 9 Mar 2015 at 02:22

No clue about the black screens.

Doesn't the strix have a 0db profile ie fans don't spin until above 65c I think it was? The fact that you only have a rear exhaust fan doesn't help with cooling. I think you could manually set fan profiles with AB to turn off 0 db profile? Again not sure, I'm not a strix owner.

FloppyPoppy · 9 Mar 2015 at 02:26

I have two of these cards.

They idle around the same as yours and sometimes the fans come on. It's designed to be that way.idles at 60 ish and never goes over 72 full load

Amatsubu · 9 Mar 2015 at 08:16

The Strix definitely wasn't designed to be idling at 60+ so please don't spread false info... If the fans have to occasionally spin up when your GPUs are doing diddly squat then something's definitely not right.

My card's idle temps hover around 36-39c, going down to as low as 29-33c on colder days and this is in line with the results most Strix owners are getting. It gets a bit toasty under load though, can reach 75-76c when overclocked in the most demanding games. "Normal" titles stay within 65-72c range.

To the OP: I reckon there might be some background processes which make the card's temps shoot up. Either that or your case cooling is just really bad. There was a time when my Strix was idling at 55c and I found stuff running in the background which prevented the card from clocking down properly.

sijones · 9 Mar 2015 at 09:18

Hi everyone - thanks for the replies. Sounds like I need to take a look at this GPU temperature, even if it's nothing to do with my original black screens issue.

Amatsubu said:
My card's idle temps hover around 36-39c, going down to as low as 29-33c... ...I reckon there might be some background processes which make the card's temps shoot up.

Can you remember what processes you found or how you identified them? I'll go hunting tonight.

Amatsubu said:
...or your case cooling is just really bad.

Also a distinct possibility I'm sure. My case only has one fan - at the back - and it's in a corner of a relatively warm room. Reckon I'll put a fan behind the front grille (blowing inwards I guess), and maybe one on the side. I'll gladly swap cooling for a bit of noise.

Whilst I'm waiting for the fans, maybe I'll run it with the case side off for a couple of days & see how the temperature goes. More news as it breaks!

Cooper · 9 Mar 2015 at 09:22

sijones said:
Can you remember what processes you found or how you identified them? I'll go hunting tonight.

It will be one of the Microsoft apps running in the background (weather,maps) being rendered on the GPU and being kept open in memory until manually shut down.

My normal idle temps are 30-34c, with one of the above running in the background 50c (or more) isn't unusual.

Amatsubu · 9 Mar 2015 at 09:45

TBH I'm having a hard time remebering what I did to cure the issue as it only happened once and for a somewhat brief time, sorry. All I know is that it wasn't anything from Microsoft in my case but what Cooper suggested might be the culprit as their apps can be a bit problematic at times.

As for case cooling, it'd be nice to have at least 1 front intake fan and 1 rear exhaust fan. Ideally, you would want to get a case with good airflow and some well placed radiator mount locations so that you could install whatever fans you see fit. You can also buy one with pre-installed fans if you're not too picky, that's what I did;p

sijones · 9 Mar 2015 at 10:32

Thanks guys, that's a great starting point for my investigations tonight.

Come to think of it, my son has a couple of onscreen widgets running all the time (showing CPU usage & framerate, etc) - I'll shut them down for a kickoff.

The Asus GPU is a late addition to our system, and it's a monstrous thing compared to the RMA'd MSI card we started out with, leaving the interior of the case rather crowded.

If killing background processes & adding a front fan doesn't do the honours, I might think about a larger case, with improved airflow and more space to breathe & grow. At some point I fancy adding another HDD, but in our current case there's no way it'd fit!

Great advice on a great forum, as always - ta!

FloppyPoppy · 9 Mar 2015 at 15:19

Amatsubu said:
The Strix definitely wasn't designed to be idling at 60+ so please don't spread false info... If the fans have to occasionally spin up when your GPUs are doing diddly squat then something's definitely not right.

My gpu fans don't even spin up until 60+C a quick google will also point out that "everyone" seems to have this temperature range. Especially anyone who has overclocked/volted/power limit temp limit changed to get the better performance

Cooper · 9 Mar 2015 at 16:02

harry5522 said:
My gpu fans don't even spin up until 60+C a quick google will also point out that "everyone" seems to have this temperature range. Especially anyone who has overclocked/volted/power limit temp limit changed to get the better performance

Asus Strix fans are not supposed to come on until they reach 67c, and they are definitely not supposed to be idling above 50c.

McGraw · 9 Mar 2015 at 16:26

Pretty sure throttle point is 81 or 91c depending on power limit on or off

sijones · 9 Mar 2015 at 16:40

harry5522 said:
google will also point out that "everyone" seems to have this temperature range. Especially anyone who has overclocked/volted/power limit temp limit changed to get the better performance

Yes, there does seem to be a lot of it about, at least I'm not alone...

I haven't been monitoring the temperature for very long, but it seems like if the PC's on, then the card's at 60-odd degrees and the fans are spinning (apart from the initial period when the temperature's building from stone cold at switch-on). I might try some kind of monitoring software that will log the temperature over time, rather than just give me the currentvalue-min-max info that I'm getting now.

I'll follow the tips I've been given on here & will report back - it'll be intriguing to see if my card ever gets down to the 30-something degree idling level like others seem to achieve.

Divine Pain · 9 Mar 2015 at 16:48

Like i said earlier your 1 rear exhaust fan isnt helping. You need MOAR fans! Add a few more intake fans in the front and you'll probably knock a few temps of that!

sijones · 9 Mar 2015 at 16:58

Divine Pain said:
Like i said earlier your 1 rear exhaust fan isnt helping. You need MOAR fans! Add a few more intake fans in the front and you'll probably knock a few temps of that!

I don't doubt it - will be cracking the case open tonight to check what size fans I should order. In the meantime I'll be leaving the side off the case and training my toddler to waft it with a magazine!

Amatsubu · 9 Mar 2015 at 17:52

harry5522 said:
My gpu fans don't even spin up until 60+C a quick google will also point out that "everyone" seems to have this temperature range. Especially anyone who has overclocked/volted/power limit temp limit changed to get the better performance

Yet the same quick google, including virtually every review available, will show that 34-39c or so is the usual idle temp threshold for this card so I don't really know what you're on about. You don't even have to google anything as plenty of Strix owners on these forums are getting idle tems in line with what I stated. Blokes at Asus would have to have a screw loose to make a GPU with such low TDP idle at 60c. What for? Their cooler design is efficient enough to keep the card at much lower temps even without the fans spinning at all.

FloppyPoppy · 9 Mar 2015 at 18:52

Just took my 970's apart to re apply the thermal compound just to see if that holds any anwsers and wow asus really?

will see how my idle temps are now i suspect they will be slightly better but not these numbers you are saying either.

I run my case fans low including the h110i fans the reason i do that is for the silence of it.

i know id get better temps if i turned them up but that's not the idea of these cards. If you wanted performance the strix isnt the best choice because of its lesser power delivery system holding back overclocking compared to others.

EDIT : Op it may be worth taking a look yourself if you don't mind killing warranty.

sijones · 9 Mar 2015 at 19:17

harry5522 said:
Just took my 970's apart... ...Op it may be worth taking a look yourself if you don't mind killing warranty.

Yikes! Too scared to dismantle the card! Can I ask a favour though - please could you update me on what happens to the GPU temperature once you've put it back together?

I've killed all the on-screen widgets & am currently running the computer with the case side off - no change at all: 64 degrees, fans spinning, whilst on 3% load.

FloppyPoppy · 9 Mar 2015 at 19:22

It's all back together now and working fine

( it's just 4 screws ) I have the pc turned off atm will boot it up in 10 and leave it for 30 mins and see what is produced will update you then bud.

Amatsubu · 9 Mar 2015 at 20:07

harry5522 said:
Just took my 970's apart to re apply the thermal compound just to see if that holds any anwsers and wow asus really?

will see how my idle temps are now i suspect they will be slightly better but not these numbers you are saying either.

I run my case fans low including the h110i fans the reason i do that is for the silence of it.

i know id get better temps if i turned them up but that's not the idea of these cards. If you wanted performance the strix isnt the best choice because of its lesser power delivery system holding back overclocking compared to others.

EDIT : Op it may be worth taking a look yourself if you don't mind killing warranty.

Damn, this looks like quite a ****-up on Asus's side... I'm quite curious what temps you'll get after reapplying the thermal compound.

I'm pretty positive something's off. I find it hard to believe that they intended the card to idle at that sort of temps. The moment I'm writing this both Precision-X and Afterburner are showing 32c for the GPU and that's after the PC's been on for a bit. From what I've read, such temps are pretty standard for the Strix. Maybe there's a bad batch of cards or something...

As for the Strix not being suitable for heavy overclocking, I wouldn't give it much thought. Most of these cards reach 1500mhz on stock volts easily (including mine) and the perceivable gaming performance increase going from that to, say 1560mhz, is virtually non-existent. TBH, I'm more concerned about Nvidia flogging me a GPU with half a gig of Game Boy memory on board;p