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Crossfire overheating :(

NutterzUK

NutterzUK

NutterzUK

Associate
Joined
18 Feb 2010
Posts
940
Hi,
I have crossfire 6850s in my case, when I play games like battlefield 3, for some reason it is overheating and I believe is the cause of my PC restarting when playing games.

I went and looked in overdrive, which seems to show both of my cards with very different activity levels and temps.

I believe these should be almost equal, so I have something wrong with my setup :(.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks

1.jpg

2.jpg
 
Thanks for your quick reply Milano, your help is massively appreciated, this problem worries me a lot.

My case is a coolermaster CM690.
There is very little clearance between them, and if I select crossfire on the catalyst controll center, it says it is enabled.

I'll get a photo of them in the case.
The cooling I use is currently a spot fan on the northbrige, corsair h-50 for the CPU, and a large front case fan and large side case fan.
 
Not only a difference in temps, the difference in activity confuses me...
Some other things that may play a part, but i'm not sure:
- Two monitors, one 27" Samsung SA950D, one DELL ( but is currently turned off ).
- i7 920 @ 3.8Ghz, 24GB Corsair Vengeance memory, MSI X58M motherboard, Intel X25-M SSD, 2x 1tb WD greens, Corsair 650w PSU.
 
That side case fan is blowing out, the reason is because the h-50 brings air in,... but I'm thinking that could cause problems pulling air away from where the graphics cards would take it in, perhaps I should flip this?

Then I have nothing blowing air OUT of my case though, although the case does have kind of a vented mesh over the top.

Any advice on that would also be brilliant. I have a profile which disables one of the monitors when I play, I do that so I can get 120Hz out of the Samsung950, could that be anything to do with one of them not showing activity?
I currently have both monitors plugged into the top card.
 
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Thanks tommyboy, I downloaded RadeonPro but i'm not sure exactly how to use it yet. I'll experiment with it.

I have long thought about turning the H-50 around, as currently it sits in it's "recommended" orientation but I do not think that is the best for my current set up. I will do that also, it's getting late so it will have to be tomorrow, but i'll let you know how I get on.

I'll also buy some more compressed air from overclockers, it's been around 6 months since it was last cleaned, and I will promise myself to use it this time on my computer, not spraying my housemate.

Thanks!!
 
Thanks romper, i'll try that too. I don't think I have a switch but I will take a look, I can swap them over though, worth a go. I'm going to take them out anyway to give them a good clean.

Thanks!
Steve
 
Clairvoyant said:
a) Dust filters
b) change the H50 so air is going out, not in.
c) change the side fan to blowing in (it looks like it should blow directly on the the cards)
d) clean that sucker up.
e) can you sort the cables a bit better.
f) can you DIY a 120mm fan at the bottom of the 5 1/4 bays that will blow more air on to the cards.


Changing case will only help in part, as it is to do with your motherboads slots that will depend on the gap between cards. A better case will help a bit but not a great deal.
Click to expand...


Thanks guys, you're all awesome, I think this post sums up what I need to do, and also perhaps look into buying a different case.
It is dusty inside ( there is no denying that ), but the photo does look worse than it actually is due it it being dark and flashing, so the dust reflects, but.. it's no excuse - it needs cleaning!

I ordered this: Clicky

I'm not on a hugely tight budget, i'm a comp sci student and I need my PC for both Uni and work, and entertainment.. so when it comes to buying equipment for it I don't mind spending a bit extra. I am also looking at a new motherboard, so I have SATA3 and USB3, and perhaps one with the cards further away from each other, but I think I'll wait for the new socket 2011 to be in full swing.

I'll turn the H-50 around today ( it has two gentle typhoons, i'll turn those and clean them but they're relatively new so shouldn't be bad ), and i'll turn the side fan, swap the cards over and reinstall the drivers.
When the air comes i'll clean it out, and then spend some time looking at a new case.

If anyone has one they would hugely recommend, i'm open to any suggestion, it wants to have usb3s on the front, a lot of room for two cards, and lots of space for extra hard drives etc.

At idle, CCC currently shows one card ( My top card, which has the monitors ) at 46 celc, 0 activity. My second card strangely shows 0 for all values ( 0 activity, 0 fan speed, 0 degrees celc, perhaps it is disabled when not playing games, seems odd )
 
Hi JaffAWood, thanks for your advice!
I haven't tried them in seperately, perhaps it's something I should try.

I have some more pics for you...
The bottom card was filthy,.. full of dust ( But this wasn't the one overheating I don't believe ) - this was at 58 celc but only 11% activity.

I took the H-50 off, turned it around, and cleaned those fans and the radiator ( which was fairly dusty ).
I then took the side fan off, turned it around, and cleaned that fan.
I took the spot fan off, cleaned that, and put it back on.
I'm considering a new side fan also, I have a spare somewhere so I can have two side fans, but it's much much cleaner now inside. My top card idling is now at 38 celc rather than 46, but I did also swap the cards over ( top is now bottom ).

Speedfan is showing my CPU at 19 celc idle, I have the window open though and it's not been on long ( It's overclocked from 2.6Ghz to 3.8Ghz, so will no doubt rise ).

I played Battlefield yesterday, and turned on the crossfire status icon, which showed in the top right, so I think crossfire is enabled and working, but I will delete the drivers and reinstall anyway, to make sure.
 
No buzzing or whining... It's not hugely powerful though, it's a Corsair TX650, but I hope it's enough for this setup?

I just removed CCC, booted into safe mode, used driver sweeper, restarted and reinstalled from the AMD site - and took off the front panel to clean the fan whilst I was restarting.

It's now reporting 55 celc for my top card, 0 for my second card.

That's not totally idle though, it's got two monitors, one showing skype etc, the other browsing the net
 
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Yup, so my case is a fair bit cleaner.
A PCI-Express x16 riser? I'll do some googling :).

I just played some more BF3, temps looked a little better but again, the second card showed at most activity of 12%, whilst the first was 100%.

I'm downloading Unigine Heaven to see if benchmarks are close to normal...
I can compare to the ones found on a review:
V2 / DirectX11/ Shaders High/Tesselation normal 1680x1050, on the review it comes in at 1809 in crossfire
 
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I was thinking this earlier.. actually my thoughts were.. I want USB3.0 and SATA3, more space for my graphics cards and a northbridge which isn't so hot.

Then.. I saw the new 2011 chips, and though if i'm going to get a new motherboard... might aswell...
Then would need new memory...
And the new SSD to utilise the SATA...
Then it's a new PC :S.

So.. I think I could perhaps just buy a larger ATX board rather than my micro MSI X58M, and sell my board
 
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