Crossfire Temperatures

Fijut · 12 Mar 2011 at 21:53

Hello.

I'm not sure whether i'm just being paranoid, or whether i do need to do something about this.

My system specs:

ASrock 890fx deluxe3 ddr3 motherboard
AMD phenom II x6 1090t 3.2ghz
g skill 1333 mhz ddr3 ram 2x 4gb
dvd rw drive.
HIS ATI Radeon 6950 2GB Crossfire
OCUK battle 650W PSU
No overclocking.

My problem has been with excess heat from crossfiring the 2 graphics cards. On this motherboard there is little space between the two cards, and i have put a pci fan between them, though due to my bad luck i don't think the one i have works.

I've looked on various sites and apparently 80 degrees on load is "safe" and even normal in a non crossfire setup. So if, on stock settings with no overclocking, one card reaches 80 degrees and one card reaches 90 on load, is it too high or am i just worrying about nothing?

Steves1982 · 12 Mar 2011 at 21:59

It's a little hot on the 2nd card but nothing to worry about.

Fijut · 14 Mar 2011 at 12:53

a little update, don't know whether anyone can add anything to it.

It turns out the pci fan i have is faulty [ebay ***]

I crossfired anyway and put the fans at 35% but still managed to reach 91 degrees or so, that was the last time i checked before my display cut out and had to turn off the computer to let it all cool down. That was when i took another look inside and found the cards were actually too hot to touch.

I'm running it now with both fans at 50% speed and the temperatures aren't going much above 60 from what i've seen so far so it's nice, only question i have now is whether running the fans too fast all the time will be much of a problem?

cammy5477 · 14 Mar 2011 at 14:20

Fijut said:
a little update, don't know whether anyone can add anything to it.

It turns out the pci fan i have is faulty [ebay ***]

I crossfired anyway and put the fans at 35% but still managed to reach 91 degrees or so, that was the last time i checked before my display cut out and had to turn off the computer to let it all cool down. That was when i took another look inside and found the cards were actually too hot to touch.

I'm running it now with both fans at 50% speed and the temperatures aren't going much above 60 from what i've seen so far so it's nice, only question i have now is whether running the fans too fast all the time will be much of a problem?

only problem fast fans creates is noise......why dont you buy a 100mm ati crossfire bridge and put one card in the top slot and one in say the 3rd slot so you have more of a gap? then even mount a fan between the 2 cards exhauting excess heat out the back....

remy87 · 14 Mar 2011 at 15:02

cammy5477 said:
only problem fast fans creates is noise......why dont you buy a 100mm ati crossfire bridge and put one card in the top slot and one in say the 3rd slot so you have more of a gap? then even mount a fan between the 2 cards exhauting excess heat out the back....

I did this only problem was to find the long cf bridges.
Worked out to be very cool afterwards.

Fijut · 14 Mar 2011 at 15:32

cammy5477 said:
only problem fast fans creates is noise......why dont you buy a 100mm ati crossfire bridge and put one card in the top slot and one in say the 3rd slot so you have more of a gap? then even mount a fan between the 2 cards exhauting excess heat out the back....

that is a good idea but i can't do that with the motherboard/case i have, the powersupply would be in the way of pretty much anything put in the 3rd pci-e slot. also i think the 3rd slot is at a slower speed, but it's irrelavent anyway.

thanks for the advice.

cammy5477 · 14 Mar 2011 at 16:54

Fijut said:
also i think the 3rd slot is at a slower speed,
thanks for the advice.

if one card is at x16 and one at x8 i think im right in saying it is about 2% slower than both at x16 which considering because of heat they both run at x0 as they keep freezing is considerabley faster

Cookeh · 14 Mar 2011 at 16:59

2% is indeed correct

Fijut · 19 Mar 2011 at 17:01

well the outcome of this, if anyone is trying similar, seems to be that the PSU wasn't enough. My display was cutting out still anyway, so i upgraded to 850w and the problem seems to be gone.

Fijut · 30 Oct 2011 at 01:35

Fijut said:
well the outcome of this, if anyone is trying similar, seems to be that the PSU wasn't enough. My display was cutting out still anyway, so i upgraded to 850w and the problem seems to be gone.

Thought i might as well keep it all in my old thread.

I'm still using the same system for games, apart from since the beginning of this thread i successfully flashed my two 6950s to 6970s and haven't seemed to have a problem apart from the occasional crash [which could be anything].

I still had the original "overheating" problem with games that use dx11 though. I've started playing battlefield 3 and can't play it for more than an hour without my pc crashing and having to unplug it, hold the power button down for 10 seconds while it refuses to restart. I've tried everything from increasing fan speeds to plugging more fans in to going back to the old 6950 bios to rule out the flashed GPUs as a problem.

Currently i've jumped an old powersupply and plugged it into one of the graphics cards, it's instantly given me a decrease in temperature, my only problem is if i try to play a game the jumped PSU turns off [it's being jumped using a staple] - any tips on how to prolong the lifetime of a jumped PSU?

all input appreciated, really do not want to have to buy another power supply.