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HD6870 running hot - freezing

Tanveryen

Tanveryen

Tanveryen

Associate
Joined
19 Sep 2011
Posts
22
Hi guys, don't know if you can help.

I bought a VXT HD6870 from OCUK about a year ago and it ran ok, I encountered a number of instances gaming where the PC would hang and then it would tell me the AMD drivers stopped working and have recovered.

I put this down to the new build and driver issues as Win 7 was fairly new at the time.

Since installing a more graphically demanding game recently (GW2), this has become a more frequent occurrence, with reboots necessary at times.

I have removed the heatsink and applied new Thermal Paste and cleaned out the heatsink, I have underclocked the card and set the fan permenantly to 100% but the card is still running at 65c idle and it hitting over 90c with load.

The fan is stupidly loud at 100% too, which is a minor annoyance having built a fairly silent rig apart from this (Antec P180 case with Arctic 7 120mm Fans)

My PC is a 2500k overclocked to 4ghz with an Artic Freezer CPU Fan.
The CPU gets to about 60c under load and is around 38c idle.

Bottom line, do I need a new GPU, and what would you recommend? I only play on my 21" monitor at 1280x1024 so I don't need the latest and greatest. I was hoping the HD6870 would satisfy my needs, and it probably might, I may have bought a faulty one?

Having had a bad experience with this card, I am inclined to move back to Nvidea, what would give me similar or slightly improved performance to this card for the same price point (£130 new)?

Or is there anything else I can try to make this card work?

Many thanks.

Tim.
 
A 6870 is plenty for 1280 x 1024, might even be overkill.... and i don't understand how its getting so hot at that res, was it always running hot?

If you are looking for new the KFA2 GeForce GTX 650Ti EX OC 1024MB GDDR5 is very similar performance to the 6870.

But if you got it from here i would speak to them about the possibilities of returning it to them as faulty.
 
To be perfectly honest I didn't really look at the temp until it started misbehaving a lot. Though I do know that the fan has been at 100% based on the noise for quite some time.

I did buy it from OCUK, unfortunately I only imagined it would have a 12 month warranty which expired in September, so set about re-applying thermal paste to see if that would improve the situation. This I would imagine has invalidated any warranty :(
 
Yeah good point, i thought they come with a 2 year warranty, which would be useless now, i think they would be able to tell if you took the cooler off, its not their Thermal Compound.

Did you have a different GPU in the same rig before this one?
 
Built this from scratch, all new parts (apart from case + recycled HDD)

I think I'll get a new GPU and see what happens, if its still horrendous then I need to start looking at other causes I guess.

Hoping to upgrade my monitor to a 23" 1080, so will the card you recommended suffice, looking around the forums, most point at a 7850 being best bang for buck, tho still AMD and some reported issues..........with heat!
 
Tanveryen said:
Built this from scratch, all new parts (apart from case + recycled HDD)

I think I'll get a new GPU and see what happens, if its still horrendous then I need to start looking at other causes I guess.

Hoping to upgrade my monitor to a 23" 1080, so will the card you recommended suffice, looking around the forums, most point at a 7850 being best bang for buck, tho still AMD and some reported issues..........with heat!
Click to expand...


The 7850 is the best bang for £, it will eat the GTX 650TI alive, but it is £30 more even if its so much more card then that.
@ 1280 x 1024 you really don't need it.

On the heat, thats another story, there seems to be a batch of them floating around, thats not AMD's fault, they actually run very cool, i can't get mine to pass much over 60c under heavy load (7870)

It just seems that one or two are cutting corners or they had a bad line of production.

But i will tell you one but little known thing, AMD punched Sapphire in the face not so long ago for using a lower grade of capacitors to what AMD specified.

If you do get a 7850 (perhaps your thinking of getting a bigger screen one day) then go for the Gigabyte.

And the 7850 is a really good card :)
 
Many thanks for your sound advice, I will do that I think and treat myself to a nice monitor, this dusty old 19" I 'borrowed' from work is due retirement.
 
I had this exact problem recently with a 5970. Solved it by flashing the Motherboard bios to the most recent version.

Your card will still handle modern games; save money and try flashing the bios.
 
Well, took your advice and flashed the BIOS, and it seems to have bricked my Mobo - GA-Z68XP-UD3 rev 1.0.

I flashed it using @BIOS, now it posts and gets to Loading Operating System ...
then a load of symbols and text fills the next line.

Probably need another forum area for this now lol.
 
Well I am not sure what is going on, in unfamiliar territory here, but so far as I can tell the BIOS is OK.

I can enter it at start up, go into all the options etc, and it has been upgraded to F10.

I've cleared my CMOS, set it to default settings and am now in the process of re-installing windows, during which all my drives etc where detected. So its possibly a corrupt OS. Fingers crossed.

The mobo is supposed to detect any problem with the BIOS and flash it with the backup automatically, I cannot see a manual way of 'forcing' this in the manual.
 
Windows reinstalled, now the fun begins, but so far so good.

Everything working, will be while on updates etc b4 I can tell if the bios upgrade has made a difference to the GPU temp!
 
Oh dear
All you had to do was set the correct SATA mode.
The bios probably defaulted to AHCI and you were most likely in IDE mode previously.
 
Tanveryen said:
Yeah, bit of a late night that could probably have been avoided.

Still we live and learn!

No change in the GPU temp though, so back to plan A.
Click to expand...

It was worth exploring other options, shame it didn't workout for you.

Hope you get it sorted with Plan A. :)
 
Could try under volting card via afterburner see if that helps or get a new cooler for the card I water cool so never really had heat issues

Also might be a better bios out for your card worth checking out

Might just have to get a new card im afraid
 
Bought a new Zotac GTX660 for £159.99 as I wanted AC3 over what AMD were offering and tbh my last card put me off AMD!!

Running GW2 at highest settings and its a lot quieter and cooler! 76c @ 80% load and the fan has barely kicked in. With a 5yr warranty, this should last me till I upgrade again.

Thanks again for all input....anyone want a 7850 ;p
 
Tanveryen said:
Bought a new Zotac GTX660 for £159.99 as I wanted AC3 over what AMD were offering and tbh my last card put me off AMD!!

Running GW2 at highest settings and its a lot quieter and cooler! 76c @ 80% load and the fan has barely kicked in. With a 5yr warranty, this should last me till I upgrade again.

Thanks again for all input....anyone want a 7850 ;p
Click to expand...


My 7870 runs at 56c at 98% load with the fan at 40% :D
And at 76c on the GTX 660 @ 80% load sounds far to hot to me, that is also overheating. :)
Why is it only running at 80%?

I'm sure someone will have the 7850, i doubt there is a thing wrong with it.
 
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My bad its a 6870, and yes I believe it is kapoot :)

I would have RMA's it, but thinking I only had a 1 yr warranty on it (should have checked I know) I tried replacing the thermal paste to try and improve the situation. Unfortunately it made no difference.

Guess I could still try...
 
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