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HD7950 Loud Fans!?

lettuce

lettuce

lettuce

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15 Oct 2007
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Bedfordshire, UK.
Have just tried my first game on my new PC in my sig, i was playing Company Of Heroes 2 in 2560x1440 res and after only a few minutes the fans became rather audible.

Do most users use MSI Afterbuner to change the settings of the fans and the speed they spin up at depending on temps?? What are the heat threshold of these cards.

Should i be looking at adding custom heatsink, whats good for 7950's??
 
Up to you how to configure your card but many like to make fans as quiet as possible while keeping temps at 70 degrees max, using a custom fan profile (Afterburner is very popular for this). You can also try undervolting if you can't find make a satisfactory fan profile. For reference my card does 880mhz at 913mv. If all else fails you could try the Arctic Accelero 7970/7950, which ought to be a fair amount quieter than anything that comes mounted on a retail card.
 
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How would one undervolt the GPU, can afterburner be used for this too?. Does unvolting not effect graphical performance??
 
75c and under is fine really I wouldn't panic

What temps are you hitting ? It shouldn't be getting that loud unless it's hitting above 80% fan speed

Company Of Heroes 2 isn't properly optimized yet my 6970 hits 70c playing this
 
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Hmm is the Arctic Accelero compatable with an Xfire setup, as im not sure there would be enough space between the 2 pci-e slots?

C64 said:
75c and under is fine really I wouldn't panic

What temps are you hitting ? It shouldn't be getting that loud unless it's hitting above 80% fan speed

Company Of Heroes 2 isn't properly optimized yet my 6970 hits 70c playing this
Click to expand...

Yeah around 75c-80c i believe, i think the fans are in the 70=80% speed area
 
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Oh wow that's kind of hot. Is your case well ventilated? Maybe you need more case fans?

You can undervolt using Afterburner, and you can test stability using the Crysis 1 benchmark tool on Guru3D. I've found if it passes that, it'll be stable everywhere else too. Frankly things like Unigine Heaven, 3Dmark, and other similar commercial tools don't seem to do anything for stability testing. Other tools like OCCT or Furmark just seem to test your power supply and what kind of temps your cooling can handle at max. power draw. So ignore all those, and just put the Crysis 1 tool to max settings and let it run for as long as you can bear (preferably the full 99 runs as I have found instabilities about 70 runs in) and go up or down in 6mv increments until you find your lowest stable voltage. I don't know about Crossfire but I assume you have to find the lowest voltages of each card if you want the best results.
 
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Cheers, probably be best if I disable crossfire and then just test each independently rather then both together, or when crossfire is enabled again would this throw all the benchmarking out the window?
 
I dont appear to be able to get the OSD for Afterburner to show up when running the crysis 1 benchmark, i have set the key to use to show the OSD (F1), and made sure that the GPU temp and clock speed etc are all ticked to be shown on screen.

Also is it ok to use Crysis 2 benchmark as crysis 1 doesn't seem to support 2560x1440
 
AFAIK, Crossfire needs identical clocks and voltages for maximum stability. And Tbh I think it would just save you time to whack voltages of both cards down at the same time until you encounter stability issues on Crossfire, at which stage it doesn't matter if one card is better than the other as you have to use the higher voltage for both cards anyway.

Also I realise I've said 6mv but it would be better to start with 20 or 25mv steps and then go down to single notches (5-6mv) when you're zeroing in on the precise stable voltage. And it might also help to undervolt VRAM after you're done on core. I've found I'm perfectly stable in that area at 1.5v instead of stock 1.6v, though YMMV.

Edit: Lol nice timing. Are you using 2.3.1 or the new betas? The new ones require you to install the OSD separately. And I guess the Cry2 bench is the same since it uses the same engine?
 
Ok I'm going to double post because we posted at the same time and you might not've seen the edit.

In Afterburner have you also ticked "Show in On-Screen Display"? Also if you're using the 3.0.0 betas you have to install the OSD separately as well to my knowledge. Also I think all iterations of the Cryengine are well-known for exposing weak overclocks quickly and with obvious crashes. Again I assume running max settings (with vsync off) would be fine.
 
Ok got it working now thanks. Notice that AfterBurner only list 1 set of voltage settings, is this altering the setting for both cards or just 1. If its just 1 card, how do i alter the voltage for my 2nd card?
 
In Settings the top tick box enables the settings on both cards, providing one isnt voltaged locked.
 
GOD DAMN!!!

Im using the Benchmark found here in the Steam forums as the steam version doesn't appear to have the benchmark, http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1700314.

I changed all settings to Ultra High, AA x16 and at a res of 2560x1440.

I lowered the core voltage from 1125 to 1100.

I had to stop the benchmark after 10 loops as the temps were ridiculous!!, after 10 loops:

GPU1
Temp 92c
Usage 95%
Volt 1.250
Fan 96%

GPU2
Temp 82c
Usage 76%
Volts 1.169
Fan 70%

Thats not right is it??
 
lettuce said:
GOD DAMN!!!

Im using the Benchmark found here in the Steam forums as the steam version doesn't appear to have the benchmark, http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1700314.

I changed all settings to Ultra High, AA x16 and at a res of 2560x1440.

I lowered the core voltage from 1125 to 1100.

I had to stop the benchmark after 10 loops as the temps were ridiculous!!, after 10 loops:

GPU1
Temp 92c
Usage 95%
Volt 1.250
Fan 96%

GPU2
Temp 82c
Usage 76%
Volts 1.169
Fan 70%

Thats not right is it??
Click to expand...

I had same problem, if you can still return them under 14 day's satisfaction. Then I would send it back and buy HIS, Gigabyte or Sapphire ;)
If you search the forum you'll find 2 big thread's about MSI...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18460948

and

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18500481
 
That's quite hot. How's your case airflow, and what actual cards/card coolers have you got?

Also as it says in the volts bits of your cards, it loks like you have locked voltages. Even after you set 1.1v you're getting 1.25v on one card and 1.169v on the other. Tbh with certain cases and card coolers in Crossfire and at those voltages, I wouldn't be surprised if those are pretty regular temps... though I'm no expert. See what the retailer says?
 
Well i have a Corsair 650D case with just the regular fans. And my cards are, MSI HD 7950 OC BE 3GB. Would i be able to get 2 X Arctic Accelero 7950 coolers, or are these not compatible with a CrossFire setup? by all reports if i got these coolers my temps should never go above 60c!!??
 
lettuce said:
Well i have a Corsair 650D case with just the regular fans. And my cards are, MSI HD 7950 OC BE 3GB. Would i be able to get 2 X Arctic Accelero 7950 coolers, or are these not compatible with a CrossFire setup? by all reports if i got these coolers my temps should never go above 60c!!??
Click to expand...

PorkPieCat, is right but these temps aren't great either...
How many funs do you have in the case? Before buying the accelero cooler, try out the disabled BIOS. I use one of them on my HIS and the temps don't go above 61c 1070/1500 and before on Boost BIOS it was 69-72c with same clocks...
Artic Accelero are compatible of crossfire (check the spoiler)

arctic-cooling-accelero-xtreme-7970-crossfire.jpg

SDC10993.jpg
 
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Only just, is that 2nd GPU bowed slightly LOL.

I have 3 case fans, 1 200mm in the front, 1 200mm in the roof and 120mm at the rear.

What does this disabled BIOS actual do, and do all 7950 have the dual BIOS switch on them, can i flash back if i need to.

Is there a decent Windows & Gadget that shows, mobo, case, cpu and gpu temps??
 
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lettuce said:
Only just, is that 2nd GPU bowed slightly LOL.

I have 3 case fans, 1 200mm in the front, 1 200mm in the roof and 120mm at the rear.

What does this disabled BIOS actual do, and do all 7950 have the dual BIOS switch on them, can i flash back if i need to.
Is there a decent Windows & Gadget that shows, mobo, case, cpu and gpu temps??
Click to expand...

With that air flow you shouldn't have such high temps :eek:

The switch is next to crossfire bridge, to make an copy of BIOS you can use GPU-Z or ATiFlash. The BIOS is like an update which only does small changes to your BIOS. HWiNFO64 is the program you are looking for ;)
Have a read before flashing, about it.

Short explanation
"MSI Twin Frozr III HD 7950 Boost Edition, 1070core 1500memory, Voltage between 1.098v to 1.180v depending on ASIC, 50% powertune, Boost function disabled. Additional profiles added."

EDIT:

Everything is explained here with detail - http://www.overclock.net/t/1395490/ati-hd-7950-7970-bios-mod-thread
 
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