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SLI upgrade = overheating

Plunk13

Plunk13

Plunk13

Associate
Joined
16 Aug 2006
Posts
803
Just got an OCUK 8800 GTX to put alongside my BFG 8800 non-OC. Now both cards, not to mention the whole motherboard, are heating up to ridiculous levels. My first game test caused the system temperature alarm to sound.
The BFG on it's own never overheated before. Things are a little cramped in the case now, but I've got fans sending air through, plus a large fan directed over the graphics cards. Does anyone know what could be the cause of the problem?
 
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My PC60 would get hot with 1 8800GTX. With 2 I watercooled them knowing that things would get really toasty if I didn't. The problem is the stock cooler isn't very good. Some of the heat gets pumped into the case rather than out the back. The toasty 680i chipset doesn't help either.
 
The only thing that causes overheating on that scale is insufficient airflow.

With 2 GTX's you'll have 400w+ of heat generated in a small box so you'll need very good airflow.

I'd expect multiple 120mm fans on a medium speed.

What case have you got now and what fan size and speeds do you have ?

AD
 
Can't remember the brand, but the case is a mystique. The two cards are seperated by a wide connector. CPU is watercooled.
Got one intake fan, one exhaust. One fan over the cards.
Left the case open, and had all three fans on full blast. Didn't go into met down this time ~playing Crysis beta.

It seems to be the card in the second slot that is heating up. I've tried swaooing the cards, but it always seems to be the one in the second slot. True, there's only a few centimetres space between the card and the bottome of the case.
I don't know though, the amount of heat generated is insane.

Is there a way of manually controlling the GPU fans? I need to get them on full blast
 
Plunk13 said:
Can't remember the brand, but the case is a mystique. The two cards are seperated by a wide connector. CPU is watercooled.
Got one intake fan, one exhaust. One fan over the cards.
Left the case open, and had all three fans on full blast. Didn't go into met down this time ~playing Crysis beta.

It seems to be the card in the second slot that is heating up. I've tried swaooing the cards, but it always seems to be the one in the second slot. True, there's only a few centimetres space between the card and the bottome of the case.
I don't know though, the amount of heat generated is insane.

Is there a way of manually controlling the GPU fans? I need to get them on full blast
Click to expand...

Rivatuner allows you to set your fans to run at 100% at startup. However, if temps are getting to where you say they are, the gpu bios ought to be running the fans at 100% aanyway but may be worth checking
 
It sounds like a coolermaster case so the fans are likely to be 120mm which is a start.

Does the PSU also exhaust? is there a speed control on it?

You may need to consider either a different case or a mod to that case to allow extra airflow. I fitted a 92mm fan right over SLI on an old case by cutting a hole in the case side. Made a great difference.

As for getting the fan speed to raise, Rivatuner allows tweaking and custom fan profiles with many Nvidia cards. Not sure about the 8800GTX though.

AD
 
Yeah. PSU has exhaust too. As I say, before the SLI there was absolutely no problem. The PC was cool and quiet.
Anyway, I've already got a fan that sits over the SLI cards. I'll have to crank that up when I'm playing a game. Also got Rivatuner - made two shortcuts to enable idle speed and 100% speed. So thanks for the suggestions. It's loud, but it works
 
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