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XFX 6800GT Idle at 71C

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19 Jul 2006
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Someone has suggested the recent heatwave may have dried up my thermal paste causing the overheating (89C playing BF2). I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

Also I am looking at a VF900-Cu to replace the stock heat sink, I just don't want to spend money on a broken card. Is it possible the components on the PCB are fried and changing the heat sink won't help. If so what sort of faults should I be looking for if they are visible.
 
Faults could be artifacts of any sort, crashes or even just generally odd behaviour I suppose. Most of the possible faults with a graphics card won't be visible externally but would be noticeable during use, you might look to see if the thermal paste has hardened/cracked but that is about it.

The VF900-Cu can fit quite a few different graphics cards so the money might not be wasted even if the graphics card is damaged, depending on what you get you may be able to replace the stock heatsink on that.
 
Not sure if the RAM is playing up, it's only as the GPU begins to heat up though that I begin to really notice intermittent drop in frame rates.

I am thinking of reapplying some thermal paste and testing it before ordering the VF900 but this is the first time I have removed my GPU heat sink. Can I expect any nasty surprises is their anything in particular I should check when I remove it.
 
Great tip thanks, I'll take it to work and blow it all out with an air gun.

I'll have to buy some heat transfer compound I do have some in work but its used for diodes, I don't know if it is different from say some thermal paste from PC world.
 
I found some dust clogging the grill just around the fan, cleaned out and it was enough to drop my load temps from 90C to around 80C. I still have refresh rate problems however, my idle temp it now 61C.
I bought a Zalman VF900-CU VGA Cooler from OC which should be here by Tuesday, I'm hoping that attaching this wish fresh thermal paste will fix the problem I will post the results.
 
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