Zotac GTX 580 Overheat

[Scar The Silent]

Hi all,

My GTX 580 has been running fine up until about 2 months ago. Now when running high intensity games it often reaches the 102°C threshold and shuts down. That seems like a pretty insane temperature. I previously had it in an Antec 900, but recently changed to an NZXT Phantom, hoping that the extra space and fans would be enough to cool it, but apparently not.

I'll run through what I've got quickly:

Motherboard: Asus P6T Deluxe V2
CPU: Intel Core i7 920 @ 2666MHz
RAM: 3x2GB Corsair @ 1333MHz
GPU: Zotac GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB
Harddrives: 1 Samsung, 1 Seagate, 1 Western Digital coming in at 4TB
Case: NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower

Cable management is far from amazing, but it's not too bad.

My fans are set up like so:
1x 140mm Front - Pushing
2x 120mm Side - Pushing
1x 200mm Side - Pushing
1x 200mm Top - Pulling
1x 120mm Back - Pulling

My CPU cooling seems sufficient. I ran IntelBurnTest v2.54 and got a full load temp of 77°C on my hottest core. Idle it seems to be around 40°C.

My GPU temp on the other hand just seems to get massively ramped up whenever I do anything slightly graphics intensive.
It idles at around 50°C with the fan at about 55%, but running Crysis 2 on max it is going all the way to the threshold with the fan at 85%.
If I switch on my other monitor it goes up a good 15-20°C.
I was making a basic Water Material in UDK yesterday and that took it up to around 85-90°C.

Should I be water cooling? Is there something wrong with my graphics card? Does it need opening up and cleaning? (I had major dust problems with the Antec 900).

Some advice would be very much appreciated.

 

[Scar The Silent]

Thanks guys, I've got some thermal paste and some compressed air on order. Hopefully that'll arrive soon. Ill try turning my fans round tonight and see if that makes a difference.

I'm sure it never used to be like that I've had it for a couple if years now and it never got so hot that it shut down until recently, so it's possible that it's just got a lot of dust inside. The antec case let a lot of dust in so that may be the cause.

Thanks again, I'll post back tonight when I've tried moving the fans round.

 

[Scar The Silent]

Ok, thanks for the advice. What should I do if it's still in warranty but the cleaning doesn't help?

 

[Scar The Silent]

Ok thank you very much.

Do you know what will void my warranty? If I take the shroud off will that void my warranty? It's just that the Zotac GTX 580 is ridiculously difficult to clean with it on.

 

[Scar The Silent]

I'll get it open when my air can has arrived, give it a good clean and see how the temps are. I don't want to void my warranty applying thermal paste though. But I'll just see after I've given it a good clean.

 

[Scar The Silent]

I certainly will do. This case is a lot better at keeping dust out though.

It seems that some card manufacturers allow thermal paste to be applied without voiding warranty. I couldn't find what zotac's view is though. Does anyone know?

 

[Scar The Silent]

Thank you everyone. I took off the cover and cleared the dust from the heatsink. It's worked perfectly.

I ran Heaven Benchmark 2 and Crysis 2 to see what max temperature I got, which was 61°C through Heaven and 63°C through Crysis 2 (whereas previously Crysis 2 was getting my graphics card to 102°C and then shutting down).

Extremely pleased. I'm now idling at around 40°C, which seems about right.

Thank you all for your help.