100 degrees celsius GPU and max fan speed potential damage

David Li

Honorable
Mar 12, 2013
46
0
10,530
Hello, all.

GTX 670 4BG SLI here

I tried pushing for a higher overclock on Crysis 3. I didn't touch the voltage, but I raised the power target to 120 from 115, and only raised 15mhz from a previously stable OC. In the middle of my first match 30 seconds in, I dropped to 10fps, alttabbed to desktop, and saw my temps at 102 degrees for the past 30 seconds! I immediately ended the overclock, and restarted the pc.

The only other change I did was force detect GPU as 2 way in Nvidia Inspector. I have since disabled this, because it causes web page flickering. Crysis 3 drivers have been better optimized to take advantage of SLI, so I don't think this Inspector tweak is needed.

Anyways, for that brief spike in temperatures, would there be any substantial long term damage?

On a side note, outside of the noise, how much are you REALLY wearing down your GPU fans' lifespan by maxing them during gaming? My parents have an HP PC from 2007, and it's still going strong :)
 
Solution
I believe you would be extremely unlucky to have caused any lasting damage. Overclocking these days is relativity speaking safer than it has ever been.
Keeping an eye on temps is still important though, I wouldn't want anyone reading this at a later date to mistakenly think that its ok to just let the throttling features protect the card. Its always best to avoid excessive heat in the first place.
Fan life really depends on the build quality. I would be much happier to run a third party cooler at 100% or near to it for an extended time than I would a stock fan.

Mactronix :)

Sam0oneau-1295699

Honorable
Apr 5, 2013
89
0
10,660
Yes, anything past 75-80 degrees C can start to damage components, but there shouldn't be any major long term damage. A fans life span normally matters on how good its bearings are, most fans can last for a whole few months on constantly at max without breaking.
 

wiggbot

Honorable
Dec 22, 2012
343
0
10,860
The reason your framerates crashed may have something to do with the video cards throttling themselves. The 600 series starts thermally throttling at 70 degrees. At the temps you were at, I'm sure it had scaled back quite a bit. Hence, low framerates.

 

David Li

Honorable
Mar 12, 2013
46
0
10,530


I'm interested in why the PC didn't perform an emergency shutoff. My GTX 660 in a previous OEM build black screened all the time if I was playing at high temps.

 

wiggbot

Honorable
Dec 22, 2012
343
0
10,860


Just a thought, but that was probably indicative of a PSU not being able to provide enough juice. If you were bouncing off of your video card's thermal shutdown level over and over again, you'd be drastically shortening its life.
 


A black screen would indicate that there was a physical issue that required a shut down. The cards thermal throttling themselves means that things are happening as they should.
If you did have a situation where a card was repeatedly throttling it would have zero effect on your PSU.
What is possible however is that the PSU was not powerful enough for the 660 in the first place and so struggled to provide the power required to run the card properly.
A PSU does not push the power to the components, rather the components draw or pull if you like the power from the PSU.
If the power is not there the card will still try to draw it and cause overheating and eventually black screening as you have described.

Mactronix :)
 

David Li

Honorable
Mar 12, 2013
46
0
10,530


Thanks for your responses; they are all well-explained.

Yes, that makes sense according to my step-by-step forensics, because I did raise the power target. My PSU is 750 watts, but my CPU is not OC.

As long as I did not do any damage long term with my temporary temperature spike, I will be happy.

 
I believe you would be extremely unlucky to have caused any lasting damage. Overclocking these days is relativity speaking safer than it has ever been.
Keeping an eye on temps is still important though, I wouldn't want anyone reading this at a later date to mistakenly think that its ok to just let the throttling features protect the card. Its always best to avoid excessive heat in the first place.
Fan life really depends on the build quality. I would be much happier to run a third party cooler at 100% or near to it for an extended time than I would a stock fan.

Mactronix :)
 
Solution