EVGA GTX 980 SC SLI Heating issue

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DiamondDanno

DiamondDanno

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Jan 23, 2011
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I recently purchased 2 EVGA GTX 980 SC cards for my surround set up. For the first couple of weeks everything was fine. The temps on both cards were good (mid to low 30s) with the top card running just a little hotter then the bottom one, maybe 3-4 degrees. Normal. Suddenly, last night I noticed that the bottom card now runs 7 degrees hotter then the top card at idle, 31 to 38 respectively. Under load in 3DMark Fire Strike the difference increases to 16-17 degrees. Previously running Fire Strike would yield 'normal' temp differences.
The change happened at some point yesterday when I was fiddling around with the Dragon Age Inquisition settings, and some very minor overclocks in PrecisionX 16.
I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling current drivers (344.75), reinstalling PrecisionX 16 and physically swapping the cards in their respective slots. One thing I did noticed is that the hotter cards voltage is at 1012 while the cooler cards voltage is at 993. I don't remember if they had the same voltage before or not or even if the should be the same. The GPU clocks are the same on both cards.
Im not sure if its worth noting but I have one dvi connection to the top card and one dvi and one hdmi connection to the second.
Any ideas what the heck is going on here?
 
Solution
rolli59
67-68° is normal load temp for those cards so maybe the 50°C reading on the top card is the issue. Can be software glitch in the monitoring utility and normally it is the top card running hotter.
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DiamondDanno

DiamondDanno

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Jan 23, 2011
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Playing Far Cry 4, the top GPU was consistently stayed at around 50 while the bottom card was around 67-68. Running Fire Strike gave similar results.
My concern is why does the card in the bottom slot run hotter all of a sudden and why the huge difference in temps? Up until yesterday these cards behaved like my 580s. The top card was a few degrees warmer then the bottom and under load always stayed within 4-5 degrees of each other. I understand that the bottom card is not (yet?) in danger of over heating but why the sudden reversal in temp characteristics and why the larger then ever discrepancy with the temp differences? What Changed?
 
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DiamondDanno

DiamondDanno

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Jan 23, 2011
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Up until yesterday the top card was hotter then the bottom. As I mentioned I tried a clean re install of PrecisionX16 and the drivers but it didn't change anything. Also the temps are consistent in Nvidia Inspector. Something else is going on here...
 
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DiamondDanno

DiamondDanno

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Jan 23, 2011
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I did try and swap the cards (twice) and the temps did not follow the cards. HOWEVER I did figure it out. The night I noticed the problem I had upgraded PrecisionX 4.2.1 to PrecisionX16. I think X16 swapped the figures or something. I uninstalled it and re-installed PrecisionX version 4.2.1 and saw that it went back to normal with the warmer card on top. I tried to repeat the results by re-installing X16 and sure enough the bottom card was suddenly "hotter" again. Weird.
I ran Fire Strike and noticed that once the cards got going the difference in temp was about the same 14-15 degrees just like before but this time the top card was the hot one. Temps approached 70 on it but did not cross. Currently at idle they sit at 38* & 33*.
Maybe I never noticed the discrepancy before, I dunno, but I guess this is how these cards behave in my set up.
 
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A

Aaron Filer

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Hi, I have SLI GTX980 SC , my temps are 9c difference between the cards..
PrecisionX16 is good for these cards, I have mine on full load , running 1519MHZ STOCK power,I have never seen them above 72c ,idle mine sits on 27c top card, bottom card 21c, 25% fan ,your temps are fine, remember change your fan curve if you are worried, also keep your case well ventilated , heat does rise 1ST card will always be a little hotter..
Hope it helps
 
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