ASUS R9 290 DirectCU II Temperature check

fedone · Feb 10, 2016

Hi guys, hope someone will read this and share his experience.
So, that's my story:
1- Few months ago I purchased an Asus R9 290, card is a real beast, never had issues with any games at max res or with drivers, only concern I have are the temperatures.
Playing with sleeping dogs, trine 2 and hitman absolution, raised the GPU temp to 95 Celsius. During long gaming sessions (+2H), I could smell the hot metal of the heat sink. I decided to overclock the fan speed and it went better (still 90-95 Celsius). Card is NOT overclocked.
2- I contacted Asus to ask to change the thermal paste but they replied to RMA the card. I checked on line for others experience and it seems that I might get a refurbished card as replacement which I would like to avoid.
3- So, before proceeding with the RMA, I decided to test the video cards with other titles: SplinterCell Blacklist, Metro last light, Eve online, ED dangerous and Disney Infinity and temperature went from 60 to 80 Celsius maximum.
4- I contacted Asus again to share the information as the high temperatures might depends on poorly optimized (and old) games but they replied to send the card back.

Here it comes the question of this post:
Have you had a similar experience? What do you think about that and what would you do?
Thank you for reading and your time for answering

Dunlop0078 · Feb 10, 2016

I would get msi afterburner or similar and make a custom fan profile to allow the fans to ramp up higher. Most modern gpus are optimized for silence not cooling, some wont go past 50% fan speed even when the card is really hot. It will get louder but in my opinion thats better than letting the card get to 95c everytime you put it under heavy load I cant imagine thats very good for it.

RobCrezz · Feb 10, 2016

I would replace the thermal paste on the card first.

fedone · Feb 10, 2016

I would replace the thermal paste on the card first

That was my first thought, I contacted ASUS the first time to see if I could keep the warranty (3 years), but they replied to not to do that and RMA the card instead.

I would get msi afterburner

I am using it, changing the Fan helped a bit but while playing Trine 2, the temperature still reaches 93 C. It is the only game though.

alpacino2368 · Feb 10, 2016

Hey,

I'm currently in the process of RMAing my Asus 290x Matrix Platinum. It has not voltage control, and even if I set the fans to 100% the card will hit 94c after five minutes or so of gaming and then throttle down.

Do not replace the paste it will void the warranty.

I hope your RMA goes well. I am still debating sending mine in, as I don't want a refurbished card either. Maybe they will give us new 390 cards! One can only dream.

Do you know how RMA shipping works? Do you have to pay or do they give you a label?

-Arke- · Feb 10, 2016

alpacino2368 :

If the RMA is legit, most companies will ship and do everything for free. If you send something which is working as intended they will rather make you pay shipment and the technicist time of work.

fedone · Feb 10, 2016

I'm currently in the process of RMAing my Asus 290x Matrix Platinum. It has not voltage control, and even if I set the fans to 100% the card will hit 94c after five minutes or so of gaming and then throttle down.

Do not replace the paste it will void the warranty.

I hope your RMA goes well. I am still debating sending mine in, as I don't want a refurbished card either. Maybe they will give us new 390 cards! One can only dream.

Do you know how RMA shipping works? Do you have to pay or do they give you a label?

Hey Alpacino, tks for the reply and for sharing your experience.
No, I won't replace the paste, they confirmed it would void the warranty.
I am not sure I will RMA my card, still considering all the options, to me the temperature issue looks more related to a "poorly optimized software" rather than the card.
Until now Asus have been very quick with the replies, they asked me to provide information to start the RMA process but i haven't replied yet.
In your situation I would have RMA the card as well, so good luck with your process and please keep me updated if you can, my email is fedone@hotmail.it.

fastbilly · Feb 26, 2016

alpacino2368 :

hi, i just sent my R9 290 DirectCU II for RMA (same symptoms as yours), 1st they said that i'll need to pay the sipping (from me to Asus) but after some back and forth they accepted and sent me the sipping label.
it's been a week now and the status is still showing "Repair in progress" so i contacted the support team through chat, and the representative told me that i'll get a new one and that the issue was the main board,

fedone · Feb 27, 2016

EDIT:
Since some people are still reading/answering post, I want to share the second part of the story:
Before ask to RMA the card, I decided to improve the air cooling, here the details:
Changed from NZXT H2 to Fractal Core 2500, added 2 140mm front fan and added one 120mm exhaust fan (2 in total).
Updated driver from Catlyst to Crimson, and made a test with world of warcraft, here the result:
Graphic Ultra, old case, catalyst drivers: 82C
Minimum Graphic details, old case, catalyst drivers: 76C
Medium Graphic details, old case, crimson drivers: 72C
Graphic Ultra, NEW CASE, crimson drivers: 69C

I also run Furmark and TEMP. never went above 69C.

Fan spinning at 59%.

Card seems very good now, I hope the information above might help someone. Before RMA your card, if you have TEMP. issues only (like me), better cooling/driver might solve the issue.

alpacino2368 · Mar 2, 2016

I'd like to add to my previous comment:

I did not end up RMA'ing the card as it would cost me to much in shipping from Canada to the USA. Instead I bought a Kraken G10 and water cooled the card. Temps are much improved. I also noticed that the heat pipes on the stock cooler on my card has separated to the point they were a couple cm's apart. I have no doubt this was my cause of high temps. I am unsure if this happened overtime however or if it came this way from the factory.

Moral of my story: not gonna buy an asus card again.

fastbilly · Mar 2, 2016

alpacino2368 :

Thanks for the update man, on my side Asus sent me a shipping label, so didn't pay any thing for the shipping, they sent me a new unit that I should receive tomorrow or Friday (depending on the weather), I noticed that there is a new SN in the RMA status, will update once I have the card,

I'm in Canada too btw

alpacino2368 · Mar 3, 2016

So odd as they told me I was required to ship it in. But it's whatever now. Just happy to have the problem resolved!

fastbilly · Mar 29, 2016

alpacino2368 :

glad to hear your problem is resolved, on my end I received the new R9 290 DC2 unfortunately it was worst than the previous card (any game will crash after 10~20 min of game play), so I called Asus (was so pissed off, even did a full reinstall of windows + apps + games), and the guy offered to RMA the card again and sent the shipping label.

after almost a week the status was showing that they still didn't receive the card while on Purolator's website the card was clearly delivered on time with signature,

back to Asus chat support, they escalated the case and I received an email offering an R9 380 as replacement since they were out of stock of 290's, thing that I refused and requested equivalent or higher card,

in total my PC was collecting dust for about a month and ended up with a 390 Strix

definitely better than the 290, the card looks good so far,

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