Advice about Dust on your video card

[michaelpbfl]

This isn't a question, more of a statement.

If your PC reboots a few minutes after gaming, there's a good chance your GPU is overheating! I found this out the hard way! After a few reboots, I checked my GPU temp after gaming, it was over 120c!!! Even just idling at the desktop, it was 90c!!!! WOW! (have a 6800GT, BTW)

I opened up my box, saw a little dust on fan, removed it.. didn't help. I finally took the card out, looked underneath the big plastic piece covering most of the card, and saw that the heatsinks were totally caked with dust!

Don't be an idiot like me, take a closer look at those heatsinks and clean them out!!!

After cleaning the hinksinks on the video card, idle temp dropped from 90 to 55c! Quite a jump.. (quite a bit of dust under there) Haven't looked at the temp while gaming, but that's a no-brainer.


-Stupid About Heat

 

[pchoi04]

This isn't a question, more of a statement.

If your PC reboots a few minutes after gaming, there's a good chance your GPU is overheating! I found this out the hard way! After a few reboots, I checked my GPU temp after gaming, it was over 120c!!! Even just idling at the desktop, it was 90c!!!! WOW! (have a 6800GT, BTW)

I opened up my box, saw a little dust on fan, removed it.. didn't help. I finally took the card out, looked underneath the big plastic piece covering most of the card, and saw that the heatsinks were totally caked with dust!

Don't be an idiot like me, take a closer look at those heatsinks and clean them out!!!

After cleaning the hinksinks on the video card, idle temp dropped from 90 to 55c! Quite a jump.. (quite a bit of dust under there) Haven't looked at the temp while gaming, but that's a no-brainer.


-Stupid About Heat

I had a similar experience with my Geforce 4 Ti 4600 except my gpu was done. <tear>

 

[michaelpbfl]

Sorry to hear! I have NO IDEA how this thing isn't fried. I gamed for a few months on BF2, and got "random" reboots.. we're talking MONTHS.

I just blamed it on BF2 as that game is BUGGY AS HELL. But after the same thing happened with Company Of Heroes, the light bulb turned on over my head. LOL

BTW, I also checked my CPU heatsink, also caked with dust.. LOL I'm one lucky SOB.

 

[a-boom]

what do u use to clean it?

 

[4745454b]

Unscrew the fan, and brush the dust out. I use either a small hobby brush, or a toothbrush. Either seems to work just fine. I start at the top of my case, and work my way down. (PSU, CPU, ram, drives, video cards, PCI cards, etc.) When I'm done, I have a nice pile of dirt/dust on the bottom of my case. I grab a damp cloth, wipe, and I'm done. I do this twice a year, whenever we change the clocks for daylight savings time. You should do this at the start of your hot season. (summer for those of us north, winter for those of you who are south.)

 

[sirheck]

Been there done that. Even with a 68gt like yours only my temps
only got to about 115c.

Good post btw more need to do what you described.

 

[The_Abyss]

Good advice, however prevention is better than the cure.

Make sure you have filtered air coming into your case, and you will only have to check for dust actually on the components pretty much as often as you upgrade them.

Personally, I use a cutout part of the g/f's stockings as a fan filter. Dirt cheap, easy to fit and replace, they keep all the major crap out of the case. Only use on the inside though, otherwise of course they look terrible!

It sounds silly, but the best advice on a PC with clogging problems is to merely get it off the ground - even a few inches raished above that nice dusty carpet you have will make a massive difference. High airflow, heat and a carpet do not make a happy PC.

 

[caamsa]

Ahhh it might be time to clean your house as well. Check the room you keep the computer in and i bet it is filled with dust bunnies.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeah it's amazing the difference a little cleaning and re-pasting can do. This review shocked me when it first came out;

http://www.hardwarelogic.com/news/62/ARTICLE/1360/5/2007-03-02.html

 

[gloppppp]

Yeah it's amazing the difference a little cleaning and re-pasting can do. This review shocked me when it first came out;

Good]http://www.hardwarelogic.com/news/62/ARTICLE/1360/5/2007-03-02.html

Good read.

 

[apache_lives]

how cool would it be if you could reverse every fan in the computer in some sort of "blow dust out" mode haha self cleaning

 

[billdcat4]

I replaced my X800GT recently. It had been idling at 60C and loading at 78C.

I took off the stock cooler, and there was a good amount of dust in the copper heatsink. Im cleaning it now.

Im going to reattach the cooler once I borrow some AS5 and AS Cleaner from a friend.

Ill post pics soon. I dont think ill be putting the card back in my pc though. Gonna save it for the family's next PC. its the equivalent of the 6600GT. Not that bad..

so it looks pretty good. I cleaned out a lot of the bad dust. I used a small trickle of water from the sink to drip down the ridges of the copper heatsink. I made sure that none of the water touched the fan mechanism. Its air-drying now.

It wasnt THAT dusty, but it was a little dusty in the worst places. I figure that after this cleaning, its idle temps will drop from 60C to 55C and load from 78C to 69C or so. Not bad for a little dusting.