I'm using a house fan to cool my computer...

[tuesday0180]

Okay so I'm desparate. My HD4870 is running at almost 70 degrees idle and has reached 98 celsius on load. I've upped the stock fan speeds and it doens't improve much.

My hard drive has been constantly running since I've been downloading over night and it was at 54celsius.

I decided to open up the side of the case and use a room fan to blow into the case. I set it real close to the computer and put it on high. Since then my hard drive temperature dropped from 54c to 37c.

My GPU temp dropped from 70c idle to 56c idle. It seems to still be running hot when compared to other people's 4870's. I'm now convinced that the graphics card is a faulty card since I have a big giant freaken house fan blowing right at it and it still idles at 56c.



Does anyone else do this for cooling? Is it safe in the long run? I know about the dust problem. I"ll be buying some canned air to clean out the motherboard and stuff. Is this an efficient way to cool a computer?

 

[jaguarskx]

Hopefully the can 'ol air will take care of the problem, but you may need to remove the heatsink, clean off the thermal paste and apply a fresh layer (Artic Silver 5 or whatever you prefer).

If it is still under warranty then your best bet is to request an RMA. Removing the heatsink to re-apply thermal paste will likely void your warranty unless it is from XFX or EVGA.

 

[chrischoi94]

dust would give about 10 extra degrees of heat.

and my graphics card does not go beyond 75C i'm surprised yours didn't melt

 

[tuesday0180]

Yea I don't understand why mine hits 98 celsius sometimes. It's a brand new card too. Just got it two days ago.

I'm currently in the process of RMA'ing it though. I don't think I'd be comfortable removing the heat sink. I"m sort of new to this whole cooling thing. My case totally sucks.

It's one of those generic mid tower cases from Lenovo. It has one fan in the back to blows air out. One fan on the CPU and the power supply fan. I don't think there are any other mounts to put in new fans. I might have to create my own mount in the lower front to blow a fan on the Hard drive since that's been running real hot (45celsius).

I don't know whether if it's the new 4870 blowing hot hair towards my hard drive, or the fact that I've left my computer on for almost 3 days now downloading non stop.

Anyways, the room fan is keeping it cool. Under load it hits about 72 celsius and right now idles at 51celsius with the Room fan+ GPU fan blowing at 100%. My room sounds like a vacuum cleaner though.

 

[jsc]

Clearly, a better case will help. Your problems indicate poor airflow through the case.

I am running Antec 900 cases. The three hard drives in my gaming system never reach 30 C. So better cooling is easily attainable.

Hard drive temps of 50 C can prematurely kill hard drives.

 

[Ghost_Roadie]

sounds like a simple air flow problem within the case IMO
assuming you have one intake and one exhaust you shouldnt be running into temps that high, but on a single exhaust and no intake ports i can see temps like that coming up from the GPU and HDD

most newer cases have venting to let cool air in, you wont find that on cases made for sound proofing but those will still have intake + exhaust fans.

assuming you are running an oldschool "whitebox" style there is only one fan on the back and the PSU sucking out hot air from the case. try removing some of the 5.25" bay covers to let some more airflow into the system or find a way to add a front intake fan infront of the harddrive which will cool the HDD and run air straight to the GPU's fan

or go out and pick up something like a Beta EVO or cheap case with front AND rear 120mm fans, that should provide enough airflow to cool those temperatures down

OH and clean your system's air intake points most problems are solved with a vacuum to suck out the dust that clogs everything up, and of course clean wiring helps airflow even more than clean vents make sure every wire isnt in some terrible spiderweb i usually see when someone tells me their computer is overheating. route cabling along the side of the motherboard in a tight group and then branch off to the components making sure to double back the excess into the "spine" you create with cables

 

[tuesday0180]

Hey guys I went to purchase some more fans today. I bought a Hard drive fan+heatsink, a 120mm side fan and a 80mm fan for intake.

It didn't really do anything for my GPU temperature... My hard drive temperture is lower, but my GPU is the same. The side fan was just blowing hot air I guess since my side panel doesn't have air vents. The 80mm I use as intake doesn't do anything either. It's so weak.


Are there any fans that are as powerful as house fans? Something that'll fit inside the case of course.

If I don't use this big giant house fan with an open case my temperatures go from 52-54c idle to 61 idle. Underload it is around 68c and without the house fan blowing at the GPU it goes upwards of 88c with the standard fan GPU fan blowing 50+% and that side fan.

I still don't think that side fan is helping much so I'm going to return it.

 

[tuesday0180]

OK, can you first tell me more about your system; M/N or P/N, original system configuration and then what was added or replaced since you got it. Then, if you are running any programs right now, if any programs are running on the background and your OS, antivirus and any other utilities you have installed.

My system is a storebought Lenovo K-Series. It's a E5200 Dual core 2.5gig intel with 4 gigs of ram.
Everest says I have a ECS G31T-LM2 motherboard from Elitegroup.

I've since added a XFX HD4870 1 gig, Thermaltake purepower 600w PSU and 1 pci card for USB 2.0

I have riva tuner, everest, speed fan, and a torrent program running in the background.

Using windows vista 32bit.

 

[JofaMang]

I have never heard that having superfluous ram in a 32bit system could be responsible for GPU overheating. Can anyone else confirm this? BTW TOC, us "overclackers" regularly push our hardware far beyond stock specifications. This in turn teaches us a lot more about dealing with heat than your average run of the mill PC user. Try not to be so insulting to such a large amount of people at one time. Spread it out a bit, else people might think that you are just a arrogant newcomer with a bad attitude.

4870s are notorious for heat production. One CANNOT install this card without proper airflow, as even with the sealed reference cooler that dumps the heat out the back, cooler air than what can be had inside a no-airflow case is needed. This is at stock clocks, never mind when it is turned up.

With just a single 120mm fan exhausting out the back, my 4870 was running @65-70c idle, 90-95c under load. Adding a side exhaust fan, and a front intake fan dropped my temps to 52/80c idle/load, and that is with Overclocked settings.

Airflow is not just about the fan count. You need to move cool air into the case, and hot air out, with efficiency. Moving air around inside the case will not solve your problem as the heat remains as a source of trouble. Since the side of your case doesn't have a vent, I would strongly recommend modifying it (snip snip) or buying a new, cheap case that has good vents. I use an ultra cheap Cooler master elite 330 I picked up for $28, and with a few fans and good cable management, get very satisfyingly cool temps.

If it hasn't been mentioned, bundle all your cabling together and tie off against the side of the case. Cables can be a HUGE source of ventilation inhibiting turbulance, if they are not properly managed within the case.

With your success in dropping the temps by opening the case, I would say it is DEFINITELY without a doubt, an airflow issue. 56c idle is not bad for these cards at all. The more important temp to monitor is how high it climbs under load. Download GPU-Z and go to the sensors tab, enable background updating. This way you can see how the temps are over time while gaming and such.

 

[JofaMang]

With all due respect, TOC, please refrain from giving advice on things you are obviously (and admittedly) ignorant about.

 

[tuesday0180]

How many modules of RAM do you have? 4 or 2 ???
1. if you have 4x 1GB - remove 1 memory module
2. if you have 2x 2GB - remove 1 2GB memory module and insert 1GB instead.
Windows 32bit only supports up to 3GB of RAM. Please tell me if this resolved your problem with overheating.

I have 2x2gb ram. I don't have a 1 gig stick available. Should I just use 2 gigs of ram and use that to test for overheating? Or maybe I can upgrade to 64 bit windows 7/vista.

 

[JofaMang]

Your experience with the temperatures dropping to a safe level with the side of the case open points directly to an airflow issue.

 

[tuesday0180]

I have never heard that having superfluous ram in a 32bit system could be responsible for GPU overheating. Can anyone else confirm this? BTW TOC, us "overclackers" regularly push our hardware far beyond stock specifications. This in turn teaches us a lot more about dealing with heat than your average run of the mill PC user. Try not to be so insulting to such a large amount of people at one time. Spread it out a bit, else people might think that you are just a arrogant newcomer with a bad attitude.

4870s are notorious for heat production. One CANNOT install this card without proper airflow, as even with the sealed reference cooler that dumps the heat out the back, cooler air than what can be had inside a no-airflow case is needed. This is at stock clocks, never mind when it is turned up.

With just a single 120mm fan exhausting out the back, my 4870 was running @65-70c idle, 90-95c under load. Adding a side exhaust fan, and a front intake fan dropped my temps to 52/80c idle/load, and that is with Overclocked settings.

Airflow is not just about the fan count. You need to move cool air into the case, and hot air out, with efficiency. Moving air around inside the case will not solve your problem as the heat remains as a source of trouble. Since the side of your case doesn't have a vent, I would strongly recommend modifying it (snip snip) or buying a new, cheap case that has good vents. I use an ultra cheap Cooler master elite 330 I picked up for $28, and with a few fans and good cable management, get very satisfyingly cool temps.

If it hasn't been mentioned, bundle all your cabling together and tie off against the side of the case. Cables can be a HUGE source of ventilation inhibiting turbulance, if they are not properly managed within the case.

With your success in dropping the temps by opening the case, I would say it is DEFINITELY without a doubt, an airflow issue. 56c idle is not bad for these cards at all. The more important temp to monitor is how high it climbs under load. Download GPU-Z and go to the sensors tab, enable background updating. This way you can see how the temps are over time while gaming and such.

I really want to get a new pc case, but I don't think it'll be worth it for me at the time being because a new pc case cost almost as much as my motherboard/cpu( i have a crappy budget mobo/cpu).

I think I might have to just cut holes in the side of the case and maybe ziplock tie a fan as an exhaust by the GPU. Is an exhaust next to the GPU better than having an intake there?

With a big tower fan blowing into the open case my IDLE is currently 53 and underload it doesn't reach past 70c. I'm liking those temperatures, but this can't sustain due to the fan being on 24/7 costing too much energy.

I have moved the cables around. They're those big fat modular cables so they're huge. Plus my PSU came with tons of cables. It's blocking everything. I bunched them up and stuck them into a 5.25 bay under my dvdr.

 

[tuesday0180]

Your experience with the temperatures dropping to a safe level with the side of the case open points directly to an airflow issue.

If I only have the side panel open without a tower fan, the temp drops maybe 2 celsius under load and 2-3celsius during game play. With the tower fan blowing at high setting it drops a lot more.

 

[JofaMang]

I got nothing to overclakers, I only disagree how they are helping others and solving the problem. Having nice big case and cooling system is a recommendation for all people, but in this case is different story.
How you can recommend to have another case to somebody who have a storebought PC. You should know that system board connectors, in most storebought PCs, are different from generic cases. For him to have new case equal to buy new system board and few other things. Thats why I never read advices from overclackers.
And about Windows 32bit - it will recognize 4GB but will not use last gig (reserved for other things) So, 3GB is safe to have and if you got more than 3GB your computer might overheat, BSOD or some other problems.

What you don't understand, is that modern GPUs make a lot of heat, especially higher power ones like a 4870. That you won't listen to overclockers at all for whatever reason you use to defend your ignorance, is only further proof of it. I am not going to waste any more time with you, just know that you are doing a much greater disservice to people looking for problem solving help, than what you claim "overclackers" are doing. YOU DO NOT KNOW ENOUGH TO BE GIVING ADVICE, let alone slaggin on those who have years of experience dealing with these kind of issues.

Tuesday0180, I hope you are succesful solving your issues, you should already have all the information you need to solve it.

 

[JofaMang]

If I only have the side panel open without a tower fan, the temp drops maybe 2 celsius under load and 2-3celsius during game play. With the tower fan blowing at high setting it drops a lot more.

THAT was the missing piece of information. RMA your card, the Heatsinks may not be seated well, and removing them yourself may void the warranty, especially if you are not comfortable doing so. Open air should have shown more improvement than what you are seeing. Having a fan blowing from the outside on to it is a solution I used on an old build to make it last a lot longer (2 years with regular cleaning), as I had no replacement budget. it is not recommended nor ideal. You should have a cooler card than that.

 

[tuesday0180]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for the suggestions and help. Today is my RMA day. I actually already RMA'd this card last wednesday. I just didn't want to ship it out till today because if I ship it out on Wednesday I'll be without a graphics card for the weekend. I really wanted to resolve this issue without RMA'ing it because the card is great, but just burns way too hot.

With all the things I did to try to resolve the heat issue(open side panel, added two new fans, cleaned out the inside of the computer with air/tied up unused cables) it still hasn't resolved the issue. It has lowered the heat by a little bit, but it still burns during load.

Hopefully they can send me a card that doesn't run so hot.