I’ve posted a couple threads now and then about my computer overheating during games, and I eventually narrowed it down to ambient temperature. In the coldest part of the winter I eventually got it so that any given game wouldn’t increase the temperature about 85C or so without even tricking the fan speed to 100%. Unfortunately, it’s now summer in Arizona and even games as simple as the Sims 3 get it to 105 or so, Borderlands and such are unplayable for more than half and hour or so because the temperatures reach 112-115C rather quickly.
The thing is, this is with the Air Conditioning set to cool my apartment to 18C or so (this is in 38C weather) which is expensive and clearly not working well. However, it’s the only thing that makes even the simple games playable. And unfortunately, it ONLY makes simple games playable, more complex games are in the 112-115 “danger” range (like I said).
I’ve determined that this is probably because I have my desk near the patio door, which is making the area a “warm spot.” I’ll rearrange my living room if I must, but I’d rather not go through the hassle, especially since it would mean running cords through the middle of the room because a few of my game systems as well as my computer are wired into the LAN which sits nicely on the same desk as my computer. In addition, being next to the patio door is REALLY nice in the winter (see: 20-30C reduction in temps) and I’d like to avoid rearranging furniture every time the seasons change.
Does anybody have any ideas? I’ve tried fans, but I haven’t played with them enough to really know if I can make it work. I have two floor fans, a small and a large one. I’m not sure what would be optimal though (if it would even work at all). Would it be best to just point fans at it and turn them on high? Would it be better to point them away? Or maybe put the fans in the colder area and point them towards the warmer one or some combination of the ideas?
I’m trying to think of other ways to reduce the ambient temperature in this part of the room, but I’m not coming up with much (and some things like “ice chests filled with ice” seem a little extreme and expensive to last me the whole summer).
Also, while I’d like to switch to watercooling, it’s a little too expensive right now* for me to consider, so it’d be better to focus on lowering the temperature of a warm spot than fixing the computer cooling.
Any ideas?
Especially since I have the dual PCB model of the 295GTX so I’d have to get model compatible with watercooling as well as the stuff for the setup.
There is no way that ambient temperature is the real problem. If you’re still throwing 115C under load at 18C ambient, you have a serious cooling issue with your PC. Like the heatsink isn’t making proper contact or its fan isn’t running at all. A 295GTX should be like 70C - 75C at load inside a 20C room and the CPU even cooler. Running 90C over ambient means your computer has a serious issue and it’s possible you’ve already permanently damaged something.
It would be interesting to see a pic of the innards of the computer system. I’m wondering if there is a heatsink packed with dust or if the case’s air vents are plugged somehow.
Like aruvqan says, pop off the case and see what happens. Plus, make certain that things are clean and mostly dust-free. I vacuum mine out every few weeks or so as it gets get plenty of dust build-up as I am near an often-opened window in a dry and dusty locale. The main thing is to move the heat from the parts to the atmosphere and you must have good air movement to do so. Point an external fan onto the case’s exposed innards if you must - needing more than this means that something is working above the designed capacity of system (or something not installed correctly).
So what is the air temperature in the vicinity of your case? I assume it is not 114C! Motherboard / case temperatures should be in the same ballpark as ambient.
I live in cold miserable Calgary (high of 17 C today) and my system will warm up the office to the high twenties. Everything still runs very cool though with proper ventilation; processor temps peak in the high 40’s under load, video card can hit the high 60’s, both idle in the 30’s; motherboard temperature never gets above mid 30’s. I have a 125 W processor, but my video card is probably producing half the heat of yours (5850) and it is by far the hottest running part under load.
Have you tried some low rpm 120 or 140mm case fans? I have two quiet case fans and a similar large fan on a good cpu cooler and they work to move a LOT of air of through the system, keeping it very cool and still quiet, even if it heats up the room to tropical temps.
It may be the heatsink on the card, but the thing is, it only happens with the graphics card. My CPU runs in the mid 20s, it only barely breaks 30 even under load. The HDD is in a similar range (though a bit hotter because it doesn’t have a HSF), and the mobo tends to run around the same range as the CPU.
I thought about exchanging it once, but I had two, and the second one ran at exactly the same temps. The thing is, I’ve seen threads on the internet saying that sometimes the cards just run like that, and one thread I posted at the nVidia forums ended up suggesting that my card was completely normal and that the ambient temperature was to blame in this respect, so I don’t know.
I have two 250mm case fans on the side, and a smaller one (can’t recall measurement offhand) on back that can be switched beteween intake and outtake.
And yes, the first thing I tried was dusting the thing, and while it was dustier than I usually let it get, it didn’t solve anything.
Possibly check airflow, and fan direction. hot air off the HD will not cool sufficiently the graphics card, improper airflow may be completely inefficient, even opening the case may be detrimental if your case is designed for specific airflow through components. Try to separate components in different slots if possible, it works sometimes. Flat cables can inhibit air circulation if they cut or direct hot air by poor placement. My own case (4 HDD, dual pentium, static graphic cooling for dual monitors, etc) cools well with one flank off, temp climbs with both off. A fan set flat on the bottom (inwards) may help. Space around the unit is important.
for a very long “in short”, play around till you find it, just don’t believe fantasy manufacturers’ promises. At those temps, you can feel the cooling with your hand, or with a wet finger. trial, error and patience.
Good luck
You should consider downloading rivatuner or some other program that will allow you to adjust your fan speed (I believe Nvidia has one but it’s not that good).
For some reason my card would never automatically adjust it’s fan speed higher then 60% (and in fact one set of drivers bumped the default speed down to 30%) which obviously led to overheating problems. Using rivatuner to kick it up to 100% when the computer started and leave it there solved that issue, now it runs fine.
I don’t know if that’s what’s doing it for you, but with temps that high something is obviously not working right.
I manually set it to 100%, if I didn’t it would overheat much worse.
The HDD is in a bay off to the side, judging by the placement of the side fans, very little air from the HDD should even get to the main board, especially since there’s a wall between the drive bay and the mobo.
And it’s not like I haven’t played around. I thought maybe too many intake fans was hurting, but turning them off and/or removing the sideplate makes it worse. Also, like I said, my other components are golden. Speedfan has flagged my CPU for being UNDER a recommended temp before (and this is under load). But also like I said, I didn’t RMA the card because I tried two separate 295GTX cards and they both reached the same temp, no matter what slots I rotated them into.
