GTX580 too hot

[scott967 32]

Working on my new system. I'm having temp problems on my EVGA GTX580 SC. Just running the desktop and Firefox, temps will go from 55-86 as the GPU clock varies. My ambient air temp is warm (30 or so), but still, with my CM 932Adv case there should be enough air and my other temps all look good. I installed both EVGA Precision and MSI Afterburner. They seem about the same but I have been mainly using Afterburner. I set software fan profile, and that does cause the fan to kick in sooner bout only seemed to make a couple degrees difference in temps. I dialed back the clocks from factory OC 797/2026 to reference 772/2002 which seems to make a little difference, but still seems too hot. This is with NV 280.26 driver on Win 7 x64. I kind of would like to pop the cover of the board and see if the heatsinks look to be mounted OK, but wonder if I should RMA it instead (not sure if I take off the cover if EVGA would have a problem with that). Externally I don't see any air flow issue. Fan seems free and does run from 40-85% which I guess is max unless I install some new firmware from EVGA. At 85% the fan is loud enough, really don't want to see what 100% would sound like. Thoughts? scott s..

[clum 2]

Is it hitting 86 at idle load on 3d clocks? If so then that's definitely a problem. If it's 86 under full load, then that's still high but reasonable depending on case temps.

[scott967 32]

Well, I have been playing with this off and on for a month. I installed a new firmware from EVGA that lets the fan run up to 100%, set a software fan speed ramp as suggested by Nick_N (100% at 80C) tried various other things. Still couldn't complete any stress. So I started communicating with EVGA (good response by the way). They had me install EVGA OC Scanner and run the stress test after setting shutdown to 105C (seems too hot to me, but followed their direction). What I found during stress test was that my temp was stabilizing at 102C, but after about 30 secs I would lose all video to the monitor (at least, that's what it seems like). My guess is that some sort of protection is kicking in on the card (the fan was still running full blast, but I killed the system power since without any video I had no idea what kind of temp I was getting). I also tried the benchmark function on Oc Scanner and got the same result (temp 102C and then loss of video). So now EVGA says RMA I think I will see how the Intel graphics works on my SB Z68 system while the card is out. I have been doing some FSX runs. My monitor is 1280/1024 with 8xSQ AA and 16x AF and I got a max temp of 97C in Seattle with RealAir Duke and ASE weather. scott s..

[PingPong 60]

I had a similar problem, but not quite as hot, I have two cards sitting next to each other in SLI and they seem to be heating each other. I just ran the fans really high and that keeps the temp relatively cool. I think my problem was mostly due to the fact that I live in a hot city in Florida.

[scott967 32]

My room is also hot (30.3C right now) but my CPU is nice and cool. They had me try with the side door off and a fan blowing right at the card; only reduced temps by about 1 degree. There's only a single graphics card, and no other cards in the system. scott s..

[kenspac737 1]

Can you move it?

[scott967 32]

Well, it's too late now as I just pulled it and RMAed it back to EVGA. I was running some FSX last couple days and was getting temps from 90-97. Like having a space heater next to a vacuum cleaner in the room. scott s..

[VirginAus737 0]

Yikes, directcu ii FTW. Best cooling ever. Overclocked mine does not do more than 60 degrees (if that) overclocked at 850MHz.

[scott967 32]

Just to close this out. I RMA'd the board and received my replacement today. Ran EVGA OC Scanner stress test. Only let it run about 5 min, but temps slowly climbed to 74C. Ran the OC Scanner bench (1350 score) ran WEI (7.9 score). Happy camper now (well, knock on wood but I think I am set now). scott s..