8800gt overheat?

[blindside27]

hi, i always seem to find my way to these forums by searching in google for information. i have an EVGA 8800GT, and have had it since 2007. I love it, it works great for what i do. I play games like CoD, CSS, and WoW. Never had any issues in the past, but yesterday I was in WoW and it froze with somewhat pixelated textures, first thing I thought about, was if my video card was overheating. I just ran Riva Tuner for the first time and for the past 4 years I have had no problems with running the fan speed at 29%. Today I checked it out, my idle temp was 70c. I changed the fan speed to 100% and it went down to 53c idle. I am wondering has this video card gone bad? and is it ok to run it at 100%. I have thought about aftermarket fans, but I am wondering before I get one, does my gpu in particular have an overheating problem? thanks.

i was also wondering if my video card was getting enough voltage and the psu was strong enough, because I just upgraded the processor, motherboard, and RAM. used to have core2duo e6750, gigabyte p35 ds3l, mushkin enhanced 1GBx2

intel core i3 2100 lga1155
gigabyte z68p-ds3
gskill ripjawsx 4GBx2
seagate barracuda 7200rpm 250gb
450w corsair psu
evga 8800GT

 

[gh3860]

Have you ever taken the card out and dust it off?

 

[Shaun o]

+1 to the other poster, take the card out if you feel your up to it. there will be a thick matt of dust blocking the front end of the cooling fins of the Gpu cooler at the end where the fan forces air through. take the housing apart of the cooler to get to it.
Give it a good clean, temps should drop after that.

 

[blindside27]

i definitely will clean it, i know i have cleaned everything else but i never took off the housing that holds the fan. i think i tried to do that about a week ago and it wouldn't budge. i tried to look up how to do it correctly, still didn't work. i will try to give another shot at it, but whats the easiest way to take it off? & also, once that is cleaned, should i keep fan speeds higher or at stock.

 

[nforce4max]

I have this card and a Lot of dust finds it's way into places that are difficult to blast out with the shell on. Then you need to replace the stock compound as it is usually dried out in a few months of use.

 

[blindside27]

i cleaned the card, used dust off, used rubbing alchohol to take away the old thermal paste/pads. added on dynex thermal compound, works just like ac5. the gpu is running at 48c browsing the web/idle. 100% fan speed. i opened up a game and no more than 5 minutes later, the screen had pink and different color pixelated textures and froze, and you could not read what was on the screen at all. is this card shot?

edit: it froze with the gpu temp around 53c..

 

[nforce4max]

Locking up at such a low temp then yes your card is shot. For 2D only it is still good for use but gaming well its shot. You are supposed to keep the card cool from get go when it is first bought. I wouldn't go any further to try to recover this card except for maybe the oven bake method but I suggest that you go ahead and buy a new card.

 

[blindside27]

the thing is, im confused on how i had it since december 2007 and have been gaming hard with it in the past 4 years. kinda weird how it decided to give out now. but i guess its calling for an upgrade to gtx 460.

 

[nforce4max]

GTX 460 isn't going to last compared to how long that 8800gt did.

 

[gh3860]

Maybe a GTX 580.... or if you are willing to go the AMD side the HD 6970 2GB.

 

[hang-the-9]

8800s have a horrible reliability reputation, just do a search on the forums for them. I have one that was new from EVGA as a warranty replacement for a dead one. New out of the box, it would only run in 2D, soon as you run a 3D game, it either locked up the system or distorted the screen, then locked up the system.

 

[nforce4max]

8800s have a horrible reliability reputation, just do a search on the forums for them. I have one that was new from EVGA as a warranty replacement for a dead one. New out of the box, it would only run in 2D, soon as you run a 3D game, it either locked up the system or distorted the screen, then locked up the system.

Because most people allow them to slow roast by leaving the fan at default settings, refusing to clean the card, cramped and poor airflow in the case. They also often do not change the compound after months to years of use until there is a symptom of issues become to much to ignore such as artifacts ect. It is like driving a car without ever changing the oil until it blows the block or starts burning oil.

 

[hang-the-9]

Because most people allow them to slow roast by leaving the fan at default settings, refusing to clean the card, cramped and poor airflow in the case. They also often do not change the compound after months to years of use until there is a symptom of issues become to much to ignore such as artifacts ect. It is like driving a car without ever changing the oil until it blows the block or starts burning oil.

That would be true if all high-performace cards had a huge number of posts here asking about image issues with them. As it stands, most posts I see about graphics being messed up comes from an 8800. Heck I have replied to posts where they don't even mention the card model, and I ask if it's an 8800, they say "yep".

The bad cooling or dirt also does not explain the my new card doing the same thing as a RAMed card did. The old 8800 looked pretty much new when it died, and the replacement hardly had time to even be called warm when it crashed in 3D.

I've never had to do maintenance on any video card, ever, it's a bit odd to have to do anything aside from making sure the heatsink and fan are OK. Re-seating the heatsink to prevend faulure is a bit odd. Never had to do that with any CPU either, even the old P4s which would cook in .5 seconds without the heatsink. Whatever design they did with the 8800 chip and it's cooling, it was bad.

I'd never recommend this card for anyone to buy again as a replacement or to get as a used card. It's just too tempermental.