GT 440 questions

[Brantyn Gerik]

Hell, amd reference 290 and 290x run at 94 degrees under load. They were made to run at this temp, just like your 440 is perfectly comfortable running in the high 80-low 90 range. They sacrificed some temperature in favor of performance when these cards were made. Nvidia has since reduced thermal limits to 80 degrees

 

[lunbux]

open side panel. If the fan on your gpu is spinning, and responds to fan speed changes, but you still get really shitty temps.

1. clean the gpu with short bursts of compressed air to blow the dust out of the fins.
2. if this does not fix the temp, then it is a heatsinc contact issue.
a. tighten screws on the back of the gpu (primarily around where the gpu chip sits on the board). if this does not work
b. THERMAL PASTE REPLACEMENT!!!

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-440-channel/specifications

This is a card that is know to run HOT and there is only so much you can do about the temperatures without reducing the voltages and underclocking the card

the max safe temp of this card is 98 degrees celcius.

Yeah. Thanks for the tips. I'm also considering underclocking but that area is still out of reach for me right now. I would have to read on it a lot. I'm a bit of a paranoid so I want to play it safe and not tinker with those things before I learn enough about them.

 

[Brantyn Gerik]

It's as simple as downloading the software, and reducing the core clock slider by 50mhz. (msi afterburner is easy and fairly safe, as it gives you an option on whether or not you want to play with core clocks. and overclocking is generally safe without touching the voltages

 

[MrJak]

I'm surprised it hasn't been brought up, but have you thought of changing the thermal paste?
Or perhaps getting software to change the fan settings, and maybe setting the fan to run a bit faster when it gets hot?

Actually, those have been already mentioned. Changing thermal paste would require me to disassemble some parts and that would void the warranty, if I'm not mistaken. Maxing the fan speed when it reaches peak temps doesn't sound like a good idea to me because I've read that fans running at max speed shortens the lifespan as well.

My bad, I seem to have skipped past that. Well, as far as a warranty goes, I've read that most will let you get by with that, and even if they say it's not allowed, a lot won't do enough of a check to see if it was changed, as said here, unless that has changed recently. Also, "if you do not break or remove any stickers or seals that say "if removed, warranty is void", you should be okay"

Max fan speed can degrade the fan, itself, but not the actual card. And personally, I'd rather kill off a fan than the whole thing.

Though, if you don't want to do either of those, then I guess send it in for a warranty exchange, and hope the next somehow fares better?

Just wanted to point out, "GT440 should be better than GT220, right? It's a bit bothering that it handles worse than 220." Better tends to mean more performance, e.g. a higher framerate, but not necessarily cooler. The 220 probably only ran cooler, due to running off less electricity.

Lastly, 90c can last for a few years, but if you ran at 98c, it would definitely degrade.
(Also, noticing another's answer, I suggest cleaning the whole computer with compressed air, and not just the Graphics card.)

 

[flushfire]

This is a bit late but since it hasn't been a month I think it's still safe to reply? Anyway,

I have the same (almost the same, mines 512mb) and have been looking for solutions for a year that I've had the card. The culprit is the heatsink. It's too small and made of something that's not the usual aluminum (its lighter and darker), or maybe it is and I'm just imagining the weight difference and the color is cosmetic but it's still too small. The fan is similarly too small. The best solution would be replacing the cooler.

This is somewhat problematic as well. I bought a deepcool v2000 at first, after forum recommendation, and the mounting holes did not match. I didn't know mounting holes had so much variety back then, and with the recommendation I didn't really check the compatibility list. Luckily I was able to sell the cooler off. Anyway the only aftermarket cooler I've seen that lists the GT440 as supported is Arctic's Accelero L2 Pro (which is now called Plus). It isn't too expensive but I found no local distributor/importer. I can't buy online as well as shipping costs combined are more than the cost of the cooler itself. I even tried looking at those chinese made copper coolers, none list compatibility for the GT440.

So I just gave up, replaced the thermal compound (made a tiny difference) and tried improving airflow so that the VC doesn't heat up the entire case at least. Before the changes it would normally reach 99 while playing (surprisingly not shutting down), and after it still reached that but rarely. The usual is 75-90. I mostly used to play Dota 2 for hours which while not that graphically intensive still heated the VC up pretty good. I think I clocked in 600 hours before quitting. In between I also played Risen 2 and The Witcher 2, more recently tried FFIV before the card seemingly died. I was ready to replace it but after cleaning it up it came back to life lol.

Anyway my recommendation would be if you can buy the Accelero L2 locally then go for it. If you can't then just save the money since buying a newer card of similar power isn't that much more expensive. Just use the card til it dies like I planned to do.

BTW, replacing the thermal compound didn't void the warranty for me as there were no stickers in the way. I actually had mine replaced after fiddling with the cooler since I thought at first that I just got a bad build or something.

 

[lunbux]

This is a bit late but since it hasn't been a month I think it's still safe to reply? Anyway,

I have the same (almost the same, mines 512mb) and have been looking for solutions for a year that I've had the card. The culprit is the heatsink. It's too small and made of something that's not the usual aluminum (its lighter and darker), or maybe it is and I'm just imagining the weight difference and the color is cosmetic but it's still too small. The fan is similarly too small. The best solution would be replacing the cooler.

This is somewhat problematic as well. I bought a deepcool v2000 at first, after forum recommendation, and the mounting holes did not match. I didn't know mounting holes had so much variety back then, and with the recommendation I didn't really check the compatibility list. Luckily I was able to sell the cooler off. Anyway the only aftermarket cooler I've seen that lists the GT440 as supported is Arctic's Accelero L2 Pro (which is now called Plus). It isn't too expensive but I found no local distributor/importer. I can't buy online as well as shipping costs combined are more than the cost of the cooler itself. I even tried looking at those chinese made copper coolers, none list compatibility for the GT440.

So I just gave up, replaced the thermal compound (made a tiny difference) and tried improving airflow so that the VC doesn't heat up the entire case at least. Before the changes it would normally reach 99 while playing (surprisingly not shutting down), and after it still reached that but rarely. The usual is 75-90. I mostly used to play Dota 2 for hours which while not that graphically intensive still heated the VC up pretty good. I think I clocked in 600 hours before quitting. In between I also played Risen 2 and The Witcher 2, more recently tried FFIV before the card seemingly died. I was ready to replace it but after cleaning it up it came back to life lol.

Anyway my recommendation would be if you can buy the Accelero L2 locally then go for it. If you can't then just save the money since buying a newer card of similar power isn't that much more expensive. Just use the card til it dies like I planned to do.

BTW, replacing the thermal compound didn't void the warranty for me as there were no stickers in the way. I actually had mine replaced after fiddling with the cooler since I thought at first that I just got a bad build or something.

It's really unfortunate that I bought something so....badly designed. It's like I bought a full course meal but only allowed to eat half of it. I can't even play ACIII on NORMAL settings without hearing the warning that it's going over 90C. I've also replaced the thermal compound, but it didn't help at all (aside from the fact that it was darn difficult to screw the fan back to place). Buying and selling computer parts in my region isn't that well-practiced so I got it real bad. If I had a credit card, I could probably try doing online transactions, but that's also not an option for me. I tried going around before and no GPU fans are sold in shops. Best would be to go to repair shops scattered around and see if I could find a compatible USED fan, but that's not an option I would like to take. I went to one before and they handle parts roughly, aside from the workplace being so unsafe for electronics. So I'm in a really bad predicament.

I still plan on doing something about improving the cooling of my overall setup and hope I could reduce the temp by around 10C to be really safe, although things aren't going well too good on that area either. Really really depressing.