GTX 460 insanely high temps.

[bamchicken2]

Hi.

I Recently got a 2GB Palit GTX 460 for free.
The card came with an Arctic Accelero Turbo II cooler, which was a plus, as it is a good cooler.
when i first received it, i plugged it in and Played Watch_Dogs For around an hour, to check the temperatures and they were averaging around 86 degrees C. i realized that the temps were too high, and i decided to replace the thermal paste, as it was most likely old, and of course, it was.
I replaced it with Cooler Master thermal paste from my recent purchase of a Hyper 212, and i put it back together (No dust was in the heatsink) and plugged it back into my machine. I started windows and opened my Temperature monitoring program, and it was at 80 degrees. With NOTHING open on windows. i immediately turned my PC off and i took out the GPU again.

After reseating the heatsink, and looking at the temps again, i realized that the cooler had (Unfortunately) Broke, Now, i'm not sure of the exact reason of this, but i tried it with an ASUS HD 6850, and the temps were similar, mid 70's on idle, so it confirmed my suspicions.

Anyway, i purchased an Arctic L2 Plus, and then promptly realized, when i received it, that it won't fit my GTX 460. So, i took the ASUS cooler off the 6850 and put the new arctic one on, and the ASUS cooler (After cutting off and bending D: a few fins on the heatsink) i mounted it on the GTX 460, along with some more thermal paste. And the temps are pretty much the same, just slightly lower.

So now i am at a loss. i really don't understand why the card is heating up so much. i have done everything right (Or at least i think so). Card isn't OC'D.

Any solutions or help WILL be MUCH appreciated.

 

[damric]

80C is nothing for Fermi. My GTX 460 runs like a hot pig. GTX 480/580/590 are known to operate in the 90s.

The best you can do is push that hot air out of your case so it doesn't heat up other components like your CPU.

 

[bamchicken2]

80 degrees is okay under load. surely not idle. it isn't right.. Thanks for the info anyway.

Just plugged back in the 460, shot to 75 degrees, i put the fan to max RPM, and it cooled to 40, then i put the fan back to auto, Started Minecraft and it shot to 90 within a few seconds. Something isn't right. Surely it shoudn't be THIS hot?

 

[damric]

80 degrees is okay under load. surely not idle. it isn't right.. Thanks for the info anyway.

Just plugged back in the 460, shot to 75 degrees, i put the fan to max RPM, and it cooled to 40, then i put the fan back to auto, Started Minecraft and it shot to 90 within a few seconds. Something isn't right. Surely it shoudn't be THIS hot?

You're right. I misread that part. Maybe you have a mining virus? Are you folding?

 

[bamchicken2]

I'm sure i don't have a mining virus.. i can use my 6850 which stays at 70 C with furmark, and low 30's idle. Also Pretty sure it isn't folding. My CPU load increases when playing games or browsing.

 

[damric]

I'm sure i don't have a mining virus.. i can use my 6850 which stays at 70 C with furmark, and low 30's idle. Also Pretty sure it isn't folding. My CPU load increases when playing games or browsing.

It's got to be a bad seat then. Make sure that the cooler is mashed down on that heat spreader.

 

[bamchicken2]

Do you reckon i might have to re seat the IHS? As i have re seated the heatsink many times, and with two different ones. it seems like the only possibility. I'm using the card right now, and with a few programs, and Google chrome with 5 tabs open, the GPU is only at 50 C... It seems really odd that as soon as it goes under ANY load, such as games or benchmarks, it shoots right up to 97 degrees?

Very odd to me, but i wouldn't mind getting it fixed, or putting a bit of money into it.. Getting it for free is pretty good 😛

 

[damric]

I'm not certain whether there is TIM under the heat spreader or if it is soldered on...but if it is TIM then it could go bad.

Is it dumping a massive amount of heat into the case under load?

 

[bamchicken2]

It doesn't seem to put a lot of heat into the case.. My CPU ( FX 4170 OC'D to 4.5GHz) mainly stays below 15 C and rarely drops to 8 or 9. My HDD temps are around 30 degrees, so they are ok. My case is the Zalman Z9 Plus, so plenty of airflow. i have one intake fan on the bottom, next to the PSU, an intake next to my HD bay, a Hyper 212 Evo, with a push/pull config, an extract fan behind the 212, and a push and pull on top. So, pretty good airflow IMO, in a nicely cable managed case.

Hopefully the IHS can be removed without issue.. It's pretty much the only thing i can do to reduce my bad temps.. No room for water cooling, and no funds to do it anyway😉

 

[damric]

If you want, I can find out for sure if it is soldered on or not, but it may take a day or so. If it's soldered and you try and delid it you will likely rip the chip in half.

 

[bamchicken2]

I'm Interested... How?

 

[damric]

I'm Interested... How?

I go ask one of my people on a more hardcore forum where they do things like delid processors for fun 😀

 

[bamchicken2]

Woow.. i have a few old 775 P4's i could try it on.. Might as well.. Thanks for your help, and let me know what your de lidding friends think😉

It's the GTX 460 Sonic 2GB version as well, if that helps.

 

[damric]

Ok I posted over at HWBOT and at Overclock.net. Like I said, it might be a day or so before I get a definitive answer.

 

[bamchicken2]

Thanks damric. You've been really helpful

 

[damric]

Thanks damric. You've been really helpful

We are already getting a consensus that there is paste and no solder and that it is likely bad, which would agree with yours and my assumption. Wait at least until tomorrow just in case they are wrong (I doubt it).

http://www.overclock.net/t/1506628/is-the-gtx-460-heat-spreader-soldered-on#post_22684699

 

[bamchicken2]

Yep.. I thought so.. Will wait until tomorrow, need to buy a pack of razor blades suitable for this anyway Thanks again, damric.

 

[damric]

Yep.. I thought so.. Will wait until tomorrow, need to buy a pack of razor blades suitable for this anyway Thanks again, damric.

Be careful and don't cut your arm off 😀

 

[bamchicken2]

Will do xD

 

[damric]

Maarten edited his post and gave his advice.

"Those things are pesky I used a razor blade tool to get underneath it is much harder than any Intel/AMD cpu I've handled so tight really. One should ensure that they don't slip and cut into the pcb by accident.

Good luck you're gonna need it thumb.gif

Btw the trick is to cut the adhesive all around the die/caps you shouldn't put the knife in too deep 3mm tops. If you put it in further you risk scratching the die or ripping some of the caps loose. The heat spreader makes a nice key chain biggrin.gif"

You should make an account and give those guys +reputation points. That was FAST response. Some bored nerds over there 😀

 

[bamchicken2]

Okay, i'll do that. De lidding it as we speak. Tougher than I thought :L. Should I keep the ihs off and mount the heatsink straight onto it or should I put it back on the pcb?

 

[bamchicken2]

Well. I've De-lidded it, and i accidentally scratched the PCB. i thought that was the end of it, that i broke the GPU. i was kicking myself for hours until i could install it back into the machine. When it booted up, without a hitch. i was extremely surprised. I've heard many stories about one scratch ending it for high- end i7's. but my Resilient GTX 460 pulled through.

I tested Minecraft again, as it is one of the quickest games to open and close it anything went wrong, and i played it for a few mins until the temps were hovering around 90 C, when i then shut it and my PC down. Even though i had de lidded and left off the IHS, why were my temps still quite high?

I then remembered my Arctic Accelero L2 Plus what was on my HD 6850. it didn't fit originally on the GTX 460 because of the IHS, it was too big. but now, because the IHS was gone, i fitted it, and now my idle temps are 34 C (Google chrome, GPU-Z and HWmonitor open.) I Done the usual test of Minecraft and i was suprised that it was staying at 56 C. Amazing for a 460. Furmark didn't really stress it also, i ran a 5 min test (around 10 seconds before the IHS removal before it got to 99 C) and it steadily increased to 86 C. Pretty good for 5 mins of Furmark with a cooler that doesn't 'officially' support a GTX 460.

I'd say that this is done, My GTX 460 is fixed. Thank you Damric and i'll be sure to make an account on OC.net to thank the guys for the advice etc.

 

[damric]

Cool man. I haven't bothered to delid anything in a long time. Since I still have a GTX 460 (on my kids' machine now), I might mess with it. I have also been mulling over delidding my Athlon 760K for a few months since it isn't soldered. Even a few degrees would help me keep some benchmarks from throttling at 5GHz. I'm glad this worked out for you. It's risky, but it paid off.

 

[nforce4max]

Haven't been on in ages but that Palit is the worst of the worst when it comes to the early Fermi era and for good reasons. First the stock cooler is crap and worse they didn't include a VRM cooler so most of them fried years ago. The typical life for a gtx 460 was only about a year and a half before they started having problems even less if regularly gamed on. I once had a Gigabyte gtx460 oc that I had modded to run stable at 930mhz and it outlasted most.

You need to buy a proper aftermarket cooler and find a to properly cool the vram.

 

[bamchicken2]

Haven't been on in ages but that Palit is the worst of the worst when it comes to the early Fermi era and for good reasons. First the stock cooler is crap and worse they didn't include a VRM cooler so most of them fried years ago. The typical life for a gtx 460 was only about a year and a half before they started having problems even less if regularly gamed on. I once had a Gigabyte gtx460 oc that I had modded to run stable at 930mhz and it outlasted most.

You need to buy a proper aftermarket cooler and find a to properly cool the vram.

I've already done that! it didn't come with the horrible Palit cooler, all i have to do is install the VRM heatsinks and the Voltage regulator heatsinks. Which i'll do tomorrow.