Question GTX 980 Heating issue/low FPS

[alex99xdx]

Hello I was wondering if anyone is able to help me regarding a recent issue.

I've recently had to take apart my Graphics card to access the PCB this however isn't the issue. Once I installed the card and started to run some games I noticed that my FPS was unusually low. I then noticed that my card is getting very hot even when idle. Could the heat of my card be causing these FPS drops? this was all working fine before I accessed the cards internals. I must note that I did not reapply or replace the thermal paste once I opened the card. All clock speeds are at default settings. I also decided to run a benchmark only achieved around 30FPS on high settings. Feedback would be appreciated Thanks

EDIT: Just checked Asus Tweak for some reason my settings were wrong. Ran another bench and obtained 67 FPS on everything maxed which seems normal. Going to keep an eye on it over the next couple of days. Is it still recommended to replace Thermal paste for better performance?


EDIT

 

[512-Bit]

It is probably the thermal paste. You will need to replace it in order to get that thermal throttling to stop. If it isn't the thermal paste, there's probably something wrong with the card.

Did you apply thermal paste when you put the graphics card back together?

 

[alex99xdx]

It is probably the thermal paste. You will need to replace it in order to get that thermal throttling to stop. If it isn't the thermal paste, there's probably something wrong with the card.

Did you apply thermal paste when you put the graphics card back together?

Hello thank you for your reply. No I didn't I just Used Whatever was still on the card from when I purchased it. Should you reapply some new thermal everytime you take it apart?

 

[iMatty]

You should reapply thermal paste, it is not recommended to take a card apart and use the old thermal paste, same goes when you remove a CPU cooler you should reapply thermal paste.

 

[alex99xdx]

You should reapply thermal paste, it is not recommended to take a card apart and use the old thermal paste, same goes when you remove a CPU cooler you should reapply thermal paste.

Okay thank you for your advice I'll reapply my thermal ASAP Will this help reduce some of the temps?

 

[iMatty]

Well if you have had the card for awhile, lets say a year or 6 months and you have been gaming on it for 8 pr 7hours a day, then probably the thermal paste that the card came pre-applied with is solid.

 

[Jason H.]

If you removed the heatsink and did not properly remove the old thermal paste and reapply new paste, that is definately your issue. Unless its a very fresh application "re-using" thermal paste never works.

Take it back apart, apply new paste and you should be good to go.

As far as it helping your temps, you could see an improvement depending on how long you have already been using the card for an how solid/used up the old paste was.

Also depending on the type of thermal paste you have as some pastes are better than others.