HD 6870 Overheating

[Darston]

I am running 2 XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition's in crossfire and the temps will get to over 100c and then my system will crash. This is obviously way to hot and I have tried everything to find the problem. Running the fans on the cards at 100% makse a ton of noise but the cards are still overheating. checked the airflow in my case and it's fine.

System specs:

Case - COOLER MASTER Cosmos Pure Black

MB -ASUS P8P67 PRO

PSU - COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready

CPU - Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz

Ram - CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (4 x 2GB)

Please help!

 

[wa1]

What happened when you run only 1 card (each of them)? How about the temps?
This overheating only happened on CF?
What model of your cards? The one that blow hot air inside the case?

 

[Darston]

When I took one card out then ran each one alone they got to 98c but never over 100c

they get hotter in CF but not by much, also idle temp in CF for the main card is 61c and the second is around 45c
This is with the fans set to 100%

The model i have is this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150507

 

[wa1]

For a single card 98'C is HOT!
Are you sure you have a good airflow inside your case? What is the ambient (room) temps in your place?

 

[Darston]

The hottest it get in the room where my computer is about 80f

Yea the airflow in my case is good

 

[wa1]

That's about 27'C, right? So you don't have a problem with the ambient temps or airflow inside the case, so it's you card then. Still on warranty? I suggest to RMA both of the card and tell the XFX guys that these cards are overheating.

 

[cumi2k4]

probably bad thermalpaste application in the heatsink...
Better test it on other pc, if the same overheating problem occurs, rma it asap

 

[arson94]

I would think that 80F is a little hot for ambient temps, but perhaps it shouldn't push your cards completely to 100C. Those idle temps are way too high too I would think. If you think your case's airflow is good, have you checked to make sure there's no dust clogged up in your video cards' heatsink under the plastic shroud covering?

 

[wa1]

80F = 27C.
And you said that's HOT? If that so I don't think you can survive in the equator area. For comparison, i live in Indonesia, here the average ambient (room) temps are about 34-36'C (95'F).

 

[purple stain]

What everyone here, I think, overlooked is that the OP said even WITH the fans at 100% they still overheat.That doesn't make any sense to me but that's definitly something hardware related with the card even if it means 2 of them(as rare as that is it happens a lot around here).

XFX usually has a good Warranty system so I would suggest to RMA and hope for a better set.

 

[arson94]

80F = 27C.
And you said that's HOT? If that so I don't think you can survive in the equator area. For comparison, i live in Indonesia, here the average ambient (room) temps are about 34-36'C (95'F).

I'm sure I could survive, but it would take a long time for me to accept it and not bitch about it lol. And I said a little hot lol, just a little...

 

[Darston]

Thanks for the info guys!

I am looking around to see if someone i know has a board i can test my cards with, and I have a support ticket open with XFX. I will post an update when I know more.

 

[Darston]

So I spoke with XfX tech support today "1(800)880-3225"
They said to go ahead and pull the heatsinks off and reapply the thermal paste. This will not void the warranty in north america.

I'll repost once I have that done.

 

[gnomio]

What game were you playing? Is it that one which got no ingame option to enable v-sync so your Gpus is running like mad till you stop playing the game or force v-sync on.
Try enabling v-sync. If the game doesn't have that option force it on via the controller panel

 

[Darston]

It looks like it was an issue with the factory thermal paste. Removing the heat sinks and putting on arctic silver seems to of solved my problem. ^_^

 

[Darston]

Best answer selected by Darston.