MSI R9 280 heat and usage issues

[zcarm]

I have a MSI r9 280 (non-x) and I bought it just a few months ago. It was working fine. It would idle around 30-33 Celsius and then when I would play games it would get up to about 55 or 57 (for Crysis 2). I recently got battlefield 3 and when I finished playing the campaign for the first time my gpu temp was at 80 celsius. That's the highest I had ever seen it. The fans (which I keep on auto) were only running at 30%. Ever since then my gpu now idles at 36-40 and when I play games it gets up to 70 Celsius regularly. Also now my gpu usage looks like a mountain range. It's just sitting at zero percent and then it randomly spikes up to 75. I thought maybe my power supply (which was experiencing some coil whine) was the issue for the heat so I have it sitting outside the case powering the computer (to give the gpu more room to breathe) I also tried to dust out the case and that doesn't seem to have helped either. I have no idea what's going on and I don't want to request an RMA from MSI because then I don't have a computer for two weeks. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Tacticall993]

I recommend you to change the stock coolers to your own choice. Also, did you upgrade anything else in your computer? How's the cable management?

** Fans need to be kept clean, dust build up reduces their efficiency and can unbalance them, creating vibration, clean 'em out every so often to keep them running sweetly.
Same goes for the CPU and GPU heatsinks, they'll also get clogged up over time increasing temperatures and causing the fans to ramp up their speed as a result.**

 

[Undying89]

What the rest of your system? Card seems to be throttling for some reason...

 

[zcarm]

Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
PSU: Corsair CX 750 (currently running outside my case)
CPU: AMD FX-4350 with stock cooler
OS: Windows 7
RAM: Kingston Hyper X 8gb stick

Cable management at this point is superb considering that my power supply is sitting outside of my case. Everything has been dusted off very nicely. I just put the rig together a few months ago so it wasn't very dusty to begin with.

 

[Tacticall993]

Motherboard: ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0
PSU: Corsair CX 750 (currently running outside my case)
CPU: AMD FX-4350 with stock cooler
OS: Windows 7
RAM: Kingston Hyper X 8gb stick

Cable management at this point is superb considering that my power supply is sitting outside of my case. Everything has been dusted off very nicely. I just put the rig together a few months ago so it wasn't very dusty to begin with.

This is not normal. MSI designs should be efficient. Better consult MSI for warranty.

 

[Undying89]

In what pcie slot is the GPU? Make sure its the blue one (x16) not grey one (x4).

 

[zcarm]

The GPU is in the blue slot. Would it be best to just RMA it?

 

[Tacticall993]

The GPU is in the blue slot. Would it be best to just RMA it?

For sure, thats what I would do. But who cares about my opinion anyways LOL

 

[Undying89]

Ramp up power limit to 20% and unlock voltage control and monitoring. Dont worry, it wont brick anything. Try again and tell me what core voltage is...

 

[zcarm]

Ramp up power limit to 20% and unlock voltage control and monitoring. Dont worry, it wont brick anything. Try again and tell me what core voltage is...

I don't really want to mess with those settings. I'm not that tech savvy. If it helps the idle temp increases by about ten degrees Celsius when I have two monitors going at once