Overheating GPU - Airflow Problem? See pic

[tfitch11]

Hello everyone, I am posting this on behalf of my boyfriend. Here is what we're working with:

Motherboard: M5A99X EVO R2.0
CPU: AMD FX-6300 OC to 4.2 GHz, Bus Speed 211
RAM: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3
Storage: 50 GB SSD and 500GB HDD
GPU: SAPPHIRE NITRO Radeon R9 380, 4GB
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212 Evo
Case Fans:4x 120mm Fans, Pictured below (3 Thermaltake RIING 12 and 1 Enermax Cluster Advance)
Case: Corsair Carbide SPEC-01 Mid Tower Gaming Case
PSU: EVGA 850W

And the airflow diagram:

So here's what's going on. We were playing League of Legends last night and his GPU was superclocked (he said he increased core speed to 1100 MHz). He was streaming the gameplay at 60fps, 1920x1080 as well using XSplit Streamer.

This went on for about an hour and a half and then his GPU started failing. The game flickered in and out, the screen would go back and then recover. The entire time, the CPU temp was at 40C max but the GPU temp peaked at almost 90C, but was at 85C when the flickering started. When he noticed this starting to happen, he opened up the side of the case and stopped the stream. He also lowered the graphics settings on the game to low. When this did not help, he shut down his computer immediately.

Questions we (I) have:

1. This sounds like a classic case of an overheating GPU to me. Please confirm.

2. If any specs are wrong or extreme, please advise

3. I have attached a diagram of his case and airflow, and welcome any feedback on how to improve

4. How do we avoid this happening going forward, or fix it?

5. Recommendations on additional fans are welcome, please advise of placement.


Thank you for your time!

 

[WVMountie07]

Any chance the removable side of your case has space to mount a 120mm fan? Lots of cases have this specifically for GPU cooling.

 

[tfitch11]

Any chance the removable side of your case has space to mount a 120mm fan? Lots of cases have this specifically for GPU cooling.

Unfortunately no The removable side is as pictured below:

However, what we just thought of is that he could swap panels with MY case (i don't overclock or anything that would cause my gpu to overheat). here is the panel he woudl be using instead:

That would lead me to the question, if we mounted 1 or two fans on that side, would the be exhaust fans or would they be pushing air in to the case?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Your EVO should be pulling the hot towards the rear fan which should be exhaust.

And your power supply needs to be flipped.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

These 2 moves will help some ^

 

[WVMountie07]

Based on the diagram you listed above, I'm not sure if the front fans are reaching the GPU fan. It might be bypassing it due to the top exhaust fan being located further towards the front of the case then the built in GPU fan (taking a guess here). If you have time to trial and error, I'd swap the top exhaust to be intake and the rear intake to be exhaust. I think this would give the air a better path through the entire case with minimal interruptions.

 

[tfitch11]

Boyfriend here. I actually JUST flipped the PSU specfically as a way to vent off some of the hot air coming from the gpu in some way. It was originally flipped as you said. I realized (well, theorized) after looking at my set up that I had created a sort of air pocket where hot air was not getting circulated out effectively right where the GPU fans sit.

Additionally, I also had originally had your suggestion with my evo cpu fan but ran into the issue of the actual fan itself running into my 1st stick of RAM. I can live on 12 GB of ram if I need to, but I had moved it to that position for that reason.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

You can mount the fan up a tad higher on the heatsink to clear module.

 

[tfitch11]

Girlfriend just pointed out a very simple logical solution here for me. Swap the brackets and reverse the fan on the EVO CPU cooler. I hesitate to do this because I want air being pushed across the radiator rather than being pulled across it, do you guys think this would be an effective way to circumvent the issue of ram clipping into the fan?

 

[R4lNM4N]

Boyfriend here. I actually JUST flipped the PSU specfically as a way to vent off some of the hot air coming from the gpu in some way. It was originally flipped as you said. I realized (well, theorized) after looking at my set up that I had created a sort of air pocket where hot air was not getting circulated out effectively right where the GPU fans sit.

Additionally, I also had originally had your suggestion with my evo cpu fan but ran into the issue of the actual fan itself running into my 1st stick of RAM. I can live on 12 GB of ram if I need to, but I had moved it to that position for that reason.

Nice thing about the EVO, the fan height is adjustable

 

[madmatt30]

Your cooling is all all over the place , the only correct ones are your front intakes.

Your PSU needs flipping so the Fan is facing down out of the
Case.
Your rear fan needs flipping so its exhausting out of the case
The 212 evo fan wants swapping over so its next to the ram.

The top exhaust I'd make an intake.

Why are you running a 211 fsb to overclock when your CPU is unlocked ?? its likely destabilising your system

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Air NEEDS TO BE PUSHED OR PULLED through the heatsink and exhausted out the back.

 

[R4lNM4N]

^^^

 

[tfitch11]

We're working on making fan adjustments right now and will get back shortly

 

[tfitch11]

Your cooling is all all over the place , the only correct ones are your front intakes.

Your PSU needs flipping so the Fan is facing down out of the
Case.
Your rear fan needs flipping so its exhausting out of the case
The 212 evo fan wants swapping over so its next to the ram.

The top exhaust I'd make an intake.

Why are you running a 211 fsb to overclock when your CPU is unlocked ?? its likely destabilising your system

Boyfriend here:

I used prime 95 to run a stress test for 10 minutes 2 times and received no errors or warnings. I am new to this and would like more information on what is meant when you say the system could be destabilized.

Thanks

 

[TheDVIMaster]

■ Yes, pretty likely...
■ naaaaa... It's fine...
■ If you can feel that a lot of heat is on top of the GPU then you might want to do like this:



■ Water cooling?
■ It's just fans...

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

They way you had it setup , it was creating a pocket of heat in your case.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Make the fixes I suggested and you will see improvement.

 

[madmatt30]

Yes you can flip the fan in its mount & keep it on the back of the CPU.
You don't have room at the front to raise the CPU fan above vengeance ram (I know this by personal experience ) & still close the case panel .


You lose a tiny bit of performance pulling air out of the sink instead this way

Swap that rear back to an exhaust , swap that top to an intake so cool air is dropping straight in front of the evo.

Flip the PSU as blackbird suggested to begin with.

 

[tfitch11]

Thanks everyone! We are working on these fixes now!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Make the fixes I mentioned above , and the pocket of hot air in the case will dissipate.

Keep us posted.

 

[tfitch11]

Thanks Blackbird! Here is what he did:

 

[tfitch11]

(Boyfriend)

Thanks guys, your assistance is much appreciated. My goal is to stream Overwatch (if I'm lucky enough for wave 1 beta key) so all your assistance will go a long way!

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Looks good now.

 

[madmatt30]

^ loads better.

I would still alter those overclock settings.
You shouldn't touch the fsb apart from big overclock fine tuning.

Drop it back to the stock 200.
Set CPU multiplier to 21.
Disable turbo core
Disable c1e states.

^ the correct way to do it.