Radeon HD 7870 Fan Issue/High idle temp

[MrCrackylactic]

My Club3D Jokercard Radeon HD 7870 has been running rather hot lately, idling around 40 C at about 50% fan speed. If I lower the fan speed temperatures go up to around 50 to 55 C, idle. Under stress the temperature goes up to 70/80 C pretty quick.

I'm thinking it might be an air flow problem that over time just affected my card. (I had a faulty SSD that acted up significantly, might have screwed up other components).

But, bigger issue right now is that while trying to figure out the suspected air flow issue I, being stupid, nudged the fan while it was running. One of the blades popped right off. How, or can I replace it at all? Obviously I can't keep running the card like this.

Pics: http://imgur.com/a/wWWyG#0
1. Broken blade
2. Inside of the case. My cable management is a bit of a mess I know. Is the fact that the fan on my PSU points upwards (straight at the video card) an issue?

In case it matters:
Zalman Z11 case
i5 3570 (not overclocked)
Gigabyte Z77 D3SH Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 (2x 4 gigs)
XFX P1-550S-XXB9 Core Edition (550W) PSU

Edit: Just for clarification, since it does seem like I'm being an idiot complaining about a card being hot while the fan is clearly broken, the high temperatures were there before I broke the damn thing.

 

[nukemaster]

To fix the broken fan blade, you will need to replace the fan. Your best bet would be to see if Club3D can send you a new fan(even if it cost a bit.).

The other option would be a mod to attach your own fan with tie wraps(zip strip) or similar.

You may want to sort the temp issues out, but 70/80 should not hurt the card it self.

Are you running more then one screen? that can increase idle temps.

 

[MrCrackylactic]

Thanks for the answer. I'll look into what 3D Club can send me, or if I can get an aftermarket kit to attach to it or something.

Running one 22 inch screen.

If 70/80 is fine, good. I can only achieve that when having the fan at around 90% though, if I don't manually up it that high the temperature does hit 90 easy.

UPDATE: I have e-mailed Club 3D about a replacement fan. Seeing as it's Friday afternoon I'm guessing it'll take a bit.

 

[nukemaster]

Ok, well something is not right. Your card should not be getting that hot with the cooler you have on it.

Based on your image, It looks like dust is NOT and issue(did you clean it for the image? was it very dusty?).

If this is your card it should give you an idea(In my media center, my 650 ti runs about 9c warmer than the techpowerup review, but take off the case side panel and it cools down). Either way 90+ seems a bit much for stock fan speeds.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Club_3D/HD_7870_jokerCard_Tahiti_LE/32.html

 

[MrCrackylactic]

Yes, that link is the exact card I have.

Didn't touch the dust in the case, figured it would be better to have an accurate view of how it actually has been for a long period of time. And, no, there is hardly any dust in the case.

I am running the fan at 25% now, and the temperature of the card is at 48 degrees according to Catalyst Control. MSI afterburner shows a peak of 55 C over the last 5 minutes.

 

[nukemaster]

Only thing I could see would be having bad contact with the GPU core. This requires you to remove the heatsink assembly and clean the old paste, apply new stuff and remount the heatsink.

If you build systems or take your time this is not too hard to do. You will NEED some decent thermal paste.

 

[MrCrackylactic]

Seeing as I'm assuming that 3D Club will tell me I'm screwed and voided my warranty (I think I can safely assume that). I'll try your suggestion.

And seeing as I'd be messing around with replacing the fan anyway.. I might as well attempt to fix the heat sink while I'm in there.

Thanks for the help!

I still have no idea what the problem actually is, but I have a few options to explore now.

 

[jdowdy10]

First and foremost, and I can't stress this enough...TAKE AN HOUR OUT AND ROUTE YOUR CABLES! You cannot expect proper airflow in a case with that going on.

Second, if you have overclocked the card at all using a 3rd party program they can screw up your idle clocks. You need to set it back to stock (hit the default button in Afterburner and make sure you hit Apply) and then create a custom profile in Afterburner that is stock so that you can use it as your 2D profile. Then your idle clocks will go back to normal.

 

[MrCrackylactic]

Fair enough, my cable management does need some work.

I never overclocked at all. It's running at stock voltages and clock speeds, always has been. I checked with MSI Afterburner and CCC - idle clock is 300 Mhz as it should be.

 

[MrCrackylactic]

Alright, in case someone ever reads this:

I decided to both combat the temperatures as well as the broken fan I'd purchase a new heatsink/fan combo. I went for the Arctic Cooling Xtreme 7970 (fits on my 7870 just fine too) http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/detail/index/sArticle/502/sCategory/2182

Only issue with it that it's huge and I needed to take part of my case out to fit it. That plus technically it doesn't work yet.. but that's a different story altogether.

 

[nukemaster]

Well that has got to be the most overkill fan EVER.

Take care when attaching any VRM coolers.