Radeon HD 7970 overheating (on only one game)

[EmilyEstelle]

Hi all,

I've never posted here before so I apologize if I'm in the wrong place, or if I leave out something vital. Just ask and I'll definitely provide it.

I've played this game (Black Desert) since beta, not on ultra settings or anything, but reasonably well on medium-high with high textures, etc. Never EVER gotten a stable 60fps, but it's been playable, and there's never been any problem with over-heating. Now, suddenly this game (and only this game) is cooking my GPU. As soon as I launch BDO my GPU temp skyrockets to the upper 90s, and I have to close the game to prevent damage to my hardware. Do note that this is just launching the game and standing there. It takes less than one minute to reach scary temperatures.

So my specific questions - How hot can this card actually run safely? Maybe getting into the upper 90's as soon as you launch a game is normal for this card (I doubt that very much) and I just never noticed how hot it was?

Why would it do it on only one game? We install a lot of graphically intense games and they have never caused overheating, and this one never used to. So... why now? and why only one game?

Has anybody else had this problem and have insight into a solution? Thanks for any advice anybody can offer!

Thanks,
Emily
(PC Specs at bottom of post)
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(A Note about my GPU Drivers: I am currently running 16.12.2, I rolled back from ATI's latest drivers to see if the temps were a driver issue, as 16.12.2 was what I had to rollback to when ATI rolled out the last round of drivers that made BDO Unplayable. I have this issue with both sets of drivers.

*I have tested other games and their temps with MSI Afterburner so I can see what the temps are at while in active game play. Temps are stable under 80, which I've read that for a 7970 is a reasonable operating temperature.

*My pc is clean/has recently had all the dust blown out of it. Has good ventilation, and the ambient temps are rather cool. (My hands are cold as I type this) so its not summer temps making my system temps spike.

*There is even a fresh application of Tunia thermal paste on my GPU (Yes, I know how to do this, and I did not fk it up -- I applied to thermal paste in response to the overheating. Thought it was probably over-due, but it has made no difference one way or the other) It keeps stable operating temps on EVERY other game I've tried.

*I did try furmark to see what it would do, and after a couple minutes my GPU does get very, very hot, though furmark is meant to do that, isn't it?

---

My basic PC Specs---

Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_ldr.170307-1800)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: To be filled by O.E.M.
System Model: To be filled by O.E.M.
BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/07/12 17:15:22 Ver: 04.06.05
Processor: AMD FX(tm)-8350 Eight-Core Processor (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
Memory: 16384MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 12194MB RAM
Page File: 2482MB used, 21904MB available
Windows Dir: C:\Windows
DirectX Version: DirectX 11
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
User DPI Setting: Using System DPI
System DPI Setting: 96 DPI (100 percent)
DWM DPI Scaling: Disabled
DxDiag Version: 6.01.7601.17514 32bit Unicode

 

[dontlistentome]

Try enabling vsync, or otherwise capping your framerate. Fast cards will crank out extremely high framerates in game menus and other easy to run parts of a game. This needlessly causes the videocard to heat up. If you cap the framerate then no matter how easy it would be for your videocard to put out a couple of hundred frames per second, it won't.

When the issue only pops up with one game, that usually means it's the game. Games like this do get updates, so it's possible for the game to work fine one day, then not work fine the next day. If it was me I'd completely uninstall that game, the reinstall it clean, with no old config files or mod or anything from the previous installation.

Lastly, yeah Furmark is supposed to generate a worst case scenario on your videocard. No game should reach the temps Furmark does. This does not mean you should expect and be okay with your temps rising to unsafe levels with Furmark. If that happens, that's telling you that you have a cooling problem. Your case airflow etc might seem fine but obviously you'd need more cooling.

 

[EmilyEstelle]

Hi, I did try enabling Vsync, and capping the fps via the control panel but that hasn't done anything as far as I can tell. I will try to get rid of every trace of the game and reinstall it. (pain in the ass, its like 80gb worth of stuff... but oh well.) I am not sure why, if its a cooling problem, other games don't reach the same temps. I've never had an issue with keeping the card cool until recently, so I'm not sure what's up.

 

[Deanosaur2000]

Download MSI afterburner and set up a custom Cooling Profile