Replacement GPU heat

[Andrew Buck]

So one of my cards started crashing my PC a few months ago. I ruled out the card and used only one for a while. I suspected a capacitor being dead, and it was true. I sent it in to MSI after a month of laziness. A different cars came back. No crashing, except for it runs a whole 30 C or even more hotter than my current one. That's right, basically an R9 290x. My good one runs at 54 C 100% fans, this one gets up to 89. Should I send it in again? The only deal is I still have a warranty. I have some Arctic Silver thermal paste laying around, should I just go and paste it up and see what happens?

Also a few things: I am away on vacation right now and won't be back home to my PC until probably Saturday or Sunday. Today (unlikely) my new GTX 970 is going to arrive. I bought it today with next day shipping, but it was Christmas, so I can't expect that. Probably Monday.
Lastly, I need to sell this card along with the other soon and will not sell it with a thermal problem.

No rush right now. I have time. Going to sleep now anyways. Merry Christmas.

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

Thermal paste isn't usually the problem on brand new cards.

 

[Andrew Buck]

This isn't a new card. I sent it in the MSI and they sent me back another repaired or refurbished one. I can tell you it was far from new. I can tell why it was sent in before.

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

What card is it?

 

[nikoli707]

i personally have never seen a good thermal paste application on a gpu or a laptop. that said, i wouldn't be removing the stock air cooler until i know for sure that it wont void a warranty. but as far as a "botched" tim application, i would consider that fairly uncommon. though msi is known for having bad tim jobs, but check your warranty, some use stickers on screws and they will know if you have tried to take apart the card which could be an issue for warranty.

 

[Andrew Buck]

In my signature. MSI Radeon R9 270X. My old one that broke ran like my other old one which is currently in use with my new overheating one.

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

If you have 2 running, and they have no PCIE spacing between them, then the top card will be almost choked out. Check that both fans (if applicable) are spinning. I have a problem with my MSI 7950 and one of the fans doesn't spin until I crank up my fan speed to 85% or higher. It got up to 94 C once, and was still playing Batman Akham City just fine O.O

 

[Andrew Buck]

They are 6 inches apart. I used to run my old card in the same configuration for months.

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

Well have you tried bumping up the fan speed to 100% see if anything weird happens? You might hear some coiling noises.

 

[17seconds]

Your new card probably has a lower ASIC quality score, meaning it is going to run hotter at higher voltages. You can check it with GPU-Z. I'm also assuming your refurbished card needs its heatsink reseated for a better seal.

 

[Andrew Buck]

The fans were at 100% in all of my testing to rule out the fan. Nothing wierd. As for 17seconds' answer, that is an interesting idea. I will have to check and see. I don't recall seeing voltages much higher and I definitely think that a little more voyage would add such an immense amount of heat. For reseating the heatsink, wouldn't that void my warranty? I still have a little bit left and I am planning to sell it. Voided warranty doesn't seem like a good selling point.

 

[Andrew Buck]

Wait a moment - I just noticed something. Not sure if this is a false reading or not, but GPU-Z shows that the good card (@100% fan speed) is at 3000ish RPM. The new card seems to be at 100% as well, but at 1000 RPM. It goes up a little bit when I lower fan speed for some reason. Seems like a fan problem. I will look into it. The Voltage seems to be perfectly fine. My cards used to stay around 1.206 V, this one jumps all around in the 1.1 range. Not sure if this is some sort of custom BIOS doing this stuff, but it is very strange.

 

[Andrew Buck]

I noticed that the BIOS was different for each card, so I flashed the new card's to the newest BIOS (my old card's BIOS). No help. Can't wait for my 970 to come tomorrow. My worry is selling it. Not interested in sending it back AGAIN.

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

Maybe sell it as an "Overheating R9 270X - Still functional" or something

 

[Andrew Buck]

Maybe sell it as an "Overheating R9 270X - Still functional" or something

Found out - fan stuck, and the back of the GPU looks burnt orange. Sending it back. Now I am having issues with my new card. On the latest drivers even at stock, on Battlefield 4, I get a device hung error. This happens after a while of playing and then the game will keep saying that on startup after until I restart. Watch Dogs keeps crashing as well. I cannot seem to get stable in benchmarks and stress tests, either. Right now, I am on second to newest driver (seems to be more stable) with only +50 MHz/+225 MHz. Anything past that gets worse. Any help? It is a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming, and I would expect much better than that.

 

[Mr_Venbeer]

lol