Possible Solution to 9800 GX2 high temperatures? - Overclock.net

Verone · 05-24-08

I've been doing some cable management work on my machine and had the side panel off while it was running.

I noticed something strange about the 9800GX2. It has vents in the rear of the card beside the DVI plugs to expel hot air, and on buying the card and taking a look at how it's put together I noticed these were pretty small given the monstrous size of the card (probably because of the DVI plugs being on top of eachother due to the two seperate boards in the card).

I was running RivaTuner and set the fan speed to 100% in there to see if it made a difference to temperatures, and noticed that the card is not actually pushing it's hot air out of the back of the case. It's pulling air in through the bottom and top of the boards as can be expected, channeling it between the GPU's, but then exhausing it out of the SIDE of the card, back into the case.

On closer inspection (shining a maglite into the side of the card) there are fins and a guide on the GPU heatsink that actually push the air out of the side of the card, back into the inside of the case.

(yeah, my mspaint skills are made of win)

Since I got it, my GX2 has been running close to 70 degrees on full load while playing Crysis and Eve-Online. It's seated in the top PCI-E slot on my motherboard with a fan in the side panel of my Antec 900 blowing air into the case onto it, as Antec reccomends for video cooling. Anyone using their head can see that pushing air into the case, directly into the path of the air the video card is trying to expel is not going to do much for cooling.

Reversing the fan in the side of my case to exhaust the hot air that the GX2 is pouring out has dropped the temperature of the inside of my case by 8-10 degrees, and the card is now running at 57-60 degrees on full load.

If anyone else is running a GX2 and has a side mounted case fan blowing air on the video card, I suggest you try doing the same and see if it has the same effect as it's done wonders for my card.

The temperature of the air that the GX2 pushes out is insane, so if you're running one with a solid case side, you might want to look into mounting a fan.

I'd be interested to hear feedback from people with the same card to see if the airflow on their card is the same, and if reversing the fan in the side of their case has the same effect.

Anyways, food for thought and something to try if you want to get the temperatures down.

losttsol · 05-24-08

Good idea. Makes sense because I would have my top side case fan as an exhaust when I had an air cooler on the CPU. I seem to remember seeing a cooling mod though for these cards somewhere. I'll try and find it.

Maytridy · 05-24-08

Haha, yea, sometimes I wonder what the designers had in mind. My 7800GTX pushes its hot air in the completely wrong direction venting back towards my hard drive.

Delphi44 · 05-26-08

Thanks for the suggestion changed the fan arrangement in my CM690 to have one of the side panel fans exhaust and did notice a significant drop in temperature. 5-7c on the card.

On another note im guessing this is Verone from VETO tell hUssmann to login more

Verone · 05-28-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphi44

Thanks for the suggestion changed the fan arrangement in my CM690 to have one of the side panel fans exhaust and did notice a significant drop in temperature. 5-7c on the card.

On another note im guessing this is Verone from VETO tell hUssmann to login more

I r being followed!1

Who be you?

Delphi44 · 05-28-08

Ingame name was Endomtriosis. Was a real-life friend of Darkelf and talk to hUss occasionally.

check out this one of his great moments. i locked him up after battle to see if he was telling the truth about the 3% structure left on his true sansha fitted astarte (im sure your aware of his ALT DJ Loud):