MSI Says My Overheating 7970 Lightning is Normal!!! - Page 6

Read again my post since you seem to have missed the point of it.

OP, stop bumping this thread unless you really want to solve your god-damn problem.

You obviously never changed the thermal paste. You didn't even tried to solve the problem or just see what could happen if you just reapplied the paste & heatsink. I've seen 10C drop on my 5870 after changing the thermal paste [and I have lifetime warranty, I could have RMA'd it instead of doing that].

It doesn't take 6 pages to share an experience. As said, you could put your feed-back on newegg or wherever you bought it. Some users were suggesting you to test if the cooler was really too small to cool properly this card but you just ignored it.

You are the one not constructive, all you did was ranting how bad their service was while you got more than one RMA!
Let me tell you that, this is far from the worst service you will ever have.

This is a good point, I redo the thermal paste on pretty much every card I get, the 7970 Lightning did have higher temps before changing out the tim although not that much higher.

As far as quality, every company has duds. The only defective card I've gotten was an evga, none from msi or asus. I have killed an msi & RMA'd, comparing msi & evga rma, evga had much better communication, although for actual time I had the msi replacement in my hand faster.
As far as tech support, they are just employees who have the same FAQs that everyone can read, they aren't engineers, & most likely have never used the product people inquire about. For average joe bestbuy computer shopper who takes the machine in to have a component changed, tech support is genius. For us enthusiasts, we generally know more about the product, problems & solutions than the tech support guys on the phone.

What kind of TIM do you guys use/recommend when replacing the stock stuff?

Pretty much any will work well, the problem with stock paste is manufacturers generally use a lot of it. Enough to cover the gpu, then enough for 2 or 3 more gpus squeezed out the sides.
I've been using mx4 for air & water cool TIM lately, it's pretty good.

Sounds good, thanks for the information!

+Rep if I could...

Please excuse my excessive quoting of previous posts, I don't want my responses taken out of context.

Biggest thing here is, communicate with Mike about what you want for replacement or RMA options, and discuss what options are available. I know that right now if you wanted to swap out for another 7970, you'll have to wait.

I'll be happy to answer any questions you have via PM.

From a purely RMA perspective, any temperature up to the thermal design limit of the GPU is considered "normal". There's a lot of things we can't replicate (i.e. humidity, ambient temps, your system config, case air flow, etc etc), and the answers are given as a range because it is in fact just that, a range.

Also, keep in mind that there may be small defects in the GPU heat spreader also that may cause high temperatures, Either way, there's a bunch of issues that may cause high temps.

Having said that, if you're running it at default speeds and the card crashes in benchmarks, you should do one of two things:
1) reapply TIM and see if it improves temperatures. If it does not and still crashes, RMA it.
or
2) just RMA it if you don't want to fix it again.

• See above for "range of temps". The cooler is better than reference, yes, but there's a bunch of underlying details that may not have been addressed.
• When you RMA, there is usually an "RMA buffer" which every company has. We don't pull a brand new card out of inventory because that's actually a very bad way of managing inventory and replacement stock. That said, there exists the possibility that this card was a previous card sent in for service (for a variety of reasons), and it was deemed as "in good working order" aka inventory that can be used for RMA.
• The option for you to change out TIM on your own is there because, as mentioned before, the card could just have poor TIM applied at the factory (or when it was refurbished).

Please see above.

There's no "messing up", to be honest. The design is pretty straightforward: heatpipes soldered to a nickle-plated base, and TIM contacts the GPU heatspreader and the base. How is that "messing up" the thermal design in any way possible? The only changes we added to TF 3 and newer, is the propeller blade design, and also the Dust Removal tech that spins the fan in reverse. The shroud is of a different design, but that has no impact of thermal properties.

As for time wait, that is sometimes beyond our control when it comes to shipments. GPU shipments are very irregular and limited by what the vendor (AMD/NVIDIA) provides. Also, keep in mind that EVERY defective GPU ends up being a RMA on our side too to the respective vendor.

You have defective card, we take it back, verify defective GPU, ship it back to NVIDIA or AMD, and get credit or replacement. That's kind of how it works but on a bulk scale.

MB temps of 30C is actually quite normal. 30C is around 86F, 35C is around 95F, that is perfectly normal.

It may be high for Lightning but again, temperature readings for chips are often a range.

@ Emissary of Pain: we're located in North America and only service US/Canada customers. If you contact Mike we can't help you because we do not sell to South Africa. Please contact our local distributor (whomever you bought it from) for more information.

It's not a normal range, I agree, but it is within what the range is for the GPU from a thermal design perspective. Please try to distinguish between the two.

What you can buy at a local store is about same (or often better) quality as what is available on the factory side.

Hmm. I didn't know msi didn't consider the warranty void after replacing the tim. Kudos on that.

The fine line is "reapplying TIM".

Some people reapply, damage the PCB or heatsink in the process, and then blame it on us.

It's difficult to apply something blanket to everyone... frankly if you know how to do this, and don't damage the card, I don't see an issue.

Sweet.