Gigabyte 6600 GT Temperature Problems

[Jamxx]

Hey guys.

I realize that I have posted something about this once before on another post, but it has faded away into the past. This post will be more detailed and elaborate than the other one, and I really need some help with this. I recently bought a Gigabyte 6600 GT 128 MB AGP card (the model number is "N66T128D") and I have been having a few temperature problems with it. Before I get started, let me layout my case for you. I have two exhaust fans in the back, one intake in the front (blowing onto my hard drives), and one intake on the side (blowing onto my memory sticks and CPU). I also have a nifty little PCI exhaust fan that I have put right under the memory card (the fan from the card is blowing into the intake fan on the PCI exhaust fan, and they are about 1.5 inches apart).

Now for the temperature statistics. Right now at this second, my card is reading 58 degrees Celcius. I have not been playing games and my computer has been on for a maximum of 5 minutes. Before that time, I took my card out and inspected it to make sure everything looked right, and everything seemed to be okay. The fan's power was plugged in, and nothing was misplaced or damaged in any way. I made sure that I plugged the 4 pin power cord into the back of the card, and it is in tightly. When I play games, which are usually either Tribes: Vengeance, Far Cry, Sacred, or Halo, the temperature of the video card will work its way to about a whopping 85 degrees Celcius. I played Halo about 30 minutes ago for about 10 minutes to make sure of this, and I left the temperature monitor for my video card (the gauge where you right-click your desktop, select NVIDIA display, and then go to temperature settings), and the temperature reads 84 degrees Celcius. Of course, when I realized this, I immediately closed the game and inspected my card to make sure everything was okay, because I had been having temperature problems since I first received my card. I have this card running at a 500 MHz core clock speed and a 1000 MHz memory clock speed, which are the stock settings. I lowered the speeds significantly to see if that helped, and it did, but only by about 3-6 degrees. That means that I was getting about a 52 degree idle temperature and a 79 degree load temperature. I know for sure that this is not the temperature that ANY video card should be running at.

If you need any more information, then please let me know and I'll try to get it to you. Sorry about the long post, but I tried to think of everything that I could so that you may be able to figure this annoying and possibly card-threatening problem.

Thanks so much for your help!

-Jamxx

 

[connchri]

I wouldn't worry about those readings, belive it or not, a Geforce 6800Ultra can survive and run beyond 100 degrees celcius. New tech means new Temps.

Seriously, don't worry about it.

 

[Jamxx]

Are you positive? This ain't no 6800 Ultra, and from what I've been reading from reviews of this card and similar cards, these temperatures are too high. Besides, when some plastic is almost at the temperature that water boils, it makes me think that something just isn't right.

 

[connchri]

Yeah, it's fine, they are usually about 60 idle, and about 70-80 on full whack, but known to be fine running at about 100 when overclocked. Your 85 is nothing to worry about.

I know it sounds mad, but they do have a higher thermal output than CPU's.

 

[Jamxx]

Oh, I know that they have a higher output. I read a review comparing about 10 different types of 6600 GT's (all 128 MB and PCI-Express) and for the Gigabyte version they had about a 43 degree idle temperature and an 88 degree load temperature. They also said that the load was way too high... Do PCI-Express cards naturally run hotter than AGP ones? I wouldn't think so... And those temperatures were when the card was overclocked as well... Mine isn't. Sorry, but I'm just temperature-paranoid.

 

[connchri]

The PCI-Express GF6600GT's are clocked an extra 50MHz on the GPU and 100MHz on the memory by default compared to the equivelent AGP. This is probably due to nVidia being a bit worried about loss of performance due to the AGP to PCI-Express Bridge chip, but benchmarks show that there is a slight increase in performance - So, the Bridgechips loss in performance is outweighed by the increase in performance due to the extra clock speeds and PCI-Express bandwidth.

This would explain the temperature difference. Note, the Bridge chip runs hot as well, and is not needed for AGP variants.

 

[Jamxx]

But wouldn't that mean that the PCI-Express versions of video cards would naturally run hotter than the AGP versions? The review said that it had a 43 degree idle temperature and an 88 degree load temperature... Wouldn't this mean that I should get considerably LOWER temperatures than these?

 

[connchri]

Oh, sorry, read your 1st post wrong. Yip, thats probably correct.

It must be a case that your case cooling is not as efficient as those used in the benchmarks.

Personally, I really really wouldn't worry about it, as these babies can run above boiling point.

 

[Jamxx]

Hmm... Not to be hasty, but I find this hard to believe on account of that I have two exhaust fans, two intake fans, and a blower right below the card... I could be wrong though.

 

[connchri]

Lol, yip, you like your cooling. Mind you, thats quite a hefty overclock on your CPU if it's a Winchester core, is it?

I know what it's like, but I think to make your nerves rest, I would put your CPU back to default core speed, then unplug some of your fans. Then play some games for a while. This will probably increase the temps of you GFX card without increasing the CPU temps by much (as it's back to default speeds).

Hopefully this will give you confidence with your gfx card.

Once your happy that it runs ok at higher temps, set everything back. This way you'll be sure that it's fine at it current temp.