Video Card Overheating (How to fix myself)

Zorcher

Solid State Member
Messages
10
OK, so here's the scoop. Last time my video card was giving me overheating problems, I took it to Geek Squad and they said the solution was that the thermal grease was no longer touching the GPU, thus everytime I played a game, the card wasn't getting adaquate cooling. The problem was 4 screws under the fan that had become slightly unscrewed and there was a gap, so screwing them in once more fixed the problem without having to replace the thermal grease.

The problem is once again happening, and I don't want to spend the money to fix the problem again, I want to do it myself. I got the card around September of 2005, it started overheating around March of 2006, fixed, and now its happening again.

Computer Specs
256MB PCI-E NVidia Geforce 6800 GT
Pentium 4 3.2 GHz with HT technology
Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit
120 GB Hard Drive
500 Watt Power Supply (Used to be 420, but the video card complained of not getting enough power and it eventually blew)

BTW, the temperature is normally 88 degrees Celsius and 128 degrees Celsius while playing a game when the overheating problem is happening (above 128 is when I begin to see artifacts happen), and when its not, the temperature is normally 53 degrees Celsius and 78-82 degrees Celsius while playing a game.

Couple questions I want answers to as well:
When screws get hot for an extended period of time, do they tend to unscrew themselves over time?
Should I change the thermal grease in my video card?
Will I be able to do the job myself if I have experience working with upgrading and making my own PC and I'm not afraid of doing that kind of work?
 
unscrew the fan and clean of the thermel grease
then apply some artic silver 5
after that screw down the screws tight or buy new matching ones if u want to be safe
 
Yea do what esa said.
But man are you sure about the 128C reading?
Thats 262F, I don't think your card would work at all at that temp.
 
Yea do what esa said.
But man are you sure about the 128C reading?
Thats 262F, I don't think your card would work at all at that temp.


it can work at those temps. Usually vid cards start to overheat at about 100C, sometimes 80C is too much for a card and another card can take over 100C without any problems.

Zorcher said:
Couple questions I want answers to as well:
1. When screws get hot for an extended period of time, do they tend to unscrew themselves over time?
2. Should I change the thermal grease in my video card?
3. Will I be able to do the job myself if I have experience working with upgrading and making my own PC and I'm not afraid of doing that kind of work?

1. Don't think so.
2. Sure, it's always worth a try.
3. Yep
 
Here is pictures of my video card, I'm just wondering what screws are safe to remove so I can get to the parts below without damaging the card. It seems that instructions on how to do this are pretty hard to find, but I'm pretty confident I want to learn how to do this myself, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

top.jpg

bottom.jpg

front.jpg

back.jpg


According to some of my friends, it's very likely I'll have to change the thermal grease, since the weather in Colorado has been dry lately. So be it.
 
I think it's time to change it. My two Geforce 2 has paste that has now hardened, but still works great.
 
Here are the instructions I used to take apart my video card.

http://www.tweaksrus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=278&Itemid=1

These instructions worked great and I changed the thermal grease. It was just as I expected, the grease was old and it cracked off easily. I applied some Arctic Silver to the card and it now idles at 57 degrees Celsius. The whole process took 5 hours, I tried my best to be careful.

Thank you guys for all your help! I'm quite proud of myself, I just don't want to do this process again anytime soon. :D
 
Always clear all dust off everything and make sure it isn't blocking the entrance to the heatsink. T'was my problem, but I have a different graphics card.
 
Here's some nice graphs, here's me when the thermal grease was old and I would play a game.

video.jpg


Here is after I applied some thermal grease and I played the same game.

video2.jpg


Interesting how thermal grease could be that important to keeping the GPU cool.
 
Back
Top Bottom