Reasons For High GPU Temp?

[(PeteCresswell)]

System is running *really* slow past few days.

Installed SpeedFan and took a look.

I am assuming:

- SpeedFan's "GPU" temp is the temp of the CPU

- The 60C shown for "GPU" temp is way high.


That being the case, I removed the heat sink - which didn't look
very dusty - and cleaned it thoroughly.

The thermal transfer paste looked kind of sickly, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought some new paste. Went for the cheaper
white stuff at $3.50 instead of the $12.00 silver on the
assumption that marketing was at work there.

Scraped both sides clean, applied the new paste, re-fastened the
heat sink... and no change. GPU still at 60C.

Eyeballed the heat sink fan and it is working. SpeedFan says
it's turning at about 1,400 RPM. Fan's 2-5 in SpeedFan's list
are all at zero RPM... but looking into the box, I don't see any
other fans on the mobo.

Temps of the two internal hard drives are in the low thirties.
Temp of a hard drive in a SATA sled is 29.

So....

- Are my assumptions correct?

- Did I make a mistake by chincing out on the thermal
transfer paste?

- Might there be other reasons for the high CPU temp?

 

[BillW50]

In

System is running *really* slow past few days.

Installed SpeedFan and took a look.

I am assuming:

- SpeedFan's "GPU" temp is the temp of the CPU

- The 60C shown for "GPU" temp is way high.


That being the case, I removed the heat sink - which didn't look
very dusty - and cleaned it thoroughly.

The thermal transfer paste looked kind of sickly, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought some new paste. Went for the cheaper
white stuff at $3.50 instead of the $12.00 silver on the
assumption that marketing was at work there.

Scraped both sides clean, applied the new paste, re-fastened the
heat sink... and no change. GPU still at 60C.

Eyeballed the heat sink fan and it is working. SpeedFan says
it's turning at about 1,400 RPM. Fan's 2-5 in SpeedFan's list
are all at zero RPM... but looking into the box, I don't see any
other fans on the mobo.

Temps of the two internal hard drives are in the low thirties.
Temp of a hard drive in a SATA sled is 29.

So....

- Are my assumptions correct?

- Did I make a mistake by chincing out on the thermal
transfer paste?

- Might there be other reasons for the high CPU temp?

GPU running at 60°C (140°F) isn't bad at all (if it is a laptop at
least). And if it uses heat pipes (usually found in laptops), it is
really good. Yeah grazing was a bad idea. As it can reduce the heat
transfer ability (although it doesn't sound like it in this case). And
that more expensive Arctic Silver can drop the temps by 5°C. You also
might want to try GPU-Z and check the temp with this one.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

 

[Yousuf Khan]

System is running *really* slow past few days.

Installed SpeedFan and took a look.

I am assuming:

- SpeedFan's "GPU" temp is the temp of the CPU

- The 60C shown for "GPU" temp is way high.

I assume it's an Nvidia GPU, you never mentioned. When I had those GPU's
typically did run in the 50's and 60's, or even 70's sometimes. My
Radeon is currently "idling" at 45C.

Yousuf Khan

 

[SC Tom]

I assume it's an Nvidia GPU, you never mentioned. When I had those GPU's typically did run in the 50's and 60's, or
even 70's sometimes. My Radeon is currently "idling" at 45C.

Yousuf Khan

To go along with what BillW50 said about notebook GPUs, and your Nvidia comment, my ATI mobility Radeon HD 2600 idles at
54C. My Nvidia GeForce GT240 idles at 35C, but I have seen it above 60C on very intensive gaming (BioShock and Modern
Warfare come to mind).

 

[SC Tom]

System is running *really* slow past few days.

Installed SpeedFan and took a look.

I am assuming:

- SpeedFan's "GPU" temp is the temp of the CPU

- The 60C shown for "GPU" temp is way high.


That being the case, I removed the heat sink - which didn't look
very dusty - and cleaned it thoroughly.

The thermal transfer paste looked kind of sickly, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought some new paste. Went for the cheaper
white stuff at $3.50 instead of the $12.00 silver on the
assumption that marketing was at work there.

Scraped both sides clean, applied the new paste, re-fastened the
heat sink... and no change. GPU still at 60C.

Eyeballed the heat sink fan and it is working. SpeedFan says
it's turning at about 1,400 RPM. Fan's 2-5 in SpeedFan's list
are all at zero RPM... but looking into the box, I don't see any
other fans on the mobo.

Temps of the two internal hard drives are in the low thirties.
Temp of a hard drive in a SATA sled is 29.

So....

- Are my assumptions correct?

- Did I make a mistake by chincing out on the thermal
transfer paste?

- Might there be other reasons for the high CPU temp?

The white paste is OK; I've used it for quite some time from 386 CPU's through multi-core AMD's with no problem (and
I've never seen the miraculous cooling difference claimed by Arctic Silver). Remember that a thin coat is much better
than a thick one- it's meant to smooth over imperfections between the base of the sink and the chip, not act as a
blanket
More important is the case air flow. If the heat is removed from the CPU/GPU, but there isn't decent flow though the
case to let it out, it's not going to cool very well. If you have a spare 80MM or similar sized fan, set it up
temporarily to pull air away from where the air exits your video card heatsink, and leave the side off the case if
possible, and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Bob F]

System is running *really* slow past few days.

Installed SpeedFan and took a look.

I am assuming:

- SpeedFan's "GPU" temp is the temp of the CPU

- The 60C shown for "GPU" temp is way high.

Bad assumption. At least, on my PC, GPU is the graphics processor. Temps that
high may not be abnormal.

That being the case, I removed the heat sink - which didn't look
very dusty - and cleaned it thoroughly.

The thermal transfer paste looked kind of sickly, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought some new paste. Went for the cheaper
white stuff at $3.50 instead of the $12.00 silver on the
assumption that marketing was at work there.

Scraped both sides clean, applied the new paste, re-fastened the
heat sink... and no change. GPU still at 60C.

Eyeballed the heat sink fan and it is working. SpeedFan says
it's turning at about 1,400 RPM. Fan's 2-5 in SpeedFan's list
are all at zero RPM... but looking into the box, I don't see any
other fans on the mobo.

Temps of the two internal hard drives are in the low thirties.
Temp of a hard drive in a SATA sled is 29.

So....

- Are my assumptions correct?
No


- Did I make a mistake by chincing out on the thermal
transfer paste?

- Might there be other reasons for the high CPU temp?

It is not the CPU, it is the GPU that is hot.

I did have one graphics card with high temps. Noticed bulging capacitors on it,
replaced them, and it ran cooler.

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

System is running *really* slow past few days.

Installed SpeedFan and took a look.

I am assuming:

- SpeedFan's "GPU" temp is the temp of the CPU

- The 60C shown for "GPU" temp is way high.


That being the case, I removed the heat sink - which didn't look
very dusty - and cleaned it thoroughly.

The thermal transfer paste looked kind of sickly, so I went to
Radio Shack and bought some new paste. Went for the cheaper
white stuff at $3.50 instead of the $12.00 silver on the
assumption that marketing was at work there.

Scraped both sides clean, applied the new paste, re-fastened the
heat sink... and no change. GPU still at 60C.

Eyeballed the heat sink fan and it is working. SpeedFan says
it's turning at about 1,400 RPM. Fan's 2-5 in SpeedFan's list
are all at zero RPM... but looking into the box, I don't see any
other fans on the mobo.

Temps of the two internal hard drives are in the low thirties.
Temp of a hard drive in a SATA sled is 29.

So....

- Are my assumptions correct?

- Did I make a mistake by chincing out on the thermal
transfer paste?

- Might there be other reasons for the high CPU temp?

Overclocking.
If that is really GPU and not CPU, then is not too bad.
At idle mine is 53C but during gaming it gets above 60C
with the GPU fan at 80%. CPU runs about the same.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Yousuf Khan:

I assume it's an Nvidia GPU, you never mentioned. When I had those GPU's
typically did run in the 50's and 60's, or even 70's sometimes. My
Radeon is currently "idling" at 45C.

Thanks.

FWIW, my slow response problems (which I was jumping to cause on
with the temp thing) were resolved when I re-imaged to a known
good image.

In the past week or so, I've installed/uninstalled a half-dozen
video transcoders (in search of one to purchase) and I suspect
the sys picked up some bad actors during those installs.

 

[jim]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:44:42 -0400, in

The white paste is OK; I've used it for quite some time from 386 CPU's through multi-core AMD's with no problem (and
I've never seen the miraculous cooling difference claimed by Arctic Silver). Remember that a thin coat is much better
than a thick one- it's meant to smooth over imperfections between the base of the sink and the chip, not act as a
blanket
More important is the case air flow. If the heat is removed from the CPU/GPU, but there isn't decent flow though the
case to let it out, it's not going to cool very well. If you have a spare 80MM or similar sized fan, set it up
temporarily to pull air away from where the air exits your video card heatsink, and leave the side off the case if
possible, and see if that makes a difference.

I replaced the side of my case with a 16x20x1 furnace filter. It fits
nicely and it is amazing how much dust it has caught.

jim

 

[SC Tom]

On Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:44:42 -0400, in



I replaced the side of my case with a 16x20x1 furnace filter. It fits
nicely and it is amazing how much dust it has caught.

jim

Not bad I never thought of that!

 

[Char Jackson]

Not bad I never thought of that!

Functional, but a candidate for www.thereifixedit.com ;-)

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Bill in Co:

Related to this, I've gotten to the point that after testing out such
software (like video transcoders), I'll first make an image backup of the
drive before trying it out, and then restore that image to get the system
back to the same state it was in before, unless I end up keeping it. It's
just much safer that way. In my case, it only takes me 10 minutes to make
the image, and 15 mins to restore it (using SATA hard drives).

I am coming around to that level of backup too. In retrospect,
the biggest thing between me and that level in the past was the
need to re-boot to my DOS imaging utility. But then I layed out
the big bucks for something called "ShadowProtect" that runs
under windows and creates an image in less than 5 minutes.

Right now, I'm slowly rebuilding from a known good image. I'll
install a couple of apps, make an image, and then re-boot -
noting the time it takes to boot.