Video card gets over 110 degrees Celsius

[Tierant]

So, my 8600GT was good enough for WoW, but whenever I launch swtor the temp climbs up to over/around 110 degrees C. I haven't noticed any kind of errors or messages, but I have a feeling it'll end up melting my card.

I won't be replacing the motherboard because the PC is scheduled to be replaced when we have less debt. But who knows when that'll be. So until then, anyone have any tips on lowering my GPU temp?

The vents are clean, the temp is reporting 110 even after removing the side of the case. I MAYBE could clean the fins on the heat sink but there's not a lot of dust to begin with in there.

[Laz]

If I seem to remember the heat sink/fan they put on a lot of the early Nvidia cards were crap, now you don't have to go with the same setup this guy has but just to show that upgrading your cooling unit on the card can cause a big difference (note the tempatures he clocks at after and before the stress test he runs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Spb18wqg8

or if you really want to go overboard Zalman manufactures some very nice VGA cooling adapters compatible with a wide array of GeForce Cards (including the 8600)

You could replace the fooling fan on your 8600 GT with either of these.
http://www.zalman.com/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=145 (w/ fan)
Retails for $38.99 on Newegg right now


http://www.zalman.com/eng/product/Product_Read.asp?Idx=374 (w/fan)
Retails for $29.99 on microcenter.com

[Ripvelana]

I want to say to do the same thing that the VW Beetle did for AC.... hang an ice tray on it and aim a fan at it ... In the Bug, it hung on the window, and the air was forced thru it when driving down the road....

Seriously though... go buy a laptop cooling thing (call it a stand/plate/set up, whatever)... it has 2-4 high powered fans that will suck the air thru the PC... it'll cost you 10 bucks, and probably lower the temp way down... also, just for those that don't know (Us Americans and our Standards!!)... 110 degrees C = 166 degrees F... seriously hot!

[Zoth]

At that heat may want to put in a nice roaster chicken, Should be ready in a couple hours.

[Marak]

A few fun facts.

My BEASTLY machine can play Skyrim in the absolute highest settings, without breaking a sweat. IN fact, I modded the game for MORE COWBELL and added super texture packs and visual mods. I want to be creamated and buried in this pc.

My BEASTLY machine, chokes on certain parts of swtor. Things moving far off in the distance move at what appears to be slower framerate then things right in front of me, especially mobs with lots of movement like bird thingys flapping their wings. In a few cases, I have wandered into an area that just outright blew up the graphics and I could see through the world.

Swtor has some bugs. Oh yes, it does.

I would not blame your computer on this one Eric. Turn down the settings, increase the airflow, and hope that bioware/ea patches their many many misdemeanors in this game.

If the game wasn't giving me such an epic good time and story, I'd have tossed it in the trashbin by now.

[Tierant]

Well, i removed the heat sink and fan from the GPU and gave it a good cleaning. I think the stock cooler isn't working too well (it's stock), so I'll probably look into replacing it soon.

After I cleaned everything and turned it on, I was hitting around 90 degrees celsius on Tatooine. Ironically, when I went out to the Dune Sea, my temp went down to 85-ish. When I came back to everywhere else, it went back up. So either there's less work to render out in the Dune Sea, or else it's definitively a bug.

I also got a small fan I'm blowing into the air vent and that's brought temperatures down a bit. The only downside now is noise from the stock cooler fan (since I upped the fan speed to about 80% usage).

[Laz]

I can't remember which card's had this but I know there were some cards that had a "Quiet Run Mode" that would reduce fan speed if your card was at certain preset levels built into the drivers/software. Nvidia had some software you could use to manually control it but I never like it. You can also manually control nearly every aspect of your Nvidia cards wth Riva Tuner Software , it's free 3rd party software that lets you control everything from over clocking to controling fan speeds on your vid card. There are also a number of tutorials on the site for how to use it as well as beginner guides

[Laz]

I found this little program seems to work rather well for measuring the temperature and stats of your system (as well as controlling them if you want). It requires almost no configuration and works out of the box. It's a good way to test if your CPU and vid card are getting to hot.

It's called Speed Fan, it's also freely distributed so you don't have to buy anything.

If people are willing to try it (or if you already have a way to measure Vid Card Temperature I'd like to hear what some average vid card temperature's are when play Star Wars for approx 1 hour.

Remember to get your info off the charting options though (unless your playing in window mode) as when you tab out to check the temperature your GPU stops processing and it drops the temp throwing off the results.

After about an hour mine Measured at around 110 C same as Tierant with a GeForce 7800 GTX  on my older box.

Edit: I happened across a tid bit that some people saw an improvement by turning on V-sync in Full Screen Mode, this limits the output frame rate to your monitor refresh rate (reducing the strain on your vid card)