I'm curious around what temp people get concerned about their GPU? Currently my AMD shows it is at 77C (172F), to me that is hot, but the fan speed is set to auto and only on 33%. I hit manual and pushed it to 100% and she quickly dropeed into the 50's. At what point to I need to be concerened? Activity on the card is jumping from around 65% to 80%.

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Everything below 80°C is fine.
Mine is running with auto settings at 51% fan speed and 71°C

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

I keep my fan speed at 65% and it keeps the GPU in the high 40's to mid 50's.

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

My GPU generally sits around 70°c, the fan speed ramping up automatically as the ambient temperature increases.

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Grant
Darwin NT

A reply not based upon any scientific data that I can reference, but I have to think that long term, cooler=better, regarding the expected longevitiy of the product.

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A reply not based upon any scientific data that I can reference, but I have to think that long term, cooler=better, regarding the expected longevitiy of the product.

You're right, the rule of thumb is that a 10° C reduction about doubles the life of electronic parts (based on the Arrhenius equation). OTOH, the card dies if the fan fails so max cooling might actually decrease longevity.

Keeping the card alive until any user would consider it obsolete can probably be done with compromise settings. But I do wonder if the automatic fan settings may be somewhat on the slow side both because many users are interested in quiet and because the manufacturer's idea of when the card will be obsolete may be sooner than many user's idea.

                                                                    Joe

I like to keep mine under 70c
because its a number i picked out of the air a while ago coz it seemed about right,
no other reason for it.

A reply not based upon any scientific data that I can reference, but I have to think that long term, cooler=better, regarding the expected longevitiy of the product.

You're right, the rule of thumb is that a 10° C reduction about doubles the life of electronic parts (based on the Arrhenius equation). OTOH, the card dies if the fan fails so max cooling might actually decrease longevity.

Keeping the card alive until any user would consider it obsolete can probably be done with compromise settings. But I do wonder if the automatic fan settings may be somewhat on the slow side both because many users are interested in quiet and because the manufacturer's idea of when the card will be obsolete may be sooner than many user's idea.

                                                                    Joe

a replacement fan for an ATI/AMD GPU is $15 online. An aftermarket HSF much quieter than the original costs around $50 A gpu is much more expensive. I'd rather burnout a fan than the GPU

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

I'd rather burnout a fan than the GPU

True! but how do you catch a dead fan before the GPU burns out, too? I would think that it would only take a few minutes at most before the GPU itself goes up in smoke....

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Joe[/pre][/quote]
a replacement fan for an ATI/AMD GPU is $15 online. An aftermarket HSF much quieter than the original costs around $50 A gpu is much more expensive. I'd rather burnout a fan than the GPU[/quote]

What if the fan burns out when no one is home? will the GPU shut down and prevent it from damaging itself if it gets too hot (without any additional 3rd party software installed)?

Curious if people are noticing their GPU's lasting a certain amount of time before failing (1 year, 2 years)?

On my Nvidia set up I'm not too concerened because I have a lifetime warranty from EVGA on the card, but the AMD card is OEM, although if it does crash I would upgrade it and try to find another one of those warranty deals (not sure if they are still offered or offered on those cards).

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but how do you catch a dead fan before the GPU burns out, too? I would think that it would only take a few minutes at most before the GPU itself goes up in smoke....

Fans usually don't die "suddenly" out of nothing, they first start to vibrate because of bad bearing, the stronger the vibration, the slower they will run. That means usually you should have few days to replace them, before it gets critical, if you need more time, you can even put little oil on them (in the bearing) and get some days or even weeks more, where the fan runs like new again. Sure, it can happen, that a fan dies suddenly, but I'd say that's less common (at least from my experince).

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but how do you catch a dead fan before the GPU burns out, too? I would think that it would only take a few minutes at most before the GPU itself goes up in smoke....

Fans usually don't die "suddenly" out of nothing, they first start to vibrate because of bad bearing, the stronger the vibration, the slower they will run. That means usually you should have few days to replace them, before it gets critical, if you need more time, you can even put little oil on them (in the bearing) and get some days or even weeks more, where the fan runs like new again. Sure, it can happen, that a fan dies suddenly, but I'd say that's less common (at least from my experince).

I've cleaned and reseated a GTX470 full of dust and replaced the stock fan of
the Q6600 for a better one, it has ran for 18 month at ~100C!

Well, I believe the actual temp reading is a bit too high, but a measurement with a thermo-coupled device, gives a 95C reading.

So far I only burned a 9800GTX+ and a HD4850 GPU, both when the fan failed,
the FERMI/KEPPLERs and AMD/ATI 5000 series and up, are better protected.
Also use SmartDoctor* to set GPU core-clock a bit lower, 1200MHz in
stead of 1440MHz. *Or EVGA Precision.

The i7-2600+ 2 HD5870 GPUs now runs with one side open and an external
15 inch fan. Since I increased the base-clock from 100MHz to 102MHz, that's
actually 2x 34-38(multiplier)= 68 to 76MHz. DDR3 1632MHz DRAM also gets hot,
85C, 20C more as the 800MHz(FSB=1602MHz) DDR2 DRAM on my 2 NVidia hosts.

The 5870 GPUs were on 88C and the (i7-2600)CPU (stock-cooler) at ~82C with 6
out of 8 cores used(Docking@home), 2 cores are driving the 2 GPUs.

Even doing 1 Einstein and 1 SETI MB WU at a time, each using half a GPU.
Whitout making errors ofcoarse.
I'm more worried about errors at (too) high temps. The up-to-date CPUs and
GPUs appear to be better protected against too high temps.

To protect the mobo from burning, don't draw power from the PCI(e) slots
and/or USB 1.1/2.0/3.0 connectors.(Charching devices from USB ports is not a
good idea).
They all are Multilayer and long and thin connections can really get
too hot and burn, beyond repair.
(The INTEL DP67BG mobo has options to OC, but also can limit the CPU current to
97Amps f.i., protecting the CPU and mobo).

As a rule of thumb, I use 90C* as the max safe temp, preferrebly lower.
*If no errors occur.

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For those of you that like to read, but hardly ever (or never) post:

a) You should post!:)
b) Keep in mind that all the above advice is for tower/desktop PCs. Laptops can run a lot hotter and still live a healthy & long life. A crude rule of thumb is if you here your laptop fan going into turbo/lift-off mode, it's time to clean the vents.

I have NEVER lost a CPU due to overheating.
All Intel here, but I ran a few Sempron toasters back in the day.

The one and only CPU I ever lost was due to condensation behind the chip corroding the contact lands in my Frozen Penny.

It is almost impossible to fry a CPU.

They will shut down to self protect before that happens.

I used to like a 60c limit on temps, but if you check the specs on most chippys, they are spec'd for a maximum way above that.

I always defaulted to smoke mode. But, that always came from the mobo, not the CPU.

GPUs are a different animal.

They can, and will self destruct when driven wild.
I have lost a couple.
Try to minimize the damage by setting a 120mm fan next to them in the cases, which are all side-off.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Oh its possible Mark.

I fried one maybe 10 years ago.
You just need to try very hard LOL

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Oh its possible Mark.

I fried one maybe 10 years ago.
You just need to try very hard LOL

LOL.....dammit....I shall have to try harder.

Realistically speaking though, I don't even push the CPUs that hard anymore.
The GPUs do all the real work now, so OCing the crap out of the CPUs is not so much of an issue anymore.

I got my reputation here on Seti back in the day by being able to OC every single clock cycle out of every CPU I owned.

Now, not so much. There are users in my own team that can whack the kitties with a single 690.

Things have changed.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

Oh its possible Mark.

I fried one maybe 10 years ago.
You just need to try very hard LOL

LOL.....dammit....I shall have to try harder.

Realistically speaking though, I don't even push the CPUs that hard anymore.
The GPUs do all the real work now, so OCing the crap out of the CPUs is not so much of an issue anymore.

I got my reputation here on Seti back in the day by being able to OC every single clock cycle out of every CPU I owned.

Now, not so much. There are users in my own team that can whack the kitties with a single 690.

Things have changed.

A 690 cost about a grand.

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A 690 cost about a grand.

Yeah, that's why the kitties are stuck in second gear.

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"Time is simply the mechanism that keeps everything from happening all at once."

just completed dismantle and cleaning of the pc for the up coming winter months .. currently running an XFX R7970 at 1000MHz clock and 1425MHz memory clock @ 100% load with manual fan setting @ 65% and a stabilized gpu temp @ 61C with ambient temp @ 76 F

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I have nVidia GTX 460 with 2 GB of RAM.

I run 7 gpu work units, it consumes 1.8 GB.

GPU-z shows that:
GPU Temp: 71°C
Fan Speed (RPM): 1500 RPM
Fan Speed (%): 34%

As you can see, if I want to tinker with fan speed settings, I can push the fan speed higher (50 or 60% for examples) and bring the temperature down a few degrees. As is, even though the program reports 71°C, the fan runs at only 34% of available speed.

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