Adjusting fan thresholds on XFX HD5870

[kazriko]

I've had my XFX HD5870 card for 3 years now. Just recently it's started giving me issues with crashing. It happens across several games including Final Fantasy XIV and even simplistic Unity 3D games like Ballpoint Universe (which pushes the card at 100% even though it has really simple graphics.) The card has always run hot under load, usually hovering around 79 degrees C, but it hasn't had crashing problems at that temperature until recently. The fan doesn't start ramping up until it hits 80 degrees, usually hovering at around 25-30%.

With these games, I can prevent the video card from crashing most of the time by forcing the fan speed manually up to 55-60%. This keeps the card cooler, 60 degrees or so, but this is a bit of a hackish solution and I sent it that high just because I can't be constantly adjusting it by hand while I'm playing the game.

What I'd like to do is set the thresholds on the card so that it keeps the temperature below about 70 degrees, and adjusts the fan automatically to keep it there, but there doesn't seem to be any way to set temperature thresholds on the card at all. Is there any third party application I can use to set this, or some program I can run that will adjust the fan settings for me live?

 

[XL-R8R]

Firstly, welcome to TechPowerUp!


Second... have you tried cleaning the graphics card of all dust and blockages (hairs and so on) that get lodged on the aluminium fins over time? This will help a lot and is no doubt the reason behind the high temperatures.

If that doesn't work, you can download MSI Afterburner and set up fan profiles from within the programme its self.

 

[kazriko]

Firstly, welcome to TechPowerUp!


Second... have you tried cleaning the graphics card of all dust and blockages (hairs and so on) that get lodged on the aluminium fins over time? This will help a lot and is no doubt the reason behind the high temperatures.

If that doesn't work, you can download MSI Afterburner and set up fan profiles from within the programme its self.

The temperatures aren't actually any higher than they were when the card is new. They're still sitting at right around 79 degrees C, because that's where the fan actually kicks in and starts cooling it. It's just that now it's actually crashing at those temperatures, I think something has deteriorated in the chip itself because of 3 years of hard use at that 79 degrees. (Folding@Home and BitMinter)

Right now, I'm mainly just keeping my current PC limping along until the Kaveri chip is released, and then I'm building a whole new computer and buying a new video card. As of February next year, this system will be 4 years old. I'm shocked that it's still doing so well on current video games given its age.

I'll look into MSI Afterburner though, thanks for the info!

 

[kazriko]

If that doesn't work, you can download MSI Afterburner and set up fan profiles from within the programme its self.

Just an update.

I tried the MSI Afterburner tool last night, and it worked perfectly. It actually kept the GPU cooler than I expected, and only ran the fan at about 50%, so it wasn't like a jet engine. If they have this kind of attention to detail in their extra software, I'll definitely need to push MSI to the top of my list when buying a new video card. Thanks a lot for the info.