Geforce 8800GT Overheating even on Idle

[Miracus]

Hey guys,

I just don't understand why my SLI 8800GT's are constantly running at 74-80C just sitting on the desktop with nothing running, the cards are both Factory overclocked with a core speed of 670Mhz but despite that they should not be that high, especially in Idle. Even whilst SLI is disabled and one card lays dormant they still both sit at roughly 75C on Idle.

I used SpeedFan to check the temps, is that reliable? I've got the latest nVidia Drivers and have checked Idle speeds under three different OS's; Win7, WinVista 64x and WinXP 64x, but they all get the same result.

Anyone got any ideas???

Cheers

 

[RX-7]

do you have the fan speed turned up at all, if not you can get rivatuner and kick it up a bit

 

[DrPepper]

Those temps are quite good for SLI on stock coolers. Considering one card on stock cooling is supposed to run about 90 degree's.

However if you want to reduce the temps you could add in a 120mm fan nearby or replace the TIM on the GPU's if you want.

 

[Cheeseball]

Are the cards sandwiching each other closely (since they're in SLi)? Follow DrPepper's advice and point a fan toward both intakes of the cards.

 

[Miracus]

The Cards are two PCI slots apart, so there's plenty of air in between, however the lower GPU is sandwich against my Sound blaster X-Fi, according to speed fan my lower GPU normally sits about 3-4 degrees higher than the upper GPU which would make sense.

I've had the 4 spare PCI plates at the back of my PC removed with an external 160mm fan blowing cool air straight across both GPU's intakes for some time now but the most it will do is drop them a degree or two.

The thing is though a couple of months back I checked the temps with Riva tuner and there was nothing out of the ordinary, the cards sat comfortably at around 45 - 55C during Idle, which is no different to what i'm doing now but they're sitting much higher.

I've just turned my comp on this morning after being turned off all night at -2 degree temps outside and I've watched both cards (with SLI turned off i might add) slowly rise in temperature during the time I've typed this Post, they are both now sitting on 74 / 71C having just visited a website and typed a post, that just seems a little abnormal.

could it be a driver problem? I don't know how, cos I just updated to the latest 190.38 drivers but could it be like a clash with registry entries from older drivers?

 

[DrPepper]

Those temps are honestly fine. My single GTX260 would sit about 80-90 at full load and that's one card. If they do break for any reason you could definately RMA them but asfaik they are fine

 

[KH0UJ]

My 8800 idles on 61 C, full load on 87 C on stock cooler, I switched to active cooling now its 43C full load on 60C+ @ 100% fan speed, damn its hot

 

[DrPepper]

These Accelero S1's are fantastic coolers even when the are passive as you can add fans onto them for even better cooling.

http://www.arctic-cooling.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=2_&mID=105

 

[Bundy]

The Cards are two PCI slots apart, so there's plenty of air in between, however the lower GPU is sandwich against my Sound blaster X-Fi, according to speed fan my lower GPU normally sits about 3-4 degrees higher than the upper GPU which would make sense.

I've had the 4 spare PCI plates at the back of my PC removed with an external 160mm fan blowing cool air straight across both GPU's intakes for some time now but the most it will do is drop them a degree or two.

The thing is though a couple of months back I checked the temps with Riva tuner and there was nothing out of the ordinary, the cards sat comfortably at around 45 - 55C during Idle, which is no different to what i'm doing now but they're sitting much higher.

I've just turned my comp on this morning after being turned off all night at -2 degree temps outside and I've watched both cards (with SLI turned off i might add) slowly rise in temperature during the time I've typed this Post, they are both now sitting on 74 / 71C having just visited a website and typed a post, that just seems a little abnormal.

could it be a driver problem? I don't know how, cos I just updated to the latest 190.38 drivers but could it be like a clash with registry entries from older drivers?

what are your fan speeds and temps at idle, then at load and back to idle again?