PNY 980 high temperature and crash/bluescreen when playing

[Hugol0l]

Hi,

I just bought a second hand PNY 980 that I thought would fit my bill but apparently it goes too hot for my system. It idles at around 60 celcius and then pushes up towards 80+ when running WoW:Shadowlands that shouldnt be too hard to run. Fans are constantly on 100%. I picked it apart and it looked clean inside, i also applied new thermal paste but the problem persist. My 970 have no problem running the same setup and runs the game at 21% fan speed and 60 celcius at same settings. What do you think can be wrong? The person i bought it from said it was sparsely used and only used for demo purposes.

 

[droopyRO]

60ºC in idle is way to much. Are you sure you applied the new paste correctly ? what are you using to monitor the temperature ?

 

[Deleted member 193596]

not correctly mounted heatsink.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

What paste did you use?

Also what is the cooling set up of your case?

 

[Hugol0l]

The heat sink is mounted as it was before the void seals were broken and I opened it up, and yes, 60 degrees in idle is way too much i think too, especially since the PNY version is supposed to be cooler? I checked the temperatures using both MSI Afterburner and GPU-Z. I also opened the case and felt the air around the card, to which I found that it was much hotter around the fan the furthest back on the card. Both fans spin well, what I can see.

The paste was Phanteks 4.5 W/m-k, but it was the same temperature with the original paste. I checked using MSI Afterburner to see if I could lower the clock as it seemed a little high (1255 Mhz IIRC), but that did essentially nothing to the temps.

I use a Corsair 330R Silenced case with a i5-7600k OCd to 4.2 GHz with a big Noctua double fan air cooler, admittedly pretty cramped beneath my desk however.

 

[Vya Domus]

There is something wrong with the way the heatsink is mounted and thus there is no proper contact between the cold plate and the GPU die. It could be that the person you bought it from did something to it and bent the heatsink somehow, although can't imagine how that can happen.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

remove the heatsink carefully and check the spread of paste on the heatsink.

If it looks even like the picture here then its making good contact.

if there is more on one corner or half of the heatsink then the cooler isnt mounted correctly.

 

[Hugol0l]

I opened it up again, looks fine to me. Applied paste as per the first picture then put it together again.

 

[Dinnercore]

I opened it up again, looks fine to me. Applied paste as per the first picture then put it together again.

This is not fine, see the corner where no paste is covering. On a bare die you need to fully cover the area. Manually spread the paste instead of using the big blob in the middle.

Are the thermal pads stock or did you replace them? They look rather thick but might be fine, I don't know the exact measurements for this card.

 

[Hugol0l]

The thermal pads are stock what i know since there were seals on the screws, but I admit that they seem thick!

The thermal pads are stock what i know since there were seals on the screws, but I admit that they seem thick!

I think I solved it actually, and you're gonna hate me for the solution: The cooler must have been bent/the thermal pads must have been to thick, so the screws closest to the die didnt actually screw into the bottom of the socket. I cut of some of the thermal pads and cut up a credit card for which i added some distancing (green pads in the photo) to the screws on the back of the gfx. With this, i was able to tighten the screws completely and the card now runs at 66% fans at 60 degrees celcius in WoW Shadowlands at highest settings. Do you still think it is too high fan/temp however?

 

[droopyRO]

60ºC during a game ? that is perfectly fine !

 

[Colddecked]

Not surprised it came from the factory like this, PNY not exactly known for quality control. But looks like you fixed it with something like a washer mod. Good job man, much better than stock now lol.