Strange Overheating Issue HD 7870

[RevOne]

Greetings folks

I picked up this XFX HD 7870: XFX Double D FX-787A-CDFC Radeon HD 7870 GHz Editi...

Just finished installing it (I'm using the latest Catalyst 13.4 WHQL drivers), everything seemed to go smoothly... until I go to test it. At idle, I checked the temps using HWMonitor and things looked beautiful - 28°C. I thought "Great! Gonna have a good time overclocking this puppy." The temp reading was the same in the Catalyst Control Center.

However, using Furmark for the first with the GPU fresh out of the box (no OC'ing at all), the temps jumped up to 91°C in a matter of a two minutes or so.
Naturally, I killed Furmark before it got any higher, before it killed the card.

I've checked both fans and they're going strong. I turned the fan up manually to 100%, ran Furmark again and before I knew it, I once again went from ~28°C idle to 85°C within a moments of starting the test (until I had to manually quit Furmark again).

I'm using a Cooler Master Elite 430 case w/ 4 120mm case fans and an Antec Kuhler 620 on the CPU. My fan configuration is: Top = x1 fan, exhaust (will be adding a second one to the top when it gets in later this week); Bottom = 1 x Fan, intake; Side Panel = 1 x fan, intake; Front 1 x Fan, intake. The Antec 620 has only one fan, running exhaust on the back of the rad.

My XFX HD 6850 with only one fan on it (the card I just removed) would typically top out at no more than 68°C, and idle in the mid-30's.

Anyone have any ideas where I should start checking? I'm pretty sure that if I remove the cooler, it voids the warranty.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[erocker]

I'm guessing that the thermal paste on the card is dried up. It'll do fine at idle and not so much under load.. especially ludicrous load like FurMark. Contact the manufacturer and ask them what to do so you don't void your warranty.

If there are no stickers on any of the screws, go ahead and replace the TIM.

 

[Jack1n]

What voltage does it run at loaded?

 

[Mussels]

or it could just be running hot. one of my 5870's on its stock cooler loads at 95C in crysis 3 and furmark.

 

[RevOne]

Thank you both for your willingness to lend a hand. Very much appreciated

Here's a screenshot showing what the voltages and temps hit during a ten minute Battlefield 3 run (settings at 1920 x 1080, Ultra Preset)

 

[Mussels]

i'd say replace the thermal paste and treat it like a hot card/card with a weak cooler.

 

[RevOne]

or it could just be running hot. one of my 5870's on its stock cooler loads at 95C in crysis 3 and furmark.

Yeah, could be. I'm looking into seeing if anyone else has reported these kind of results, particularly under Furmark. I'm wondering if my case fan config is contributing to the problem. Like the card is trying to dump hot air into the case, but the side and bottom fan are pushing it right back toward the card. My HD 4890 was a hot one too. Never tested it, but I was pretty sure that card could make one heck of a grilled cheese sammich

Gonna have to pull the card and check for that warranty sticker I suppose. Could of sworn I read in a review on this card while I was researching before the purchase that the reviewer said that sticker was there. I'll report back either way.

Thanks everyone

 

[Jack1n]

I think your temps are fine considering the voltage,whats the ambient temp in the room that you have your PC in?

 

[RevOne]

I think your temps are fine considering the voltage,whats the ambient temp in the room that you have your PC in?

Thanks Yeah, the Battlefield 3 test didn't look that bad, I suppose... was just expecting more out of the "Double D" cooler. That Furmark business has me worried though. Gonna roll back to like Catalyst 13.2 real quick just for the sake of ruling out a possible driver issue (have heard things about 13.4 locking some users' systems up anyway).

 

[Mussels]

Thanks Yeah, the Battlefield 3 test didn't look that bad, I suppose... was just expecting more out of the "Double D" cooler. That Furmark business has me worried though. Gonna roll back to like Catalyst 13.2 real quick just for the sake of ruling out a possible driver issue (have heard things about 13.4 locking some users' systems up anyway).

furmark maxes out the GPU 100% in a way few or no games ever will. its going to make temps way hotter than normal use - thats why its a stress test in the first place.

 

[RevOne]

furmark maxes out the GPU 100% in a way few or no games ever will. its going to make temps way hotter than normal use - thats why its a stress test in the first place.

Yeah, this bad boy is hitting what my HD 4890 used to in Furmark. Guess I was spoiled by the 6850, since it wasn't that powerful. Are GCN cards known to run this hot generally?

EDIT: Ambient room temp is 22°C (72°F)

 

[Jack1n]

Yeah, this bad boy is hitting what my HD 4890 used to in Furmark. Guess I was spoiled by the 6850, since it wasn't that powerful. Are GCN cards know to run this hot generally?

EDIT: Ambient room temp is 22°C (72°F)

No GCN arent hot but 1.22v is rather high for this card,my card is locked at 1.25v and with 30c ambient it hits as high as 88c after a couple hours of bf3 (thats in gaming not in furmark)and windforce 3 is no joke of a cooler.

 

[RevOne]

No GCN arent hot but 1.22v is rather high for this card,my card is locked at 1.25v and with 30c ambient it hits as high as 88c after a couple hours of bf3 (thats in gaming not in furmark)and windforce 3 is no joke of a cooler.

Hmm,,, just going through the customer reviews on Newegg reveals that this is actually quite common with this 7870. I'm actually getting "good" temps compared to what some people are reporting up there (ranging from the upper 70's to upper 80's for most people). Wish I would have combed through those reviews more carefully rather than focusing on professional reviews for the card. That's normally what I do - read what real world customers have to say about products; but this time I didn't do it as much as I normally do. I was primarily concerned with benchmarks and whether or not it was a powerful enough upgrade for me coming from the 6850. Lesson learned, I suppose.

I'll investigate a little further, pull the card and look at it and run some more stress tests and see what I come up with. Might just be a hot card, like you aptly surmised, Jack1n. Good call. Thanks everyone for your help! :thumbs: Gonna tinker around a bit and report back what I find By the way, all I've got is Arctic Silver 5... can anyone recommend a good TIM to pick up?

 

[Jstn7477]

The XFX DD cooler is different on each card, the 7950/7870/7850 are recursively stripped down from the 7970 version of the cooler. I found the cooler to be insufficient on my 7950, and of course the card was clocked at 800 MHz out of the box so obviously 1150 MHz was way too much. I bought a Gigabyte 7950, took the Windforce 3 off and slapped it on my reference 7970, and put the XFX cooler on my Gigabyte 7950 which isn't used for gaming. My original XFX 7950 has an Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 on it but I didn't want to remove it due to glued on heatsinks.

 

[Jack1n]

I really dont think replacing TIM will do any thing for you,maybe 2-3c at best,start by setting a more aggressive fan profile,if you intend to over clock see what the max clocks are for the voltage you have right now and and then see how much you can lower the voltage without losing the clocks,if you dont intend to over clock,see how much you can lower the voltage and keep the card stable at stock clocks.

 

[Mussels]

I really dont think replacing TIM will do any thing for you,maybe 2-3c at best,start by setting a more aggressive fan profile,if you intend to over clock see what the max clocks are for the voltage you have right now and and then see how much you can lower the voltage without losing the clocks,if you dont intend to over clock,see how much you can lower the voltage and keep the card stable at stock clocks.

i saved 10C going from stock TIM to MX3 on my 5870 about 2 weeks ago. sometimes the stock TIM isnt applied properly.

 

[Jack1n]

i saved 10C going from stock TIM to MX3 on my 5870 about 2 weeks ago. sometimes the stock TIM isnt applied properly.

Yeah well after 3 years the stock TIM might get dry quite a bit,but his card is brand new so i doubt it will help him as much if at all.

 

[RevOne]

Very disappointed with the performance of this card's cooler. It almost makes you wonder why they bothered to put two fans on there. It's almost like they're happily twirling around and just peachy with letting the card reach up to 97°C only 6 or 7 minutes into the Furmark 1080p Burn In test. I know Furmark is meant to torture your card, but I've never seen it come so close to actually killing one; that it makes the entire cooler seem absolutely useless. As if its sole purpose is to exist for decoration. There's a roughly 70°C difference between idle and load readings and that's only because I cut the test short.

As long as it games okay, I think I'll be alright with it. But I can't honestly say I would personally recommend this particular card to anyone who even cares remotely about good temps. I don't know, I guess I sound pretty whiney about it right now and I apologize, but there's something comforting about knowing your components are running nice and cool that gives you that added sense of security that your system or parts of it are not at constant potential risk of exceeding their rated TDP.

My rev C2 Phenom II 955 BE is a little space heater by nature and look at its temps with Prime95 going for roughly 20 minutes. I just wish I could say the same about my GPU. It would add to my peace of mind.



Sorry - didn't mean to come off as a complainer. Just a little disappointed with what I'm discovering about my new purchase is all. Happens sometimes, unfortunately to even the best of us.

Thanks for the assistance everyone. I really appreciate everyone's help

 

[Jack1n]

I have seen a lot of people complain about XFX's coolers lately,they really need to step up their game,try following the instructions i have posted in my previous post since i am positive they will make a difference.

 

[Grnfinger]

there was a thread about the poor performing XFX cards on another forum a few weeks back, complaining about poor cooling/over heating cards. I'll see if I can find that thread

 

[AlienIsGOD]

if you return it go Sapphire my 7870 idles at 34C and deosnt go over 65C gaming/crunching

 

[RevOne]

there was a thread about the poor performing XFX cards on another forum a few weeks back, complaining about poor cooling/over heating cards. I'll see if I can find that thread

Thanks for the head's up Gonna try to see if I find it using the search function.

Here's a quote copied & pasted from the XFX Support site. This is the answer you get from the FAQ's if you select to create a ticket and select the category related to temps:

1.) Normal operating temperature should be 30~95 Celsius. Most cards will idle in the 40's or 50's Celsius, and when under a gaming load run in the 70's to 80's . If running an extreme stress test or using the GPU to do OpenCL calculations the card can run into the lower 90's.


2.) When GPU temperature is over 95C, double-check the case fan/VGA fan. There is likely a failure in the fan/heatsink assembly. Clean out fan/heatsink with compressed air.

if you return it go Sapphire my 7870 idles at 34C and deosnt go over 65C gaming/crunching

Thanks Will DEFINITELY be keeping this in mind, After all, I was hoping I could Crossfire at some point in time with this card, but that clearly isn't feasible.

 

[Drakegore]

Got myself a 7870 DD last month and it's hot as hell. Even without OC. If I knew before, I would have bought MSI.

 

[shovenose]

MSI, HIS, or Sapphire for AMD cards. EVGA or Sparkle for nVidia cards. You will not have cooling issues anymore!

 

[AsRock]

there was a thread about the poor performing XFX cards on another forum a few weeks back, complaining about poor cooling/over heating cards. I'll see if I can find that thread

Seen a lot on newegg complaining but a lot of the times it's the users fault like bad ventilation or running crapware like furmark when the card was made for gaming.

I'm guessing that the thermal paste on the card is dried up. It'll do fine at idle and not so much under load.. especially ludicrous load like FurMark. Contact the manufacturer and ask them what to do so you don't void your warranty.

If there are no stickers on any of the screws, go ahead and replace the TIM.

Yeah that's one good thing about XFX in the US they allow you to remove the cooler..

To the OP make sure you register the card and it listed under your account still has they been changing systems and have lost so many records ( one being my 6770 ) which they are sorting out..

About about the overheating as long as it's not doing it in games it should be a none issue. And lets face it your card blows up they send you a new one anyways..