I recently underclocked my video card because of the wierd red low fps fraps was showing on max payne 2. It would lag occasionaly then jump back up to 50-60 fps. I then alt tab and check the temp when it lags me again. I see 79* celcius (it probaly dropped some so it plays at around 80-83*, oh and my vid card is a recent 6800 gs ddr3) . My gpu is now at 357 mhz from 350 and it still idles at 65 66 celcius with a fan on a stand at low close to it and 3 fans in the case. I guess I need some sort of real cooling product but I don't kno what to get. I want something that will last me so I'll be able to use it on my feature video card. OH ALSO I ran this crazy program rthdribl. Google it. It is this test and it puts any video card to its knees. I tried it out and my temps were like 86
degrees. Does this look like a good buy? http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga2.php?idx=40 or Should I go with cooling paste to fix this problem? (i dunno what its called)And the price is kinda hefty. Anyway its really bad when a gpu like mine idles at like 63 * these days when I read on google people get like 56 * under load which is crazy with thermal paste. This looks like a great deal http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835100007 . Should I go for that? Can it be as effective as the 33 dollar fan? I would buy a heatsink but Im afraid installing it will be too much of a difficulty. Any suggestions?

when Fraps shows red fps, it means it recording the gameplay, and thats possibly why you get low fps. normal fraps fps are shown in yellow.

check your fraps settings, especially the keys you use to show the fps, and look in the fraps program folder. if fraps is recording, it saves it by default in its program folder.

see if that helps lower the temps. btw, the 6800 is a powerful card, that could also be a reason for the high temps. i have a 6600gt, and it idles as 50c.

I understand what your saying about fraps but no how to lower my temp by doing it. Also it records the fps non stop not hot key needed. I want to buy cooling to lower the temps of my card so I can overclock it and play games without it topping 70 * . I just don't know if 5.00 dollar arctic silver paste will do the trick.

arctic silver will do a good job of cooling.

I would consider

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118117

Heard lots of great review on this fan with some artic silver 5

There's A Metal Piece Blocking My Expansion Bay. Iwant To Install A Dvd Burner. Does Anyone Know How To Take Out This Metal Piece??

There's A Metal Piece Blocking My Expansion Bay. Iwant To Install A Dvd Burner. Does Anyone Know How To Take Out This Metal Piece??

hi, you have a thread about this here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic51014.html

please do not hijack other peoples threads. :)

Before you do anything, check to see if your video card's heat sink is clogged with dust. I recently had a similar problem and it was caused by dust build-up. Those closed in heatsinks on the newer cards get clogged much easier than the older ones did.

What should GPU temps be btw? I have a geforce 6600 256mb ram and it idles at 62 degrees celcius???

What should GPU temps be btw? I have a geforce 6600 256mb ram and it idles at 62 degrees celcius???


Start you own thread so others can see it.


It's high if that's a bit high though for ideling.

I would consider

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118117

Heard lots of great review on this fan with some artic silver 5


I used it on my X800XT, and I managed to get it overclocked almost 20% without even reaching the usual temps pre-overclocking.

Seriously recommend it if you've got good case ventilation. I found out that if your case ventilation is bad, you're better off with the Arctic Silencer. Bear in mind you probably want to keep the next 2 PCI slots empty too. Once all that done, this mean fan performs better than a Silencer.

Is the artic silencer just another fan? Only slot I have open is the most bottom one but it has a small black box looking thing covering the first part of it. Wierd. I think I= have alot of room to apply artic silver paste on the bottom f my card is my heat sink and on the top theres a small black 4 sided flat piece nailed on to it. I guess this collects heat also. If I get the fan crossfire where do I connect it to the 4 pin connector coming from my psu. Since i'v been saving all my money earned for so far for next year when the new systems come out can this fan be used for future use? Probaly yes right? Thanks for the help I'll probaly get the fan and the 5 dollar artic silver paste.

Edit: does the fan come with cooling paste? Which lowers card load temps more fans or cooling paste?
I guess I have a medium sized case its large but not alot of room inside of it. Where would this card go exactly. My motherboards heat sink are little rectangular things sticking out and their right above my video card and its metal plate on the top. So if the fan attaches to the metal plate

I'm not very sure which fan you're thinking of putting on your card there.

If you don't have spare slots on the casing/mobo, I wouldn't suggest the Zalman, cos the hot air will just pool around the fan. Instead, go with the Arctic Silencer (AS) cos the AS will vent the hot air out. Bear in mind that the AS will take up an extra slot as well, and you probably can't transfer the AS from one card to another (unless you're getting an exact card, which defeats the purpose of an upgrade). The AS is designed specifically for one GPU, which is why there's so many versions of AS.

On the thermal paste issue, the fans will cool the card down alot, and the thermal paste will help with this cooling. Fans, if used properly, will cool the card down as much as 20-25C cooler than stock cooling, while the correct thermal paste will reduce temps by a furthur 5-8C. I know I've enjoyed a total of about 30C cooler GPU from a VF700-Cu + Arctic Silver 5 (AS5) combo, but I had a good case ventilation and space.

If you've read this forums alot, you'd find that we at techspot swear by AS5. And we're not the only ones around which do this.

p.s. Thermal pastes can be used on any thermal conducting surface, GPU, CPU, NB, SB, Ramsinks, other electronics, etc.

edit: AS5 is electrically conductive, make sure you follow the application instructions to the detail. Getting some on electical points can permanently damage your system. Make sure they stay clear of capasitors.

thing is I have no room for this fan. My card is the 3rd slot the highest one and all the slots are taken until the very last one at the bottom. Any my mobo heat sink is right above my 6800 gs and above that is a fan thats like 4 inches wide (the case + fan) maybe not 4 maybe like 2 and 3/4 inches . Are there any small powerful zalmans? The card that was suggested looks too big to fit my card. I guess my best bet is getting some arctic silver 5 cooling paste. Yes?

It'll help a little.

Or you can always venture into liquid cooling.

Also, you can always move the cards down to make space for an Arctic Silencer. Make sure you select the correct one.

It should fit if it says its for the 6800GS. or 6xxx, or something like that.

Anyway, the Arctic Silencer NV5 Rev 3 seem to fit all 6800 cards, but doesn't specify the GS. you can check out the specs tho: http://www.pccasegear.com/prod2928.htm

thing i dunno if it will fit in my case, Theres a mobo heat sink right above my agp card and then a fan above that. So how big is this thing?

Did you check the heatsink for dust yet? I'm 85% sure that's your HEAT problem but i'm not so sure the FPS dips are from heat even though 80+ is high. The fps dips you're talking about sound like a program running in the background like an antivirus program or kazaa or something.

Go to the "Run" box in the start menu and put in msconfig. Click on the last tab and that will tell you what is loading every time windows starts.

nah the heat sink is totally dust free. my start up programs are these and I usually close the ones that I see in my start up taskbar when they pop up. I want to get a really good cooling fan I have 60 dollars to spend but t seems that any fan I buy it won't make a diffrence none of them will fit in my case. I wish I could take a picture but my digital camera is acting up. Heres a picture of my graphics card. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EB9UUQ/102-3327940-0143323?v=glance&n=172282 . On the back theres a small plastic plate. Its facing towards the sky though not downwards. Is that where the fan attaches to. If so it has to be a skinny fan or it will scrape up against my heat sink which sticks out of my mobo like this. Don't laugh please. http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?j025unlrwdc . So yeah where should the fan go. The image is looking at it from a upper-side perspective with a transparent case...

i haven't tried it myself, but you might want to consider this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835119014)

a stand alone all in one water cooler for your video card! can be mounted inside or outside of the case?? all for only $40!!! how cool is that :D

I don't have an overheating video card, but if I did, I would go with this baby, you cant beat the price for what it does.

Ok, lets take a step back for a second. I'm getting a little confused here about how much you understand about your video card.

A) Your card already has a very big heatsink and fan and that should be all it needs to keep it cool.

B) The heatinks/fans you're looking at are improvements but they replace the original heatsink. You'd have to take the original off and put the new one in it's place.

C) Arctic Silver isn't "cooling paste", it's a thermal paste and the ONLY thing it does is help heat transfer from the chip to the heatsink there fore allowing your heatsink to work better. It does nothing on it's own.


So the bottom line here is simply that something is keeping your stock heatsink/fan from working properly and 99.9% of the time it's one of the following two things.

1) Your card's fan is either dead or not getting enough power to work right. Do you have the card plugged into a 4-pin connector from your power supply?

2) Your giant cavernous heatsink has dust in it's tubes. You have to take the card out and either blow really hard through those tubes or blow some compressed air in there.

Caxus, I must say you've never replaced stock heatsinks and fans, have you? There is a huge difference in temps from a stock cooler and an aftermarket one.

Arctic Silver may not be cooling paste, but it will help reduce the temps on the card anyhow. But maybe we should still stress the fact that you'll need to use it with a heatsink and fan combo.

If you're going to venture into watercooling, better a whole setup, no point watercooling one component, and not watercooling the rest.

Bear in mind you should only consider watercooling the GPU and CPU, forget the rest, its more or less pointless. Video RAM shouldn't be watercooled neither according to the guys at www.extremeoverclocking.com, so you don't have to get a waterblock designed for a particular GPU.

No, i understand that the aftermarket ones, are in many cases, much better. My point was that his temps are abnormal and he probably doesn't NEED to buy a new heatsink to fix the problem. If he had normal temps and wanted to get even cooler then that's one thing. But it doesn't sound like that's the case. In his case it would be like buying a new car just because he has a flat tire. Besides, a lot of his attention seemed to be focused on the back of the chip where the clip that holds the heatsink on is. I think he needs to be focusing on his current heatsink and fan before deciding if he wants to upgrade.

About the arctic silver, it sounded like he was under the impression that it was something you spread on the chip to cool it and i just wanted to make sure that he understood that it was something that goes between the chip and the heatsink for better heat transfer.

Caxus is write. I thought you smear it on the back plate on the card or something lol...Anyway it is impossible for me to tell wether my card fan is on or off. Damn you PNY. But I can see a small green light coming from the bottom of the card near the fan that is on. So I guess that means I plugged it into the 4 pin power correctly thats plugged into my psu. Also my card came with a Y shaped 4 pin connector. Maybe the card came with the Y shaped connector not for sli support but as another plug into the PSU? Do you guys follow that? Right now the card is like 64 degrees Idle. I live in florida and its very hot in my houe atm (88 Farenheit) with no A/C and my big fan isn't on. Im about to shut down my pc so I didn't see the need. It could very well be that my fan is not on. But on cooler days my card temp would be like 62-63 degrees. I read owners with the 6600 gt get liek 66 degrees idle I kno its hot but if there fans are which im assuming is true then I guess this is just the normal temp for my video card. un cool; I guess my card is just crappy temp wise.

I live in florida and its very hot in my houe atm (88 Farenheit) with no A/CThat could be your problem right there. It sounds like you DO have it plugged in correctly. Those splitters are just for if you're out of 4 pin connectors you can split off from one of your drives or something.

I also just want to make absolutely sure that you've taken your card out of your computer and blown through the tubes in that heatsink.

the cards barely a month old. But i'll try it. Yeah it Could. Not to make sure you understand about the splitter. Its the another 4 pin attached to the connector . http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?j02g6vw15no Is this for dual video card support only or should I plug it into my psu also? From what you said it sounds that I shouldn't Just verifying. In a bit i'll turn off my pc and pull it out and blow the dust out of it like an N64. Maybe i'll see a slight improvment.

Yeah, that splitter is just to give you an extra connector if you're out.

If the card is only a month old then i'm sure it's not clogged with dust. I wouldn't bother pulling it out.

I don't know how hot Nvidia cards are supposed to run but my x800 was around 72 at full load so i don't think you're THAT hot. Once when my heatsink got clogged it got into the 90's before my motherboard started beeping and i didn't experience any slowdown at all, just warning beeps.

Your temps are most likely the result of your room temperature being 88 F. Your heatsinks and fans are only as good as the air thats blowing through them and 88 is pretty damn hot.

Also, do you use any programs that let you control the speed of your video card's fan? I know that ATI tray tools lets you control the fan speed of ATI cards.

My X800XT ran about the same temps, but with an aftermarket cooler (Zalman VF700-Cu), I managed to OC it almost 20% and keep it around 59-61C load. Thats how much difference a good aftermarket cooler can make.

Good call there Caxus, I thought it was kinda clear what thermal paste is. Either way, if D@nny had read the instructions for use, he would've found out how to use it anyway :P

I love the animation, but you could've saved us some time by just uploading a pic :D

Temps for 6800s seem to be in around the same area, probably not a problem, but you're just not used to seeing temps in that range, since CPU temps don't ever go there unless there's a problem.

D@nny, I don't think that's too hot, considering where you live and the card in question. I have a 6800 GT here and it's idling at 62degrees celcius right now. I think, though, that that's because I'm only powering it with a 305w psu :o Kirock even told me it'll eventually blow up! Anyway I think you could just get a case with a grill on it, and move the tower into a more open space if you can, see if that helps. What kind of power does you're psu have? I think mine(and yours maybe) idle so high because they're only just getting enough power.

since you live in a hot area, you should have good case cooling. if all you have on your case for cooling is the fan on the PSU, then that's not enough. you could add something like this to your case. they mount in an empty PCI slot and can help suck some heat off of your video card. it's not a replacement for good cooling, but it may help http://images10.newegg.com/NeweggImage/productimage/35-888-309-01.JPG

its good to put that in, but make sure the fan isn't anywhere near another fan thats also sucking in air, or you'd just do yourself harm.

It would be a better idea if you can get one that blows air in instead, but those are hard to find.

Thank you for all your responces and help. I might go and purchase the zalmax fan anyways unless you guys think that 79-84 * temp arn't really hurting my card. Only problem Ican think of is that when I buy it the zalmax fb 7000 (sorry it's early)won't have enough room around my video card to fit it in properly. I do have any extra slot but it's marginally covered by this chip beneth it and it's all the way at the bottom. But I think it's safe to rip out since its like a phone line connector. Paranoid guy I think you hit it right on the spot too. My psu says it has a max for 295.4 watts. So If I get a new PSU and open a window once in a while my problems will be solved. Anyone know how many watts will be needed to power the new cpu's and gpu's coming out next year? (goes newegg shopping)

its good to put that in, but make sure the fan isn't anywhere near another fan thats also sucking in air, or you'd just do yourself harmmodels like the pictured one are pretty short and wouldn't be right on top of the video card's fan, it would suck out some of the hot air that the video card's fan blows away so that it doesn't just recycle the same hot air again.

It would be a better idea if you can get one that blows air in instead, but those are hard to find.I have never seen one, it would be a good idea though.

Do to the ATX standard, all video cards (that I know of at least) have their heatsinks and fans underneath the card. many cases do not have good airflow under the video card, which creates a "hotspot" where the heat produced by the GPU is just recycled constantly. The bottom of the case is also where most HDDs are located, which are another source of heat. If you have open PCI slots, you can remove the plate covers and cable tie an 80mm fan to it, this could help out alot if you have the space. just another idea.

My psu says it has a max for 295.4 watts. So If I get a new PSU and open a window once in a while my problems will be solved. Anyone know how many watts will be needed to power the new cpu's and gpu's coming out next year? (goes newegg shopping)
Yup, you and me are in the same boat :grinthumb Oh wait a minute that's a bad thing :( I'd say anything from a 400w from antec or the like will sort you out ok. You'll have no problems 'cause you can use that newegg shop you lucky American you. But here's a list of bad psu makers http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=792566
so don't get any of those.

that's a great link on good and bad power supplies there paranoid guy...

That site will be handy for future PSU questions :)

I can't take credit for that, I stole it from one of vnf4ultra's posts :angel:

I got this crazy idea. Get a better psu to power my pc better but instead of going threw all th hassle of having to take out my old psu ( I have a sony case) unplug it and plug the new one into the mobo but leave the psu outside of the case. My case is already open. Wouldn't that lower the overall heat of the case? Having the psu out of their? And better airflow if I take the other one out. Any flaws in this ?( oh yeah and another thing will higher end mobos next year still support 20 pin connectors?)

No. The case is supposed to provide airflow around needed areas. If this airflow is not there, its not going to help. The fans on the PSU suck hot air from the case and brings it out, at the same time cooling the PSU. So having the PSU out doesn't help.

My case is already open. Wouldn't that lower the overall heat of the case? Having the psu out of their? And better airflow if I take the other one out. Any flaws in thisif your case is already open, then it shouldn't matter either way, it will just look kind of silly, haha :D

oh yeah and another thing will higher end mobos next year still support 20 pin connectors?probably not, but any good PSU you buy now will have a 24 pin connector with a 20 pin adapter or it will have the last 4 pins removeable. adapters are available to convert it either way as well

I think that might be the source of your problem, try getting more case fans, and close the case up tight :D

I hardly have any room for any lol. I don't know wether I should buy a PSU yet. I have a damn a propriety psu that has a 3 pin connector for the fan. Are their ways around this. My uncle also has a sony. His psu just died and he told me that we have to get the psu's sony gives us and he's really mad about it. Besides having very small room in the case for a diffrent psu theres custom psu's require us that we can only get new ones from sony if we want the fan to work.

you can always modify the fan connectors, although that'll require some basic wiring skills....

Yeah, he lives across the ocean and he's making a big deal about it. Why is it connected to the mobo to power the PSU fan or the mobo fan? He told me he'd try to look for a psu to buy him before I fly over their and because of sonys small psu's will have to leave it outside. Do most psus have a 3 pin connector to most mobos. Or is this another diffrence in sony psunits.

Most mobos have 3pin connectors for fans. However, 3pin input to mobos is just about unheard of I guess. But all you need to do is to change the plug, and make sure you got the right voltages in the right points. Not very hard IMO, but I've done stuff like this before. Just need to get hold of your m/b layout.