- Joined
- Jan 11, 2012
- Location
- North Carolina
(Sorry for the long-winded post, to skip to the meat of it, go down to the fourth paragraph.)
I was just rebuilding my Bulldozer rig and since my XFX HD 7850 2GB now resides in my i5 rig, I put in an ASUS HD 6850 I had lying around from a giveaway I won about a year ago.
The ASUS card was actually a replacement for the dud PowerColor "GoGreen!" HD 6750 (passively cooled) that I originally won, but since it was DOA they sent me this from their pile-o-parts they had around. I didn't complain, I'd rather have a 6850 than a 6750, wouldn't you?
So the ASUS card was a refurb, not brand new. It still came with CFX bridge and molex adapters, etc, but it was in a box sealed with tape that said something about it being Genuine ASUS Refurbished... or something like that. Anyway, I tested out the card originally, I have already been through one HD 6850 previously so I didn't try overclocking it or anything, just made sure it worked and stress tested it. This was over a year ago, but I remember it working fine and staying as cool as my last HD 6850, so I packed it back up and put it up in the classifieds here. Well, I went missing due to a major project and RT removed my thread since I was MIA, and now I actually have a use for this card anyway, so it all worked out.
Anyway, this card worked fine before and never overheated, but when I pulled it back out of the box and placed it in my comp and started 'er up! The GPU fan was turning fast enough it sounded like a jet! I checked in the Catalyst Control Center's Overdrive and I found the fan was set to manual control, 60% speed. So, I removed manual control and it slowed back down and I didn't hear it anymore. I did notice it was reporting an idle temp of about 52 degrees C, and thought that was kind of high, but I ignored it for now as I had to do a restart.
After the reboot, I opened up Furmark to put it under stress for a bit to see how temps were really doing. Sooner than Furmark could tell me the GPU was under load the fan revved back up, and the temp shot up to 100C and the card starts throttling to bring temps down a little and starts artifacting, so I stop Furmark and shut down immediately so I can remove the heatsink and check the thermal paste, and here's what I find: There's barely any on there at all! No, I'm not mad but I'm pretty sure that's how my GPU is feeling right now.
There's also something on the PCB. I don't know what it is but it's a little bit sticky. I don't have a pic of the back of the card but it's there too, and it's been there since I originally pulled it out of the box. I am about to clean up the thermal paste with some alcohol and I'll try it on the sticky stuff too. Then I'll report back with temps after fresh TIM is applied.
I was just rebuilding my Bulldozer rig and since my XFX HD 7850 2GB now resides in my i5 rig, I put in an ASUS HD 6850 I had lying around from a giveaway I won about a year ago.
The ASUS card was actually a replacement for the dud PowerColor "GoGreen!" HD 6750 (passively cooled) that I originally won, but since it was DOA they sent me this from their pile-o-parts they had around. I didn't complain, I'd rather have a 6850 than a 6750, wouldn't you?
So the ASUS card was a refurb, not brand new. It still came with CFX bridge and molex adapters, etc, but it was in a box sealed with tape that said something about it being Genuine ASUS Refurbished... or something like that. Anyway, I tested out the card originally, I have already been through one HD 6850 previously so I didn't try overclocking it or anything, just made sure it worked and stress tested it. This was over a year ago, but I remember it working fine and staying as cool as my last HD 6850, so I packed it back up and put it up in the classifieds here. Well, I went missing due to a major project and RT removed my thread since I was MIA, and now I actually have a use for this card anyway, so it all worked out.
Anyway, this card worked fine before and never overheated, but when I pulled it back out of the box and placed it in my comp and started 'er up! The GPU fan was turning fast enough it sounded like a jet! I checked in the Catalyst Control Center's Overdrive and I found the fan was set to manual control, 60% speed. So, I removed manual control and it slowed back down and I didn't hear it anymore. I did notice it was reporting an idle temp of about 52 degrees C, and thought that was kind of high, but I ignored it for now as I had to do a restart.
After the reboot, I opened up Furmark to put it under stress for a bit to see how temps were really doing. Sooner than Furmark could tell me the GPU was under load the fan revved back up, and the temp shot up to 100C and the card starts throttling to bring temps down a little and starts artifacting, so I stop Furmark and shut down immediately so I can remove the heatsink and check the thermal paste, and here's what I find: There's barely any on there at all! No, I'm not mad but I'm pretty sure that's how my GPU is feeling right now.
There's also something on the PCB. I don't know what it is but it's a little bit sticky. I don't have a pic of the back of the card but it's there too, and it's been there since I originally pulled it out of the box. I am about to clean up the thermal paste with some alcohol and I'll try it on the sticky stuff too. Then I'll report back with temps after fresh TIM is applied.