insanely high 6800GT temps, suddenly :|

I have had a MSI 6800GT since 3 months ago. My temperatures had always been within the reasonable, about 55C idle and not over 72C under load. I even remember having overclocked it to 420 / 1100 and it never surpassed 78C.

But tonight, after updating the drivers to forceware 66.97 i checked out the idle temperature and it was around 64C. That scared the **** out of me, and I proceeded to test it with RTHDRIBL, Doom3 and Half-Life 2. My fears were confirmed and I saw it reach 95C (!) after a few minutes running RTHDRIBL. Half-Life 2 gave me no less than 92C. Everything at stock speed.

All kinds of self-induced paranoia have begun to torture me. Did i hold the fan blades too rudely while cleaning the card one month ago? I don't think that's the answer, I remember checking temperatures and even overclocking after that. Does the driver version have anything to do with it (that IS paranoia)? No, it doesn't, apparently, since I've stepped back to 66.31 and nothing has changed. The room temperature is in the mid-high 20's and obviously it hasn't varied much in one month, though my CPU temperatures are now some 4 or 5 degrees higher than they were a few weeks ago.

I know this card can endure (at least in theory) temperatures that high, but I'm afraid it could die much before it was expected to. What really worries me is the fact that I haven't been getting such temperatures from the beginning, which means the fan could have deteriorated. And so the card could be running near enough the frying point to decrease its lifespan, and far enough not to notice any anomalies. I have a carpet in the room and it's well known that doesn't exactly help dust issues. The fan didn't seem too dirty, though. Is there a way to measure the GPU fan speed?

I really don't know what to do. Truth is I haven't experimented any artifacts or hangups while playing, which is strange with such temperatures. And i've touched the card's heatsink and while it was surely hot, I had no trouble keeping my fingers on it. It occured to me that the card probes could be measuring inaccurately, but why would that happen all of a sudden? What in the world could make a GPU that worked normally rise 10C idle and 20C under load? I have considered getting a NV Silencer 5 and some Arctic Silver, but before that I thought I could use some advice.

People who use these on their 6800GT seem to be within 60's under load, mainly depending on air flow inside the case, i guess. I have two intake 80mm fans and one outtake 120mm fan. So, theoretically, if I purchase the new heatsink and thermal paste and still see temperatures around 80's (they'll probably drop at least a bit) with no artifacts, could I assume the temperature probes are ****ed up?

Update: I've tried to carefully overclock the card to 410/1080, and though the shown temperatures were monstrous, once again there were no artifacts or hangups! I bet people who overclock get these far before reaching 100C!

Any thoughts, theories, suggestions about this matter shall noticeably ease my worried mind

Thanks a lot

Question is the cards ambient tempature reading correctly?

it might be the new drivers are messing with the thernal probe readings. have you tried uninstalling the new drivers and reinstalling the old ones or an alternate driver?

now how does this look?

The fact that certain driver versions could change the temperature reading sounds a bit strange to me. I mean, in theory, the thermal probe should be measuring temperatures and then displaying them through the GPU properties panel or whatever, but without any software interference. Why would a new driver corrupt the information? Anyway I have already gone back to Forceware 66.31 and the nVIDIA control panel shows the same temperatures. Maybe it's something you can't fix just by reinstalling drivers. I was about to format the HD and install a Windows XP with built-in SP2 so it directly detects my 160gb in a single partition, so I guess it would be a great way of checking this

I have just downloaded ExperTool and well, surprise! It says in desktop conditions the GPU temperature is about 53C and ambient about 42C, while the nVIDIA control panel still is in the low 60's for the GPU and the same, 42, for ambient. Do you think ambient temperature for the GPU can differ noticeably from, for example, case temperature? It seems logical. I get 33C on the motherboard with PcProbe and 24C for the case with its built-in thermal sensor.

I apologize for any potential signs of shameful ignorance or incorrect use of English

damn thats hot...idk whats goin on there but sounds kinda weird