Radeon HD 6850 Overheating

[Wiggleplum]

Hello everyone,

I have an XFX Radeon HD 6850 1GB DD, and I have been having some serious heat issues. It has warmed up here lately, nothing crazy (rarely gets over 80 here), but I have no A/C and have to just keep the windows open. In the last week or so, while playing Wolfenstein, I noticed that I would get occasional stuttering, not to mention breaking out into a sweat from the heat radiating from my desktop. Started investigating tonight, and noticed that my idle temps are about 56 when I force the fan to run at a constant 100%. Under load, (Furmark and OCCT), it jumps pretty quickly to 100~. it hovers here a couple minutes, then slowly gets up to 102, and the core clock drops down to 775 from 900. After a few minutes I am at 105 and the clock will drop to 300 until the temps drop, and the process repeats. I am assuming these core speed drops are whats causing my problems while in-game. I took off the heatsink, cleaned it (wasnt dirty to begin with), and reseated the heatsink with some Ceramique II, which is all I have, using the spread method. Tested it, and there is little to no change. Cleaned off the paste, and used the pea method, and let the heatsink spread it. Same.

Could ambient temps really be causeing this? Like it said, it rarely gets above 78-80 outside. Not much humidity. I am using a CM storm case. One 200MM on the front as intake. Another 200MM on top back as exhaust. Closed water cooling system on processor with 2 120mm fans acting as exhaust on the radiator.

Thanks everyone.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Hello everyone,

I have an XFX Radeon HD 6850 1GB DD, and I have been having some serious heat issues. It has warmed up here lately, nothing crazy (rarely gets over 80 here), but I have no A/C and have to just keep the windows open. In the last week or so, while playing Wolfenstein, I noticed that I would get occasional stuttering, not to mention breaking out into a sweat from the heat radiating from my desktop. Started investigating tonight, and noticed that my idle temps are about 56 when I force the fan to run at a constant 100%. Under load, (Furmark and OCCT), it jumps pretty quickly to 100~. it hovers here a couple minutes, then slowly gets up to 102, and the core clock drops down to 775 from 900. After a few minutes I am at 105 and the clock will drop to 300 until the temps drop, and the process repeats. I am assuming these core speed drops are whats causing my problems while in-game. I took off the heatsink, cleaned it (wasnt dirty to begin with), and reseated the heatsink with some Ceramique II, which is all I have, using the spread method. Tested it, and there is little to no change. Cleaned off the paste, and used the pea method, and let the heatsink spread it. Same.

Could ambient temps really be causeing this? Like it said, it rarely gets above 78-80 outside. Not much humidity. I am using a CM storm case. One 200MM on the front as intake. Another 200MM on top back as exhaust. Closed water cooling system on processor with 2 120mm fans acting as exhaust on the radiator.

Thanks everyone.

What is the voltage on that card?
My MSI R6850 ran fine at 920 Mhz with stock voltage of 1150mV.

Voltage had a huge impact on the temps of my 6850.

 

[Wiggleplum]

Looking at GPU-Z, the VDDC is 1.175. I don't believe it changes at all depending on the load. Should I decrease the voltage?

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Looking at GPU-Z, the VDDC is 1.175. I don't believe it changes at all depending on the load. Should I decrease the voltage?

Sure. Lower the clocks down to 860 Core 1100 Mhz memory and the voltage to 1.150

Then run your games and see if that helps, or if it crashes.

Although TBH, I suspect very bad mount or dead fan.
Check those as well

 

[Wiggleplum]

Sure. Lower the clocks down to 860 Core 1100 Mhz memory and the voltage to 1.150

Then run your games and see if that helps, or if it crashes.

Although TBH, I suspect very bad mount or dead fan.
Check those as well

What is the best method for adjusting voltage? AMD Overdrive doesn't have the option.

By bad mount, do you mean I should try and reseat the heatsink? Both fans are running at the moment.

Thanks

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

What is the best method for adjusting voltage? AMD Overdrive doesn't have the option.

By bad mount, do you mean I should try and reseat the heatsink? Both fans are running at the moment.

Thanks

Use afterburner.

ya retry heat sink mount, but this time, don't spread the thermal paste.
Clean it up with q-tips and rubbing alcohol.

FYI, I used the "X" pattern on my 6850 (just make a little x that's all). No need to spread it out, and it worked great.

Fan I meant the fan on the GPU. Sometimes they fail.

 

[Wiggleplum]

Use afterburner.

ya retry heat sink mount, but this time, don't spread the thermal paste.
Clean it up with q-tips and rubbing alcohol.

FYI, I used the "X" pattern on my 6850 (just make a little x that's all). No need to spread it out, and it worked great.

Fan I meant the fan on the GPU. Sometimes they fail.

Just retried it, and my idle temps now sit around 57, and my max temp under 100% load topped out at 89-90, with my speeds remaining where they should and fan at 100%. Much better than the 105 I was hitting. What is the safe range for this card? Given the ambient temp in here which is fairly warm, I am guessing everything is OK with the card now.

After taking off the heatsink the first time (hadn't done it before), it was completely covered in paste. Looked like they put on about 10x more than needed. Wish I had taken a picture.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Just retried it, and my idle temps now sit around 57, and my max temp under 100% load topped out at 89-90, with my speeds remaining where they should and fan at 100%. Much better than the 105 I was hitting. What is the safe range for this card? Given the ambient temp in here which is fairly warm, I am guessing everything is OK with the card now.

After taking off the heatsink the first time (hadn't done it before), it was completely covered in paste. Looked like they put on about 10x more than needed. Wish I had taken a picture.

90C is hot.... does the temps lower if your case is open?
If so, you have bad case airflow.

Run it for a bit too, then take the heatsink off and look for dry or no liquidy spots on the core. Look here in my thread on what to look for.

See the 2 spots? those are uneven spots on my heatsink, and those made my temps soar up to 92C.

Check for that after you use the card for 2 weeks or so.
If you see that, then the heatsink or core is no even, and the only way to fix that is to re-lap the surface.

 

[Wiggleplum]

90C is hot.... does the temps lower if your case is open?
If so, you have bad case airflow.

Run it for a bit too, then take the heatsink off and look for dry or no liquidy spots on the core. Look here in my thread on what to look for.

See the 2 spots? those are uneven spots on my heatsink, and those made my temps soar up to 92C.

Check for that after you use the card for 2 weeks or so.
If you see that, then the heatsink or core is no even, and the only way to fix that is to re-lap the surface.

Temps dont seem to change much with the case window open or closed. I just played Wolfenstein for about 10 minutes, and had GPU-Z monitor the temps. While gaming, the temps never got above 70. Going to test some other games and see what I find.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Temps dont seem to change much with the case window open or closed. I just played Wolfenstein for about 10 minutes, and had GPU-Z monitor the temps. While gaming, the temps never got above 70. Going to test some other games and see what I find.

That seems better yes.
How's performance though?

The clocks I mentioned are the stock clocks from my MSI R6850.
Not sure if they are higher or lower then your stock.


Keep an eye one the temps. If they don't climb as high as before after a week or 2 of gaming, just leave the heatsink on, and forget about checking for those dry spots. You might make it worse if you take the heatsink off.

But remember keep an eye on those temps for a few weeks.