Graphic Artifacts

MicroRave · 05-27-2012, 07:27 PM

I didn't know what these were called until recently, though I've seen them once or twice in the past. I figured it was a glitch until that thing with my monitor, when I found out that these are usually caused by a hot graphics card.

Mine (GeForce GT 440 (Sapphire/PCPartner) is apparently supposed to run hot, but I've never seen it hit 50 (at least I don't normally check while I'm gaming, this time I thought to). I was reading this, and decided to check my temperatures. Sure enough, according to Speccy the little bugger had spiked above 60, then went back down to 50 ish. With my PC idle it's hovering at around 44, and just in case I positioned a desktop fan to blow into the grate on the side of the case.

I'm not sure what to do here, do I just give it a while to let it cool down before playing again? Or should I try using a compressed air can again?

God is a cat girl · 05-27-2012, 07:31 PM

If it's overheating, see if the cooler is working. Or if it has one.

Tithis · 05-28-2012, 09:34 PM

Yeah those can happen when overheating or overclocking cards. One of the reasons I got a passively cooled graphics card was so I would never have to worry about the fan breaking (instead I just deal with a massive heat sink)

MicroRave · 05-31-2012, 06:16 PM

So I think I'd like to start looking into cooling.

Is there anything that might fit into a drive bay or two at the front? There's basically a door that slides down so you could install and/or get at a cd/dvd drive if you wanted to put one there. Here it is when it's open...

Spoiler: show

MicroRave · 07-04-2012, 11:45 AM

*revives*

So I finally caved and opened the case, made sure to give it a good airdusting. For a while the card idled at like, 38, and everything else was closer to 30. I left it alone while I was cleaning so it hasn't been turned on until now, and everything's idling closer to 40 again.

Is dust really collecting that fast?

Tithis · 07-05-2012, 09:52 PM

Sometimes there are spots your can install an 80mm fan in the case. You might also consider replacing the cards thermal paste with something like artic silver.

All depends on your hardware comfort level.

MicroRave · 07-06-2012, 12:29 AM

I'm hoping for a fan if I can, when I find my camera again I'll post a pic of the inside of my PC for someone to have a look at and see where I could put it *shot for rhyming*

Thermal paste I wouldn't know too much about, but I'm open to suggestions if it's something minor

Tithis · 07-06-2012, 10:32 AM

Thermal paste is just a heat conducting paste between something and a heat sink. There are many small imperfections on the surfaces of the processor and heatsink and the thermal paste fills them to improve heat transfer.

The GPU would already have some sort of thermal paste/pad on it from when it was manufactured, and normally this is fine. Sometime the manufacturer uses a bad paste or it fails in some way. For example the Xbox360 had a overheating problem caused by the thermal paste failing.

Unfortunately I can't really say if you would need paste or a pad. Thermal paste is used when the heat sink and processor surfaces are in full contact and is just used to fill in surface imperfections. Some heat sinks don't make full contact and use a thicker thermal pad to bridge the connection.

To do it you would need to remove your graphics card and remove its heatsink (different for every card) on the bottom of it would be the paste/pad. You would need to scrap this off the heat sink and then use alcohol to try and remove as much of the residue as possible from the heat sink and processor. After both are clean and dry you just put a small bit of thermal paste on the processor (size of a grain of rice) and replace the heat sink.

Replacing the cheaper stuff used by most manufacturers with a good paste like Arctic Silver 5 should bring down temps a few degrees in most cases.

I've never had to replace a thermal pad so I'm not sure what type would be good to buy if thats what your GPU used.

But yeah post a pic, there might be a spot you could install an extra fan.

MicroRave · 07-06-2012, 03:59 PM

Scraping paste off the bottom of the card? 0____o

Sounds like harsh treatment, I was watching a couple of YT videos and some of them talked about removing a heatsink?

What exactly is contained in these heatsinks?

I think I may be able to find my camera today or tomorrow if I get lucky...

Tithis · 07-07-2012, 10:42 AM

Heat sinks are just pieces of metal(normally aluminum) with a high surface area so they can quickly dissipate heat from the processor into the air. The paste is just to bridge the gap between the processor and heatsink, air is an insulator and by replacing the air between the two surfaces with thermal paste/thermal pad it improves the rate at which the processor can cool.