HorseshoeFetish
Silver Bullet Supporter
I'm sure some of you have experienced and dealt with this. For those that might not have, and have the ability to work on your PC, I hope this might help you one day.
Just wanted to share a story that saved me at least a few hundred bucks yesterday, and is now part of my cleaning regiment. Over the last six months or so I noticed my GPU creeping up in temp. At first I thought it might be the result of going with a dual monitor set up. 72-75c didn't really seem that bad when I have every setting maxed out for gaming.
When temps started getting into the 85c range I started to get a little more upset. I noticed that the temp dropped when the case was opened. So I'm thinking I have an airflow problem. Sure enough I have a fan not getting it done, so I replaced it. That helped a little bit but when I was really gaming the temps still seemed high to me.
For the record, I might be a little OCD when it come to cleaning my computer. It gets cleaned at least every two weeks. When the seasons change and I know the humidity is coming I strip my case, clean everything, and put it back together. When I lived in Florida that got done 2 or 3 times a year.
I don't know if it actually helped my PC, but I felt better.
I mention the cleaning thing because until yesterday morning I never thought to, nor had the need to crack open any video card. I woke up early and decided it had been awhile since I had played Supreme Commander 2 so I loaded up a quick skirmish and started playing. Before I could even get my first mass converter on the board I was at 98c!
Time for a new video card right? I was convinced it was but decided to at least see if Google/YouTube could give me some kind of fix. Found an article talking about replacing the thermal paste and this video.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlO6Gx7Uf6g"][HH] nVidia GTX 470 TIM Replacement Guide - YouTube[/ame]
I knew I didn't have enough time to do the whole process but I decided to pull my card and giver it a gander. When I got the case opened I was cursing the dust bunnies. What I found wasn't as bad as this,
but it was bad enough. I cleaned that thing immediately and popped it back in. I have a ton of games on my PC and I can't find one that pushes the temp above 57c now. I plan on pulling the heat sink this weekend, but for now just killing off some dust bunnies gives me a -40c difference.
