question Graphics card overheating issues

[Astro22]

Specs:

• GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 2070 Super WINDFORCE OC 8G
• CPU: i5-9600k
• RAM: 16GB 2666
• Storage: Samsung 970 EVO plus, 250GB M.2 SSD
• Power Supply: GIGABYTE B700H
• Motherboard: AsRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4
• Case: Sharkoon VG6-W Red

 

Recently my graphics card started to have overheating issues.
It doesn't take long for it to reach the 80's and rising to 85's. The memory in particular is getting to that critical 100 degrees Celsius and is probably the primary reason why my pc almost crashes completely sometimes.
For example when I'm playing BFV it could happen that my PC freezes and the screen goes black, then the game crashes and I go back to desktop like nothing happened.

 

My PC was also getting considerably louder over the last few months, presumably because of the graphics card fans having to work harder and harder.
When I remove the side panel of my PC the temps are way better. The GPU barely reaches 80 at all and I can play as long as I want without overheating issues.

Right now at idle with the side panel off, the GPU is 43 degrees Celsius and the memory is 53.

 

I have two intake fans at the front and one exhaust at the back and all are preinstalled fans that came with the case.

The ambient temperature is regular room temperature.

 

Does this mean that I have bad airflow or is my GPU unable to cool itself properly?

The card is only two years old.

 

The only thing that could have caused this that comes to mind is that I did some light mining for a month with nicehash but I lost interest in doing that.

 

[OhioYJ]

So what's your question? Or are you just telling us your GPU overheats? 

 

You're going to need to supply some more information. What kind of case do you have (do you have an air flow problem)? Is it overheating all the time, or just while gaming? What's your ambient temp (are you in a hot environment). 

 

Any solution based on just a parts list would just be a random guess. If you want a more educated guess, we need something more to go on.

[Astro22]

1 minute ago, OhioYJ said:

So what's your question? Or are you just telling us your GPU overheats? 

 

You're going to need to supply some more information. What kind of case do you have (do you have an air flow problem)? Is it overheating all the time, or just while gaming? What's your ambient temp (are you in a hot environment). 

 

Any solution based on just a parts list would just be a random guess. If you want a more educated guess, we need something more to go on.

I posted the topic early by accident lol. I just edited it with the necessary information. 

[jaslion]

Couple problems here:

 

The pc crashing is probably due to the poor quality psu.

The case sucks. It has practically no airflow. The plastic panel in front of the fans is an issue. Good news tho you can rip it out and then put some fan guards over your fans. Helps a lot.

 

Have you ever cleaned your pc? As in used compressed air and a paint brush to remove dust from the heatsinks?

[OhioYJ]

4 minutes ago, Astro22 said:

I posted the topic early by accident lol. I just edited it with the necessary information. 

Haha, yeah the extra info definitely helps. I looked up that case and it appears to have a clear panel in front of the intake fans. It will have virtually no air flow. Which is the reason it runs better with the side panel off.

[Astro22]

4 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Couple problems here:

 

The pc crashing is probably due to the poor quality psu.

The case sucks. It has practically no airflow. The plastic panel in front of the fans is an issue. Good news tho you can rip it out and then put some fan guards over your fans. Helps a lot.

 

Have you ever cleaned your pc? As in used compressed air and a paint brush to remove dust from the heatsinks?

The pc never really crashed but more like froze. This only seems to occur when my GPU get's way too hot.
Are you familiar with this case in particular? I've always though that the case could be the issue.
Yes I do clean my PC as soon as I see some amount of dust buildup, but I've never had any compressed air or anything so I try to clean it by hand with paper towels. I'm definitely going to purchase some compressed air soon to do a proper clean. 

[Astro22]

5 minutes ago, OhioYJ said:

Haha, yeah the extra info definitely helps. I looked up that case and it appears to have a clear panel in front of the intake fans. It will have virtually no air flow. Which is the reason it runs better with the side panel off.

So the problem is with the case, not the graphics card? The strange thing is that only after about two years, the issue really started showing. But that's because the graphics card ability to cool itself degrades either way right? At this point I'm guessing it's probably worth just buying a proper case instead of reapplying thermal paste on the GPU.

[jaslion]

3 minutes ago, Astro22 said:

The pc never really crashed but more like froze. This only seems to occur when my GPU get's way too hot.
Are you familiar with this case in particular? I've always though that the case could be the issue.
Yes I do clean my PC as soon as I see some amount of dust buildup, but I've never had any compressed air or anything so I try to clean it by hand with paper towels. I'm definitely going to purchase some compressed air soon to do a proper clean. 

Yeah sharkoon is pretty popular here for budget stuff. They have a mixed bag of cases.

 

Paper towels won't remove dust from between heatsink fins.

 

Also to save yourself a LOT of money in the future just get a pc duster (those blower devices) or a small compressor. Far better and like 3-4 cans of decent pressure compressed air is the same price as one but those thing you can use forever basically. Also use a paintbrush of decent stiffness to help agitate stuck dust.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, Astro22 said:

So the problem is with the case, not the graphics card? The strange thing is that only after about two years, the issue really started showing. But that's because the graphics card ability to cool itself degrades either way right? At this point I'm guessing it's probably worth just buying a proper case instead of reapplying thermal paste on the GPU.

No the ability doesn't degrade. What probably happened for you is that there is dust in the heatsink you don't notice AND that the thermal paste is now starting to dry up a bit.

[Astro22]

Just now, jaslion said:

Yeah sharkoon is pretty popular here for budget stuff. They have a mixed bag of cases.

 

Paper towels won't remove dust from between heatsink fins.

 

Also to save yourself a LOT of money in the future just get a pc duster (those blower devices) or a small compressor. Far better and like 3-4 cans of decent pressure compressed air is the same price as one but those thing you can use forever basically. Also use a paintbrush of decent stiffness to help agitate stuck dust.

I'm probably going to buy a new case entirely.

I was doubting to buy one of those but now I'm definitely going to do so. Thank you very much for your tips!

[Astro22]

1 minute ago, jaslion said:

No the ability doesn't degrade. What probably happened for you is that there is dust in the heatsink you don't notice AND that the thermal paste is now starting to dry up a bit.

The drying of thermal paste is what I meant but I didn't word it correctly. Dust in the heatsink is something I can easily fix though! Maybe with that new pc duster I'm going to acquire.

[jaslion]

4 minutes ago, Astro22 said:

I'm probably going to buy a new case entirely.

I was doubting to buy one of those but now I'm definitely going to do so. Thank you very much for your tips!

Or get a small compressor those have multiple uses :p. For case if you want something cheap the phanteks p360a digital (mesh one) is usually about 60$ ish

[DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly]

Doing a slight UV could also help you.

 

For example my RX 5700 XT was so Overvolted from the factory that it's not even funny.  I UV'd by almost 100 V and lost almost no performance while loosing like 10 c from GPU temp and 20 from Hot Spot.

[jaslion]

1 minute ago, DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly said:

Doing a slight UV could also help you.

 

For example my RX 5700 XT was so Overvolted from the factory that it's not even funny.  I UV'd by almost 100 V and lost almost no performance while loosing like 10 c from GPU temp and 20 from Hot Spot.

It helps but it's always better op just fixes the issue which here is just thermal paste age and dust most likely. That and the not good case. Probably psu soon too.

[DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly]

3 minutes ago, jaslion said:

It helps but it's always better op just fixes the issue which here is just thermal paste age and dust most likely. That and the not good case. Probably psu soon too.

I do agree. 

 

 He needs to sort out those things first. UVing is just an extra thing on top if he's still not happy with temps.

 

EDIT : Yup that case looks like a coffin. Though CPU is probably going to benefit more from a decent airflow case than GPU but OP still needs to ditch it.

[Astro22]

23 hours ago, DontBeSillyWrapYourWilly said:

I do agree. 

 

 He needs to sort out those things first. UVing is just an extra thing on top if he's still not happy with temps.

 

EDIT : Yup that case looks like a coffin. Though CPU is probably going to benefit more from a decent airflow case than GPU but OP still needs to ditch it.

 

23 hours ago, jaslion said:

Or get a small compressor those have multiple uses :p. For case if you want something cheap the phanteks p360a digital (mesh one) is usually about 60$ ish

Just to give an update,

I removed the plastic shield in front of the fans and purchased a pc duster. It already arrived today and I cleaned out the entire pc. There was more than I expected.
But good news! Temps are under load 10 degrees Celsius lower on the gpu and it's fans aren't running 100% anymore all the time. The temps won't go higher then high 70's and the graphics card memory also no longer reaches dangerously high temps. The issue seems to be fixed! It now runs cooler and quieter in general and I'm very happy with the results. It seems that there was just some dust buildup in the graphics card although I didn't see that much dust get blown out of it.

Anyway, thank you very much for your tips they helped very much!

[jaslion]

2 hours ago, Astro22 said:

 

Just to give an update,

I removed the plastic shield in front of the fans and purchased a pc duster. It already arrived today and I cleaned out the entire pc. There was more than I expected.
But good news! Temps are under load 10 degrees Celsius lower on the gpu and it's fans aren't running 100% anymore all the time. The temps won't go higher then high 70's and the graphics card memory also no longer reaches dangerously high temps. The issue seems to be fixed! It now runs cooler and quieter in general and I'm very happy with the results. It seems that there was just some dust buildup in the graphics card although I didn't see that much dust get blown out of it.

Anyway, thank you very much for your tips they helped very much!

That little bit of hard dust is enough to be a massive insulation layer on a heatsink.