High Hot Spot Temps on Vega 56

[AdvocateOfNyx]

Hi all,

 

I've noticed that the hot spot temperatures on my Sapphire PULSE Vega 56 card are higher than they probably should be.  I'm not super familiar with the "safe" temperatures for silicon, but as far as I can tell it shouldn't exceed about 100 degrees Celsius or more than 10-20 degrees Celsius over the rest of the card.  I've noticed that pretty much immediately after opening a game, my hot spot temps jump to 105 degrees while the rest of my card stays at around 50 degrees. 

 

I bought this card used and the VBIOS has been flashed to a Vega 64, but I've disabled this by flipping the vbios switch and have confirmed it runs the Vega 56 VBIOS full time now.  I've been having hard crash issues with this PC for a long time now and am hoping that fixing this issue will finally solve them.  I've replaced the entire system outside of the GPU and PSU, so it must be one of the two and everything is pointing me towards the former.

 

What can I do to bring hotspot temps down?  I really, really do not believe I have the technical expertise to completely disassemble the card so I'd prefer to use that as a last ditch effort.  I have tried to undervolt it using guides online, but every time it hard crashes it resets the settings I've applied in Radeon Software.  This happens 5-10 times a day so unless there is a way to get those settings to stick around, I'm not sure that's a solution either.  Additionally, I tried to undervolt and monitor the temps but they remained the same.

 

The only thing that appeared to help was manually adjusting the fan curve to kick the fans up much higher earlier in the temperature range.  Unfortunately, this was also reset on a hard crash.  I have noticed that the fans do NOT spin up faster before a crash, but after the screen turns black, the fans begin to spin at 100% and the entire case gets really hot.  It's like the GPU is continuing to work after the crash.  I'm pretty scared of what would happen if I wasn't at the system and it continued to run like that.

 

Thank you all so much!  This forum is a really valuable resource and I'm hoping I can find some answers (finally).

 

PC Specs:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/MHPVqp

 

Other info:

GPU drivers up to date (23.4.3 at the time of posting)

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2

[BiotechBen]

Sounds like it's gonna need to be disassembled. 

Good news with that is that it's not nearly as hard as it sounds.

I would consider myself still a rookie (4 disassembly and reassembles done) and as long as you have the right size screw driver, a lint-free cloth, and some high % IPA and some thermal paste, it's just a matter of taking your time. 

I also used a few q-tips for spot cleaning small spots but it sounds like you should be fine without.

 

The most intimidating part for me was the keeping track of where everything went, and for that I got a cookie sheet and some scotch tape to keep things in place and lay out where it all went.

 

Total time on first one was about 40 min (had a stuck screw that took some pursuasion and that ate up about 5 min all on its own)

[AdvocateOfNyx]

24 minutes ago, BiotechBen said:

Sounds like it's gonna need to be disassembled. 

Good news with that is that it's not nearly as hard as it sounds.

I would consider myself still a rookie (4 disassembly and reassembles done) and as long as you have the right size screw driver, a lint-free cloth, and some high % IPA and some thermal paste, it's just a matter of taking your time. 

I also used a few q-tips for spot cleaning small spots but it sounds like you should be fine without.

 

The most intimidating part for me was the keeping track of where everything went, and for that I got a cookie sheet and some scotch tape to keep things in place and lay out where it all went.

 

Total time on first one was about 40 min (had a stuck screw that took some pursuasion and that ate up about 5 min all on its own)

Man, that's some bad news to hear but I'm glad I have a plan of action at least.  In my past experience with CPU coolers, they've been really hard to work on.  In all three computers I've built, I've had major issues that took days to resolve.  Hopefully GPU coolers will be a little easier.  Thanks a lot for the answer!  I've been having some trouble getting any on here, hope the forums are still doing okay.  Might be my problems are just a little complicated lol.

 

A couple follow up questions if you don't mind:

 

Do you know what would be the long term risk of not replacing the thermal paste for a while? I know someone that’s more experienced in this area than me and may be willing to help me out but it could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

 

Can I use leftover Noctua CPU cooler thermal paste on the GPU die or do I need a different kind because it doesn’t have an IHS the same way a CPU does?

[Bjoolz]

The hotspot throttle temp looks to be 105°C. Can't find any sources for the hotspot max temp. 

[silencer12]

33 minutes ago, AdvocateOfNyx said:

Man, that's some bad news to hear but I'm glad I have a plan of action at least.  In my past experience with CPU coolers, they've been really hard to work on.  In all three computers I've built, I've had major issues that took days to resolve.  Hopefully GPU coolers will be a little easier.  Thanks a lot for the answer!  I've been having some trouble getting any on here, hope the forums are still doing okay.  Might be my problems are just a little complicated lol.

 

A couple follow up questions if you don't mind:

 

Do you know what would be the long term risk of not replacing the thermal paste for a while? I know someone that’s more experienced in this area than me and may be willing to help me out but it could take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

 

Can I use leftover Noctua CPU cooler thermal paste on the GPU die or do I need a different kind because it doesn’t have an IHS the same way a CPU does?

Not replacing the thermal paste might damage your graphics card in the long run. You can use any paste that you have. Noctua/Arctic Mx-4/....etc. Noctua is fine.

 

Depends on the GPU of how it is to take apart. Like the radeon rx 580 is easy. The radeon 6000 series is complicated. I am on a radeon 6700 xt. I tried to dismantle it and could not. I was going to replace the paste. I spoke with others and they all suggested to leave it alone. That's what I am doing. I have seen videos on YouTube but i found it hard.