Cooling Issues

[thoben]

Hello all,

I bought a PC from PC Specialist probably two years ago now and have had no problems until recently.

As a result of the rather gorgeous weather we've had recently my computer room has been warm and thus my computer under the desk has been getting hot. A couple of times the PC fans have revved high and then the machine reboots, this normally occurs while gaming, don't have problems otherwise.

As a temporary solution i've moved it up on to my window ledge, with the windows open in order to provide significantly better air flow and hopefully a lot more cooler air in the first place. However the previous problem has repeated itself, while gaming the fans rev really fast and then the machine shuts down and reboots. I've installed a cheap temperature monitor to see how hot the system is running, unfortunately it doesn't seem to pick up anything from the CPU. The GPUs can get up to 80 or 90 degrees while gaming. I'd say it's roughly between 10 and 15 minutes of game time before the fans kick in and everything reboots.

Basically I'm looking for some cooling suggestions for my system from the experts. I've carried out a bit of my own research, but there's so many different products and cooling options I feel a bit overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

System specs below.

Thank you in advance!

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 912 PLUS MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
180GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W PRO SERIES™ HX750-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS)

 

[keynes]

are you monitoring each gpu separately in terms of temperatures? have you clean your case recently?

 

[thoben]

are you monitoring each gpu separately in terms of temperatures? have you clean your case recently?

Hi Keynes, yes the software is monitoring the gpus separately.

Currently, one is running at 44* the other at 60*.

I clean the exterior of the case regularly with a vacuum or duster.

80-90C while gaming is normal (albeit on the high side of normal) for a 670. The card should start lowering clocks to compensate if the temperature reaches 90, to prevent damage to the card. If I had to guess, it'd be that your card(s) have a fault (either in hardware, or in the drivers/software) that is causing it to crash when it tries to do that.

My recommendations would just be to try and keep your room cool by having airflow, and cleaning out your graphics cards with some compressed air. To avoid damage, hold the fans in place while you're blowing air through them.

Putting your case on the windowsill might actually be counter-productive, as sunlight shining on your case will heat it up a lot more than the air in your room will.

I'll check to see the what the latest drivers/software are, though I'm confident i'm up to date.

If there is a hardware problem I would have expected to see other issues with performance. But these problems have only recently occurred due to the hot weather. As I mentioned I've had the machine coming on to 3 years now and have not encountered this before.

I'll open everything up after this and give the GPUs a thorough blow and clean. I'll also shift the position of the machine, as you point out direct sunlight is going to keep temperatures up as well.

Thanks for the responses chaps/chapettes!

ThoBen

 

[thoben]

Hello again guys,

I've encountered the same problems having cleaned the heat sinks and fans with compressed air.

I've also got the latest drivers from Nvida installed for the gpus.

I have an AC unit on order for my room which may help air flow, but i'm not confident.

I've got two sets of hardware monitors running and the cards are hitting over 90 degrees operating together before a shut down.

As a test I disabled one and ran a game, managed about 5 minutes before noticing performance issues and a quick check of the temps showed a max peak of 101 degrees.

My cpu seems to max out at 50 degrees while gaming if that helps.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

thoben