Nvidia GeForce 8800GTS OverheatFollow

I have dual 8800GTS running at max load at 50c which is about average.

I am guessing that your case is either very tight packed and wires are causing your air flow to diminish thus having poor cooling.

Some thing to help overheating;

1) Case, make sure your case has enough fans if you are wanting to use fans and also that they are working and moving the air effectively.

2) Use after market thermal paste on the core, using something like artic silver instead of stock paste always help with heat transfer.

3) Are you using all your wires? Usually there are wires which you don't need or maybe even use such as front Headphone jacks or what not. The less cables blocking vents and fans the cooler the air you can get in.

This card naturally runs hot, I am not saying the card is prefect however you need the case and cooling to keep it under control. I would download a temp sensor application to monitor your temps as anything over 55-60C can be very harmful.

It's possible to run two with little heating issues but you need to look at your case and the air flow as that will determine a lot of heat restrictions.


Before my Dual 8800 setup, I had a single 8800 in this setup;
Antec900 case
8800GTS
4Gb RAM Corsair
2X WD Raptors
ASUS Crosshair
AMD Dual core Overclocked running close to 4Ghz


Core system temp as idle was 40C full load 48-52C all on air cooling.

Nope didn't miss that ^^ I read your entire post twice to make sure I had it all.

Running from a static mat really changes nothing unless your dropping the entire rooms temperature and can actually make things either the same or worse as there is no air circulation.

The reason I keep bringing in the questions about your case is because good designed cases are meant to keep component temps down with how they control the airflow and eliminating air pockets. Along with eliminating hot air pockets which yes running in on a mat would do it also allows for heat transfer to occur faster with the constant cold air circulation.

I still think you need to find out what your machines temp is running at idle and also under full load such as playing a game or running a bench program.

Generally my rule of thumb is anything with a Core which has a heat sink needs new thermal paste. Reason I say this is because at the factory they usually use cheaper stuff and it gets applied far to much. Using Artic Silver will cut I would guess at least 2-5c off your core temp.

I am sorry I can't suggest more however I have never had the cards hang a machine, and I think your are correct on it being a heating issue as those cards do heat up fast. If anything would maybe suggest looking at water cooling if your base temps in the house/office this is running at are high such as in tropical climates.

Sorry again I can't offer more help, however doing some temp checks can't hurt. After you get those and post them I am sure I would have a better idea if someone else doesn't already have one ^^.

Yeah I have to be honest almost all of the 8800 series cards are kind of a pain ti get the heatsink off as some are then entire card, never said it was super easy lol ^^

As far as it being just a paste issue you remember that huge recall Apple had with their notebooks and it was a direct result to them adding far to much paste to their CPU's. Well the 8800 series cards GPU is pretty beefy to say the least and puts off a lot of heat when under load which is why those heatsink/fan combo's are so large.

I am not sure that the paste is your only problem however I am sure it's a large portion of the problem. If you need a guide how to take off that heatsink I can post one up for you as they can be a little tricky.

Good Luck to you, I hope it's just excessive paste and removing it and applying new gets you up and running again.

Late edit, I looked around at others stock cooling (I run a repair shop in my spare time and have these 8800 cards just laying around) and it seems that the idle temps I am getting are about 50c to around 56c. Under full load I am getting about a max of 65c to 68c which is pretty hot, now these are all standard cases with no cooling for the most part outside of a exhaust fan.

Now when I looked at some of my other boxes, Antec900 and a Lian I had sittting around I am seeing much cooler temps of 45c to 51c idle and 59c-65c full load. Like I said earlier this card will run naturally hot however it depends a lot on ow your cooling is.

Those temps were taken with all cards on standard paste so it seems paste can effect it however only like 1 or 2c from what I have seen so far. Doing testing as I got someone bring back their tower with a 8800 over the weekend and I am not sure why. Seems to be mainly case restrictions in my customers example as the case is packed with cables and very poor ventilation.

Sorry another edit, Had it spelled Lain instead of Lian lmao, I was watching serial experiment lain when I was typing this up. I swear I am dyslexic at times.


Late edit by a lot as I realized I never said what cards, 8800 series cards I do mainly performance computers but also do regular maintenance and repair as well.

Edited, Jun 6th 2007 11:16am by xXBijiontXx

It's not the heatsync. 8800 cards run very hot, but they are designed to run hot too.

It does sound like there is an excess heat issue, but the fan on the video card would not be my first suspect.

How big and what model case are you running? How many fans are in this case? Are they 80mm or 120mm?

Also does the problem go away if you run the computer with the side panel off?

that sounds like defective cardness to me. that or possibly a not fully seated card.

Means that you don't have the card pushed in all the way into the PCI slot.

Got it all working. Turns out it was just a faulty card.

I had to downgrade to an 8600 sadly, but only till Circuit City gets a new shipment of 8800s in. I maxed out every last setting I could find on WoW last night and it's running baby bottom smooth.

It's
Freaking
Awesome