Overheating and similar issues with GeForce GTX 280

[byte8086]

It was the fan that revved up and down, but it also made a squealing capacitor noise in 3D mode.

I believe its just a few cards that have any issue and overall it would be considered a success to put a small nuclear reactor in a plastic shroud and be able to keep it cool with only a fan in most of the cramped cases out there.

I am more than pleased with its performance and expect it to improve with subsequent driver releases.

[12axing]

Just got my Geforce GTX 280 some hours ago, but it simply shuts down minutes or seconds after I press the power button: First, it displays my boot menu as expected, during loading windows, the cooler stops spinning, and the screen turns black, but the pc does not shut down. I have been able to login in windows yet, and minutes later the screen went black. Sometimes the cooler does not work immediately after pushing the power button, and the screen remains black, althought the noise of my hard drive indicates, that my pc is booting.
With my Geforce 8800 GTX plugged in, my PC works fine. May my power supply be the
reason of this problem?

power supply: be quiet! e5-550W-2.2 straight power bqt
board: asus striker II formula, nforce 780i sli
chassis: miditower cooler master stacker rc-832, atx
cpu: intel core2quad q6600 , 2.4 ghz
cooler: zalman CNPS9700
ram: ddram2 2048MB PC2-1066 Mhz CL5, Corsair Dominator Series, EPP

[zeakros]

I've just registered to submit my story too. I'm actually on my second gtx 280 (Point of View). the first would crash and shut down after 1 1/2 minutes in any 3d application (tested twice first one Crysis and the second AoC). Today i got a replacement which overheats... 105C in Crysis after 5 minutes if you're looking constantly at the sea. In Age of Conan it reaches 105C in the login screen while in game it runs cooler at 78-95C!!!!!!!!!!. At the same time iwould only have 45C on northbridge and 44-48 on CPU under load and 37-40C on idle CPU. My case runs rather cool. I've contacted my vendor and arranged to get a third one. What bothers me is that i DONT have all that time to test and return cards. If the third comes with an issue I'll demand a refund.

My system:
PSU:Etasis 850W
MB:Asus Striker Extreme 680i
CPU:Core2 Q6600
RAM: 4GB Cellshock DDR2 CL5 1066
Case:Chieftech Full Tower (customized with 4 side fans panel + 2 120 front intake fans +2 120 fans on the back for outtake)
HD:2x500GB Seagate on Raid 0 and 1 500GB for backup.

I used to run an SLI of G80 8800GTS 640 at 68-72C at full load. I've come to think that the GTX 280 is defective by design.

[FSamir]

Gigabyte GTX280 with 62.00.0E.00.02 BIOS

Antec P182 with three Scythe S-Flex fans on 7V
Enermax Liberty 620W
Room temp without AC 27C

1. Fire it up
2. Start FurMark:
100 seconds upto 87-88C, fan start to spin 100%
from that point another 2000 seconds upto 102C and I quit because temp stil raising,
slow but raising...

I think that I can play without problems...at 100% that fan sounds just lovely

This is my 7th nVIDIA card (never used ATI).
GTX280 is REALY REALY good performer but I'm VERY VERY disappointed with temps and acoustics.

THERMALRIGHT, ZALMAN or anybody HELP

[tijean]

This is my 7th nVIDIA card (never used ATI).
GTX280 is REALY REALY good performer but I'm VERY VERY disappointed with temps and acoustics. ????


So does it mean that you're a fanatic or what ?? Maybe it's time for you to try ATI... to make an intelligent decision now. Why pay for a jet engine ?

[Skinny12]

Hi,

we have the same problems here in germany..

My first XFX had the same issue, my new MSI OC runs perfectly fine. One guy here had the same problem just yesterday, after the card was running fine for days...after a reboot it was ok again....dazed and confused...

BTW some of us repatched the bios so the card runs with 1.06v instaed of 1.18v...which is great...60watt less...10° less...

Anyway...i hope they might solve it.

BR
Skinny

[Tomsen78]

Originally Posted by Skinny12

My first XFX had the same issue, my new MSI OC runs perfectly fine. One guy here had the same problem just yesterday, after the card was running fine for days...after a reboot it was ok again....dazed and confused...

That was me!

My Point of View GTX280 was running fine for a week and then yesterday, during playing Age of Conan, the card was getting louder and hotter. The temperature raised quickly from 72° celsius to 98° with the fan at 100%. And i looked on my voltmeter and i was SHOCKED. 320W was normal (cause i have 1.03v on the GPU) and now i saw 500W on the vm.
So i stopped plaing AoC and the fan was still on 100% in idle at ~70° and ~200W.

Than i started Furmark to get the card to the limit. My GTX280 raised in only 10 seconds from 70° to 90° and in 15 second over 100° (fan 100%). My voltmeter shows 550W (300W is normal in Age of Conan)!! About 250W more ingame - WTF??!!
Only a restart solved the problem, since then i havent got the problem anymore, but for how long?

Hope its a driver/bios thing, which can be solved, because it has nothing to do with the cooler or the ihs! Maybe the psu? I dont know.

Nvidia, i payed 789.96 US Dollar (500€) for the card, i want an answer!

[FSamir]

Originally Posted by tijean

This is my 7th nVIDIA card (never used ATI).
GTX280 is REALY REALY good performer but I'm VERY VERY disappointed with temps and acoustics. ????


So does it mean that you're a fanatic or what ?? Maybe it's time for you to try ATI... to make an intelligent decision now. Why pay for a jet engine ?

GF2
4200Ti
5900XT with Zalman VF700
6800GT with Zalman VF700
7900GT with zalman VF900
8800GTX with Thermalright HR-03 Plus
GTX 280
.
.
.
and I played them all without much problem - "The Way it's Meant to be Played"



This morning I played Frontlines for about three hours, temp hovers between 80 and 85C, fan never spins at full spid...actually I only see 100C and full spid with FurMark.
I think that problem is with different quality of heatpipes inside cooler...some is too weak for anything, some like mine is OK for normal playing but not for FurMark and some are just how it should be.
Personally I never planed to go with stock cooler...I just love Thermalright or Zalman.

My MACHINE with 8800GTX

[zeakros]

On my third card now. Pretty much the same as the previous one. Although it runs between 72-86 C most of the time, it would reach 105 C at the following scenarios:

1.Nvidia demo Human Head - 105 C in 15-20 minutes
2. Age of Conan login screen - 105 C in 15-20 minutes
3 Crysis looking constantly to the sea through a scope or directly to the ground - the same.

So i came to the conclusion that the card overheats only when its dealing with heavy shaded scenes and not simply by heavy load.

If anyone would like to confirm any of the above i would appreciate it.

[Lfctony]

Mate if you got all 3 cards from the same store and the same brand, it's quite likely that the whole batch they have is defective. Working cards don't overheat under any scenario...

[gungygussit]

Same problem here:

BFG PSU - 1000w Model, Quad 12v rails, four PCI-Express 6 pin cables.

The card is BFG also, plugged in via 2x pci > 1 8pin, and then one standalone PCIE cable.

The card idles at 42 degrees, system temp is 32 degrees - I have a CM Stacker 830 with 7 120mm fans doing some good cold airflow patterns, upon using the card for pretty much anything, crysis, mass effect, AoC, 3dmark06, vantage - it climbs to 90 degrees then every 2 seconds or so goes up another 1 degree until it shuts off at 110.

BFG just offered me an RMA, but I'm asking more questions...what if it happens again?, I think the general conensus - no matter how powerful this card is, nVidia clearly brought it too far to the mark for 'most' systems to be able to disperse the heat fast enough.

[Revs]

I've not kept up with this thread, but has anyone found a reason for the overheating problem? What's the cause?