PC Upgrade

Washington Irving

Hi,

I bought a PC in Nov 2011 primarily for gaming and it has served me well so far. It's fairly high spec but on certain games (namely Sleeping Dogs and Planetside 2) it gets very loud and hot at the back after about 30-40 mins of play. A few days ago I was playing Sleeping Dogs and it got to the point where I had to turn it off for fear of the PC taking off! I have noise cancelling headphones which if something was playing through them I wouldn't hear someone beside me talking but the PC is very clear.

I am playing both games at high (not max) settings and am consistently getting 45-60 fps despite the noise and heat though I'm usually afraid to play for more than an hour at a time in case I damage the PC.

Games such as BF3 and Skyrim at max settings have a similar effect though to a lesser extent yet I hadn't noticed any significant increase in noise/heat playing these games before now. Maybe I just wasn't looking out for it as much but I don't see how it took a year for me to notice it.

Is the graphics card struggling (despite the games performing perfectly)? Or is it a cooling issue?

What do I need to do to reduce noise and heat whilst playing graphics heavy games?


Specs are:

Intel Core i5-2500K
ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3)
AMD Radeon HD 6950 1GB
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W
BitFenix Shinobi Tower
Windows 7 64bit

Thanks

tuxy

Do you know if it's the graphics card or cpu fan that is making the most noise?

Can you check your temps while gaming. Use realtemp to get the cpu and msi after burner to check graphics card temps.

It's probably the gpu fan making the most noise.

It's possible the fans are over reacting to temps and the fan profiles are overly cautious.

Washington Irving

tuxy wrote: »

Do you know if it's the graphics card or cpu fan that is making the most noise?

Can you check your temps while gaming. Use realtemp to get the cpu and msi after burner to check graphics card temps.

It's probably the gpu fan making the most noise.

It's possible the fans are over reacting to temps and the fan profiles are overly cautious.

The CPU fan is making the most noise right now, but I'll check in game in a few mins. I'll use those programs to check the temps too. Thanks

tuxy

75-80 is safe on the cpu

And 85-90 is safe on the gpu

If your temps are well below that you could set the fans to run slower

VinLieger

Planetside isnt optimised properly yet and uses way more CPU because of this and the fact that its an MMO which use more CPU normally anyway, so this might explain some of your issues

Washington Irving

Temperatures seem ok playing Sleeping Dogs:



It was quite loud though, again after the 30 minute mark. It didn't feel as warm as it did last time I checked, though I had been playing for longer. I guess I should try lowering the fan speed as tuxy said above.

marco_polo

Actually sleeping dogs is known as an extremely CPU hungry game too, so perhaps that is where the issue lies.

tuxy

Temps look good. So don't be worried, I know the fan noise is annoying but everything is perfectly safe.

In afterburner click user define button in the fan speed section. See if you can make a good fan curve that keeps the temp at 90 or less while keeping fan speed as low as possible.
If that works set afterburner to load when windows starts.

Afaik the 6000 does use more power than the newer 7000 series cards so there will be a good bit of heat generation no matter what you do. High fan speed may be unavoidable in demanding games.

Another thing you could try is to turn vsync on or cap your frame rate at 60 some how. This could lower gpu usage but still have the game running smooth.

ED E

Is it very dusty? Might be worth cleaning while you're looking into things.

Washington Irving

I'm not really sure what's considered a good curve. How does this look?

ED E wrote: »

Is it very dusty? Might be worth cleaning while you're looking into things.

No, I gave a quick clean a few weeks ago so I think it's ok.

tuxy

Add more points to thew curve, don't have it so that a small temp increase will lead to a big jump in fan speed. Can take a bit of tinkering to get it right.

BloodBath

Sounds like dust build up in the card.

Get a can of compressed air and give it a good spray.

Depending on how clogged it is this may not even dislodge the build up. You sometimes have to take the cooler apart and clean it.

It happened recently to 1 of my cards. Gradually got louder over time. I sprayed it but it didn't help much. I had to take the cooler apart and their was a wall of dust that had clogged up the fins of the cooler.

glynf

I had the same issue with higher temps, normally my GPU's will average 75 deg C under load gaming, with Sleeping Dogs they were up and around 81 deg C.

Try updating to the latest CCC drivers & turn down your AA settings.

BloodBath

Alternatively replace that card completely with a newer 1 with a non stock cooler. AMD's stock cooling solutions are terrible for the most part.

A 7950 would be a very nice upgrade to that card and can be picked up pretty cheap.

Sapphire, Gigabyte or Asus all offer great cooling solutions and have massive overclocking headroom while staying cool and quiet.

Gumbi

Yeah, my Sapphire tops out at 62 degrees Celsius while gaming, a lot cooler.

ED E

Hows the case airflow? If your ambient is getting high(when you say it got hot, was that the case that felt hot?) then the delta between air and the cooler is lower and less heat is transferred.

Maybe add two fans to the roof?