Rosco Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 Hi My brother has this Sapphire HD 4850 (The thin 1 slot version) and recently he sterted to play the BF3 Beta and he noticed a strange noise coming from his case(*insert sarcastic tone*). After he told me about it I went and installed the Sapphire Trixx utility to get the fanspeed config, and I installed MSI Afterburner for Monitoring, and low and behold he was running @105C with 100% fanspeed. Now this is worrying me cos I'm not shure that us supposed to happen, I made shure the card is getting clean airflow and it was, I did a quick dustblow to try and clean out some of the dust but no luck on getting the tems down. Later this week I will be getting my hands on an air compressor to do some heavy duty cleaning but my question is if I should try and redo the TIM on the card. When I first saw the temps my initial thaught was to redo the TIM but now not to shure... Any input will be greatly appritiated Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red1776 Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 i think you are on the right track if it is otherwise operating correctly. The 4850 was about the limit of single slot coolers for that generation. I would apply new Thermal compound and increase air flow to the card. **** if you have not done this before, it helps to get the card warm first so the old compound is a bit more flexible. and remember to TWIST it loose when taking the cooler off, do not pull straight up. The cooler and the top of the GPU have most likely 'married' each other after this amount of time. Hope that helps. Good luck Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosco Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 Thanks red1776 for conferming my suspitions. Gonna go get some new TIM tomorrow and try to get the card cooled down by the end of the week. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
potatochobit Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 you might be pushing that litlte card to the limit betas are full of bugs, and remember how starcraft2 destroys nvidia cards? make sure the game settings are on very low, as well Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosco Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 Everything is set to low but when he plays games like cod4 and HoN his temps are the same which tells me that it has to be the TIM or dust buildup and not unstable programming, but u have a very valid point and when I'm done with the maintenance I'll check the temps again and report on them Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
red1776 Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 Thats true as well, Crysis 2 heated up my GPU's 10c more that any other game did for some reason. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jack_of_java Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 I own two of the 4850's that you're talking about and I have to say that with both card, the cooling on the cards is horrible. I've taken the coolers off both several times to reapply the TIM (artic silver 5 usually) which has helped a little bit. If you're hearing a weird noise coming from the card, then I suspect that the fan is going out or is already shot, which would result in high temps like you're showing. You can take the card apart fairly simply. There are smaller screws around the outside that attach the shroud to the heatsink plate. I'd remove those and take Q-tips to clean out the grooves and gaps. Clean the fan fins really well. I also use 70% ethyl alcohol to clean the metal and remove the TIM off of the GPU surface. This stuff leaves little, if any residue on the card, evaporates fast, and will works really well at removing the TIM. Just be careful when cleaning the TIM to try and not get any of that crap on any metal contacts or other parts that it shouldn't be on. You'll be surprised how much dust can collect in there. And finally, there are 4 screws and a box shaped brace on the underside of the card that holds/presses the heatsink onto the GPU. You'll need a pretty fine phillips head screw driver to remove these, but it should come off fairly easy. DO NOT TWIST TO REMOVE. The way the heatsink sits on the card, you can take a change at messing up some of the other components of the board. Just apply a gentle, increasing pressure to try and split the card off the heatsink. Be mindful that there are TIM pads over the ramsinks as well. Losing those can be a bear to replace, but they may also need to be replaced. Another thing to consider if all this does not help is an aftermarket cooling solution for the card. Hope this helps. PS> If you want some reference pictures, I can probably take some to help you out. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosco Posted October 2, 2011 Posted October 2, 2011 Well some pics might be very handy so if it's not to much trouble please do post some please BTW I did some really (and I mean really) creative fan placement and got the card to run up to 15C cooler I used a small 50mm fan and put in on to of the backplate where the core is and then I put a 80mm fan of the end of the card to feed air over where the 50mm fan is out the back of the box and thet dropped temps like mad. He went from (93C & 93%fanspeed) to like (78C & 78%fanspeed) , I did the fanplacement while the pc was running so I saw the diff straight away. Just hoping this can hold until I can cleen that bugger tomorrow.... (he had a temp crash(110C) in BF3 like 1.5hours ago so things are getting very dicy with that card) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosco Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 Well I just took the card apart and did a thorought cleening. The TIM that was on the card looked pretty good considering the card is like 3-4 jears old, it was still sticky and everything. I replaced it with some CF3 I had lying around after I installed my Silver Arrow I also did some more intensive cleaning of the heatsink. What I found scared the living dalights out of me . . . dust bunnies . After removing them and closing up the card we ran BF3 to see what the temps were. The card maxed out at 60C which is one majour drop so everything is fine now and luckily nothing broke. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
capthowdy575 Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 good to hear everything worked out dust is a killer when it comes to dissipating heat. I'm actually getting ready to take apart my 4850x2 and give it a nice cleaning and put some new TIM on as well. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
krazypoloc Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 (edited) You need to physically take the cooler apart on the card. Dust sticks to the intake vents internally and there is no way of removing the dust save from taking the cooler apart completely. Once you do this the card should run in the mid 70's under full load. EDIT-Just read through the rest of the thread...saw your post...glad this worked for you. Edited October 3, 2011 by krazypoloc Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJCRO Posted October 3, 2011 Posted October 3, 2011 Lol , 105C @ 100% Fan? Time for a new graphics card IMO. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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