Graphic Card overheating. Sadly the same old story, again and again...

[Oskar_GT]

So, i got Rome II and launch the game. I don't even start a battle or campaign and already my graphics card is overheating, making a lot of noise and to avoid further damage i have to quit the game. Same thing happened whit Empire, Napoleon and, in a lesser down-to-hell scale, Shogun 2. My basic rig specs are: Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit Motherboard: Asus P7P55D-E LX BIOS: BIOS Date: 12/16/10 09:57:42 Ver: 08.00.15 Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 870 @ 2.93GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.9GHz Display: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti whit the latest beta drivers. Monitor: TV whit the HD connector at a res of 1920x1080 Memory: 10240MB RAM Available OS Memory: 10238MB RAM Page File: 2158MB used, 18315MB available DirectX Version: DirectX 11 and a Power supply of 1200 watts in High Gama Case whit like 8 coolers up and down : ( So guys, any advice, i mean, are my specs too low to run ANY Total War Game or am i cursed to try to digitally conquer the world?... By the way the Game auto detects the graphics for Xtreme...

[A Barbarian]

Try the framerate limiter from MSI afterburner and set it to 30 fps. if overheating problem goes away you can raise the value successively.



With Afterburner you might also be able to undervolt your GPU slightly.

Also, clean your GPU cooler and sometimes the screws of the cooler on the GPU are a bit loose, check that as well.

[evenflowjimbo]

What temp does it get to, like the highest during battles and such?

[Oskar_GT]

Thanx for your reps guys. I forgot to mention that my case and mobo are brand new and i just cleaned out every other hardware component, so there is not dust issues at all. The temps last time i check it via the EVGA precision GPU software monitor reaches 80°C and raises sometimes above 85 °C, but only whit the Total War Games, and there were some troubles whit the card underclock tweaks on the latest 4.2.1 version of that software, so i had to uninstalled. Besides that i been thinking if my GPU is damaged in some way, but i been able to run on Highers settings other less demanding games as Rocksmith, Assassins Creed 3 and Dead Space 3 without reach those high temps. Also, do you think that having my TV as my main monitor may be a source of gaming overheat issues?. I just don't know...

[A Barbarian]

Since it was worse on earlier TW games, please use a framerate limiter it will solve your problem especially for those games.

85 °C is no overheating. 100 °C is. TW games are just pretty demaning. Rocksmith and Dead Space 3 are just console ports and AC 3 is often CPU limited. Check your GPU utilization.

[Totalheadache]

if it's an old card you might want to take it apart and check the paste of the cpu, give it a good clean and also check the vrms (these have cooling as well known as thermal pads which u can buy).

changing the paste and cleaning can knock a good 5c-10c off. (depending on how bad it is, often the card can be sold with a pretty shoddy job done).

u need to check guides and have a phillips head screwdriver.

as barbarian said frame limiter or vysnc will help.

[Oskar_GT]

Heya again and gracias amigos, thanx for you FBs, i been a little busy whit stuff and unable to play TW the last week, so i just try it the advices you gave me and the FPS limiter did the trick, so the Temps lowered from 85° to 60° C at 30 fps whit almost everything at high or ultra whit very little noticeable lag. Well, the thing that still bothers me is that i am unable to let the damn Graphic Card work at its best, i mean i had to reduce the permitted stock values like this: The voltage from 1000 to 938, the Core Clock from 797 to 747 MHz and the Memory Clock from 1950 to 1750 MHz, do you think this underclock is safe?. By the way its is just me or do you know other people having issues whit this particular GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 cores FTW?

[A Barbarian]

@Oskar_GT
You don't need to underclock your memory, that doesn't reduce the temps anyway, only core voltage (more) and core speed (less) does.

Actually, you could try a core clock of 800Mhz (or maybe even a little more) and a voltage of 950mv. I had a GTX560TI which did 1000Mhz although that was a very good GPU sample. I would run 800Mhz with just 850mv if I remember correctly. As long as your games don't crash, there is no problem with undervolting or underclocking. Note that voltage has the much bigger impact on temperatures than core speed.