Blow it!

[UBT - Mikee]

Got myself a second hand NVidia 8800GT. Plugged it in with the 9800GT (They're the same card, just a different badge). Put in the SLI bridge and tried BOINC on it.

All seems well... Sort of.

9800 runs at 83 degrees, 8800 at 95 degrees. Just been running SETI - 8800 went up to 103 degrees! That's a bit hot - time to investigate!

Took the cover off the 8800 and it was well blocked! Bit of Air Duster and tugging out the grime from between the fins with tweezers.

Tried again - dropped from 104 degrees to 79!

That'll do!

Your turn!

[fellie]

Ooh I thought the 9800 used a smaller chip ??

Pc's and 24/7 running boinc certainly seem to get the dust built up fast, I almost posted a thread the other day suggesting we all had a monthly 'vacuum out' !!

[Ben]

Got myself a second hand NVidia 8800GT. Plugged it in with the 9800GT (They're the same card, just a different badge). Put in the SLI bridge and tried BOINC on it.

All seems well... Sort of.

9800 runs at 83 degrees, 8800 at 95 degrees. Just been running SETI - 8800 went up to 103 degrees! That's a bit hot - time to investigate!

Took the cover off the 8800 and it was well blocked! Bit of Air Duster and tugging out the grime from between the fins with tweezers.

Tried again - dropped from 104 degrees to 79!

That'll do!

Your turn!

I was half expecting you to say your PSU blew in reguards to the title  :roll:

I'm a little confused though as BOINC requires you to not use SLI in order to crunch? Unless there has been some fundimental change that has gone on?  :idea:

[melter65]

I almost posted a thread the other day suggesting we all had a monthly 'vacuum out' !!

We had a whole thread concerning this a few years ago. A monthly 'vacuuming out' of your CPU/GPU cooling fan/heatsink is indeed a very good practice!

[UBT - Mikee]

I'm a little confused though as BOINC requires you to not use SLI in order to crunch? Unless there has been some fundimental change that has gone on?  :idea:

Now there's a thing!

Not knowing anything about SLI I assumed that if you fitted the bridge between the cards then SLI would automatically be engaged. Just had a look around, found this thread http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=3840

So best not engage it. Then I realised that the NVidia control panel wouldn't work to disengage, so have now installed the latest drivers to get that going again http://www.nvidia.com/Download/find.aspx

And lo and behold SLI is NOT engaged by default. Seems that, by mistake, the original post was correct (I have in the bridge in but had not, in fact, been running in SLI mode!)

Could that explain why DNETC wouldn't work? When I tried that, 1 WU seemed to be using both GPUs but stalled. Had to abort them after 6 hours of nowt! Perhaps if I engaged SLI they may have worked, something for another day (slightly off topic there - sorry!).

Ho hum, everything is well in the land of the Mikey's for a change!

I was half expecting you to say your PSU blew in reguards to the title

Now that's another story! Mrs. Mikey's PC did that earlier this week. Went to PC World (it was late and I wanted one NOW!) and they've got a closing down sale in Wrexham (refurbishing though, not closing down)

Saw a 300 Watt PSU which would have done perfectly for £14.99 in the sale. Took it to the checkout and the till wouldn't allow it, took another one and same again. When the assistant took off the 'SALE' label it was a 800 watt unit and should have been £70! Darn! (They're not obliged to sell at the lower displayed price - it's an 'invitation to buy' or something - I did try to get her to sell it for £15 but she wouldn't have it, she said I could have it for £50 which would have been a bargain had I had £50 to burn!)

[Ben]

And lo and behold SLI is NOT engaged by default. Seems that, by mistake, the original post was correct (I have in the bridge in but had not, in fact, been running in SLI mode!)

Could that explain why DNETC wouldn't work? When I tried that, 1 WU seemed to be using both GPUs but stalled. Had to abort them after 6 hours of nowt! Perhaps if I engaged SLI they may have worked, something for another day (slightly off topic there - sorry!).

I'm not too sure, but i guess that could well be the cause. For some reason DNET seems to be the only exception (i think) within the BOINC project which does seem to support multiple GPU's working together? Well it says using 2 ATI gpu's for me anyway and seems to complete in around 16mins a peice!

[fellie]

I almost posted a thread the other day suggesting we all had a monthly 'vacuum out' !!

We had a whole thread concerning this a few years ago. A monthly 'vacuuming out' of your CPU/GPU cooling fan/heatsink is indeed a very good practice!

  was this it ?

[melter65]

The very same!

I didn't have the lappy back then so I'm interested in where you blew/vacuumed the dust from?

[fellie]

Laptop : simply vacuumed anything that looks like a vent , anything that has mesh / holes !!


Main point is underneath, a small fan behind metal mesh, this is the main air intake, and a vent close by, that is generally filled with cooling fins..

Buggar to explain, but obvious when ya look, vac first to get worst off / out ( no point blowing stuff in.. ) blast with air, then vac again seems to work well  ( remmeber to vac the keyboard, those pesky hob nob crumbs get everywhere!!!! )

[fellie]

This might go a bit in depth ... but handy non the less

http://repair4laptop.org/notebook_fan.html

[fellie]

Bump....

Central heating is on = more dust produced = hot pc's  :shock:

[Ben]

Time to buy some olive oil, a pan, and some really nice sausages  :lol:

[UBT - Mikee]

Virtually exactly the same as my first post though this time a GT240 instead of the 8800!

Primegrid was running at over 100 degrees! Took cover off, removed a lump of grey thing(!) refitted and Primegrid is now to a more respectable 75 degrees. DNET drops further to 70.

Your turn!

[madas91]

my gtx 295 is running again after i noticed it sitting on 105 degrees C on 100% fan.

I had to underclock it 100mhz just to get it below 100 C

Googled a bit and found several really clear dissasembly guides. Stripped it all the way down to 2 separate cards and a big hunk of heatsink.

Cleaned everything off and believe me it was YTS day in the factory that made it.Started again with MX-2 and some new heat pads for the chips and a damn good clean of everything.

Re-assembly was a touch fiddly with the cat getting interested and the sli bridge strips popping off everytime i tried to get the first board back on the heatsink. Its a fiddly ribbon and socket affair.

Several cups of tea and a cool down outside with a nasty ciggy and calm returned  8)

Fingers crossed first boot time that it still worked. Its now running at 86C on 80% fan and a 30mhz overclock  :D  :D

Boinc work RAC is now recovering nicely.

[UBT - mickyb69]

Cleaned out my Gt240 yesterday , Running @ 95 C with the fan sounding like a Yellow 1984 Metro with 125k on the clock !

Now runs @ 73 C with 32% fan    :lol:  :lol:

1 Downside .... Had to shut the bedroom window because it got cold without the Prime grid electric fire  

[Ben]

76-78C on my ATI's at the moment, so far, so good! A little bit noisy with the twin fans but when it tips the 90C+ scale then it will be time to pull the beasty to bits and give it a clean. And probably add some more thermal paste whilst i'm at it  :D

[Temujin]

I always know when it's time to clean things out when the whisper turns into a scream

I've got a hobby compressor in the garage and each PC gets carried down and given a damned good blow out.

It makes a world of difference to both the noise level and credit reuturns

[primalsole]

I've always found that buying more expensive cases which seal and have filters over all the intakes saves the need to clean the inside of the system. I haven't cleaned any of the hardware inside my Coolermaster Cosmos S case since I got it over 2 years ago. The hardware inside only had some very very fine dust on it, no big clumps, everything looks like new still

My server case also has filters for all its intakes, and it too is clean and pretty much dust free inside.

I would never buy a case without intake filters nowadays.