Is it possible to...

The VCR King

The VCR King

Well-Known Member
...fry a graphics card by playing HD video/games for a long time at once? Because I have been playing TF2 and COD Ghosts at MAX settings for 2-3 hours at a time and I am curious if I can overheat my card/damage it.

I monitored system temps with Speccy and my graphics card idles at around 130 degrees(F) and it stays a pretty much steady 160-175 degrees(F) during gaming.

The card is a Sapphire Radeon 6950 card. I am no longer running two cards in crossfire because card 2 died awhile back.
 
Those are average temps for cards under load. You don't have anything to worry about.
 
The Blue Beast said:
...fry a graphics card by playing HD video/games for a long time at once? Because I have been playing TF2 and COD Ghosts at MAX settings for 2-3 hours at a time and I am curious if I can overheat my card/damage it.

I monitored system temps with Speccy and my graphics card idles at around 130 degrees(F) and it stays a pretty much steady 160-175 degrees(F) during gaming.

The card is a Sapphire Radeon 6950 card. I am no longer running two cards in crossfire because card 2 died awhile back.
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Yeah you're fine, cards are designed to be able to run for very long periods of time assuming you have adequate airflow and the cards aren't defective.
 
Dont forget to remove dust from the cards heatsink, fan etc. once every 3 rd month at least, using a can of compressed air. Dust bunnies on a heatsink, are a certain way to have a video card or a cpu for that matter that is overheating sooner or later.
 
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I give it about 7-8 days of uptime, them I put it into sleep mode, which turns off the fans. Then I go in and dust for a minute then I press the power button and simply resume Windows.
 
The Blue Beast said:
...fry a graphics card by playing HD video/games for a long time at once? Because I have been playing TF2 and COD Ghosts at MAX settings for 2-3 hours at a time and I am curious if I can overheat my card/damage it.

I monitored system temps with Speccy and my graphics card idles at around 130 degrees(F) and it stays a pretty much steady 160-175 degrees(F) during gaming.

The card is a Sapphire Radeon 6950 card. I am no longer running two cards in crossfire because card 2 died awhile back.
Click to expand...
Completely normal, that's around 70C. it does differ from card to card, but generally they do run very hot. FYI, usually people mention computer temps in celsius, not fahrenheit.

The Blue Beast said:
Thanks. Since I am now starting to (really) use my gaming PC I was curious about any possible risks.
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Temps become a real concern if you start overclocking. If you keep it stock, as long as your case has adequate airflow and the ambient temp isn't a sauna, I wouldn't worry about it.

The Blue Beast said:
I almost never turn off my computer, so I dust it almost bi-weekly now.
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Why don't you ever turn your computer off? Do you run background tasks when you aren't on the computer? If not, you're just wasting money by keeping it on, and the parts will wear out that much quicker. There's also no need to dust it bi-weekly unless you live in a really dirty environment.
 
The Blue Beast said:
I give it about 7-8 days of uptime, them I put it into sleep mode, which turns off the fans. Then I go in and dust for a minute then I press the power button and simply resume Windows.
Click to expand...

I really wouldn't use sleep mode for that. Sometimes you see some of the liquid shoot out of the can. Since the computer is still effectively 'on' you could potentially bridge circuits.
 
beers said:
I really wouldn't use sleep mode for that. Sometimes you see some of the liquid shoot out of the can. Since the computer is still effectively 'on' you could potentially bridge circuits.
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This.

Plus, if you don't need your computer on 24/7 and only turn it on when using it, you wouldn't need to dust it out that often.
 
WRXGuy1 said:
*snip snip
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Why don't you ever turn your computer off? Do you run background tasks when you aren't on the computer? If not, you're just wasting money by keeping it on, and the parts will wear out that much quicker. There's also no need to dust it bi-weekly unless you live in a really dirty environment.
Click to expand...

I leave my computer on because I have one of the extra HDDS linked as a cloud-drive to my phone, and I also have a TV tuner installed and it records shows while I am gone.
I also dust it often because we have a long-haired cat in the house that sheds a lot, and the computer room is where he sleeps the most. :/
 
The Blue Beast said:
I leave my computer on because I have one of the extra HDDS linked as a cloud-drive to my phone, and I also have a TV tuner installed and it records shows while I am gone.
I also dust it often because we have a long-haired cat in the house that sheds a lot, and the computer room is where he sleeps the most. :/
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Sounds like you should get a NAS and DVR instead.
 
What is a NAS? And I have a DVR, but it doesn't get over-the-air channels like my PC's card does. I use my PC to tune to the "Retro" networks that my town has. I record mostly re-runs of The Mod Squad and Jack Benny.
 
The Blue Beast said:
What is a NAS? And I have a DVR, but it doesn't get over-the-air channels like my PC's card does. I use my PC to tune to the "Retro" networks that my town has. I record mostly re-runs of The Mod Squad and Jack Benny.
Click to expand...
NAS = network attached storage.
 
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