I have a 'problem' with one of my two Asus directcu ii r9 290 cards. I got those cards about two weeks ago and the first thing i did, was checking the temperatures with Unigine Valley.
Apperently those cards should run 20 procent cooler than the reference r9 290, but for one card this isn't the case at all. I started testing those cards in a crossfire setup first. These were my results:
Top card: 90-94 C
Bottom card: 70 - 75
I wasn't happy with those results at all, so i swapped the cards around to see if i would make any difference:
Top card: 82C
Bottom cards: 84C
The answer: yes, it did make a huge difference.
To confirm my results, i tested the cards individually. One card only reached 71C, while the other reached 84C.
There is obviously something wrong with the card the runs hotter. I know that the card isn't overheating, but there shouldn't be a difference of 13 degrees celcius between those two cards.
After my tests i took a closer look at the coolers of the two cards and the first thing i noticed was that the heatsink of the card that runs hotter is slightly bent (the heatsink of the cooler card is perfectly leveled). I thought that i could fix this issue by revoming the heatsink and put it back on again. The temperatures did decrease only a little (2 degrees at best), but probably only because Asus used a whole tube of thermal paste instead of a tiny amount.
As far as i can tell, the heatsink seems to make good contact with the dei. I reapplied thermal paste (Artic Cooling MX 4) a couple off times, but it didn't have any effect on the temperatures (i used the rice method and it did seem to spread nicely over the dei).
I also put my fingers on the end of the heatsink while running Unigine Valley and i noticed that the heatsink of the cooler card gets hotter than the heatsink of the hotter card.
The hotter card also cools down a little faster when there isn't any load on the GPU anymore.
A couple of days ago i tried to level the heatsink by bending it a little. Strangly enough, this lowered the temperature by 2 degrees.
What could be the problem here? I really don't have a clue. I know that it is probably hard to tell, but any suggestions are welcome.
* I'm not a native speaker and i'm sure my english isn't always correct. Sorry for that ;)
Apperently those cards should run 20 procent cooler than the reference r9 290, but for one card this isn't the case at all. I started testing those cards in a crossfire setup first. These were my results:
Top card: 90-94 C
Bottom card: 70 - 75
I wasn't happy with those results at all, so i swapped the cards around to see if i would make any difference:
Top card: 82C
Bottom cards: 84C
The answer: yes, it did make a huge difference.
To confirm my results, i tested the cards individually. One card only reached 71C, while the other reached 84C.
There is obviously something wrong with the card the runs hotter. I know that the card isn't overheating, but there shouldn't be a difference of 13 degrees celcius between those two cards.
After my tests i took a closer look at the coolers of the two cards and the first thing i noticed was that the heatsink of the card that runs hotter is slightly bent (the heatsink of the cooler card is perfectly leveled). I thought that i could fix this issue by revoming the heatsink and put it back on again. The temperatures did decrease only a little (2 degrees at best), but probably only because Asus used a whole tube of thermal paste instead of a tiny amount.
As far as i can tell, the heatsink seems to make good contact with the dei. I reapplied thermal paste (Artic Cooling MX 4) a couple off times, but it didn't have any effect on the temperatures (i used the rice method and it did seem to spread nicely over the dei).
I also put my fingers on the end of the heatsink while running Unigine Valley and i noticed that the heatsink of the cooler card gets hotter than the heatsink of the hotter card.
The hotter card also cools down a little faster when there isn't any load on the GPU anymore.
A couple of days ago i tried to level the heatsink by bending it a little. Strangly enough, this lowered the temperature by 2 degrees.
What could be the problem here? I really don't have a clue. I know that it is probably hard to tell, but any suggestions are welcome.
* I'm not a native speaker and i'm sure my english isn't always correct. Sorry for that ;)
Problem with GPU cooler
