3870 heat problems (yes, me too!)

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requiem99

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 4, 2003
Messages
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I know tons of people have 3870 heat problems and I've been around the net in search of a good solution, but lately my problem has got worse for no apparent reason. I used to idle in the low-mid 30s even with the fan at 50 using rivatuner (as I'm aware of the bios problems with the dynamic fan settings based on temp) but all of a sudden and for no apparent reason I now idle in the 50s even with fan at 70. In games such as Bioshock, Stalker, or even IL2 the temps can reach the 90s even with 100 percent fan!

I checked the flow and, tell me I'm crazy, I swear to god it is going the opposite direction. When I bought the card I remember testing it and noting that the air was sucked into the turbine and pushed out the back of the card, not sucked in the back and pushed out through the fan... as it's doing now? :eek:

Edit: Gecube 3870 single core.
 
So the airflow is now reversed? Haven't heard that of that problem before. My HIS 3870 used to run great with Riva Tuner setting fan at 63% & was stable, but is now crashing after several minutes to almost & an hour worth of play in Crysis. Coming out & checking Riva Tuner, fan is always set back to stock levels. Not sure why that's happening either.
 
I've got a Diamond 3870 with the weak fan BIOS so I use Rivatuner as well to force it to spin faster during load.

Actually someone had posted a similar problem with the reverse airflow issue couple of months ago. I would RMA it and get a new card.
 
I can't RMA it easily because Gecube is taiwan based without an RMA department to speak of. They offered to look at, and possibly work on the card, if I sent it to taiwan. I'm not real hot to do that.

I had a friend with this card who was so fed up with it that he offered to give it to me if I'd loan him money for a 8800GTS, but even free it has been a non stop headache. It has random artifacting as well (but rare), probably a result of the defective fan bios overheating it and damaging it when my friend (who knows nothing about hardware) owned it for those two months and ran it without rivatuner. :(
 
My 3870s get really hot, even with the special fan BIOS. Forcing the fan to 50% at all times doesn't seem to help. They'll get up into the 90s.

I have artifacting and crashing too.

gg ATI. I think I'm done with these cards. The only problem now is that I don't feel like I could sell them on the forums in good conscience... :(
 
My next purchase is going to be 2x8800s exact type depending on price come summer. I was running 2 7900GTs before and I use the same mobo so this ATI card is surely going to get the boot as it plays all my older games much worse than even one of my 7900s. No way I could unload this thing on someone in good conscience though, and it's still basically brand new. :mad:
 
I'm sorry to hear that about your card. The prices are already going down now so a 9600GT is very comparable to the 3870 and only for around $175 if you can get it at Newegg.
 
I have a Sapphire 3870 card, got it when it first came out, and have never used any fan speed control, with no heating problems yet. The card works great.
 
bfellow said:
I'm sorry to hear that about your card. The prices are already going down now so a 9600GT is very comparable to the 3870 and only for around $175 if you can get it at Newegg.
Click to expand...

Actually the 9600gt isn't as fast as the 3870. Nvidia is using tricks (typical Nvidia) to increase their benchmark scores by reviewers. Basicially they make the card an overclocked card, hide the fact that its overclocked, and have reviewers compare it against non overclocked cards.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/Shady_9600_GT/1.html
 
Actually that article is only HALF-true. Most of the various website's benchmark scores aren't using an older Nvidia 590 SLI setup with the now defunct Linkboost which is what OCs it. The test setups on most sites are using Intel boards so the card isn't OCed unless you specifically change the PCI-E speed in the BIOS.

THG uses a Intel X38 board, Legit Reviews uses X38, Anandtech uses Intel 5400, and Ars Technica uses Nvidia 650i.

I would wait till an updated version of Rivatuner before speculating on an unsupported card.
 
The stock cooler was fine until yesterday (apart from needing rivatuner to work, I mean) when temps went bezerk. Before I could idle 25 percent fan at 35-39C but now even with 50 its around 60C -- something major happened and I think it was turbine airflow reversal. Such a strange series these 3800s.
 
Did you ever consider that it may have been a bug with the program you were using to read temps?
 
tc17 said:
I have a Sapphire 3870 card, got it when it first came out, and have never used any fan speed control, with no heating problems yet. The card works great.
Click to expand...

Same. Even in my case with crappy cooling (only one 120mm fan in the back) my Visiontek 3870 never goes above 92C even with the "broken" fan BIOS that doesn't go above 40% fan speed.:confused:
 
baddog121390 said:
Same. Even in my case with crappy cooling (only one 120mm fan in the back) my Visiontek 3870 never goes above 92C even with the "broken" fan BIOS that doesn't go above 40% fan speed.:confused:
Click to expand...

92C at load?

danforden-toasty-small.gif


Toasty!
 
Before I used Rivatuner, CCC was reporting 85-87C at load for me and after the machine ran for awhile it could only idle around 60-65C with the stuck and unfixed fan speed. With Rivatuner overrides, my 3870 idles at 39C and load only reaches around 60C
 
Oh it's the card all right, just played an hour of bioshock and the card is much too hot to touch (core read as 103 upon exit) and this was with fan at 100 the entire time, and clearly at 100 because the thing is damn loud.

Goodbye lemon.
 
just replace the stock cooler dude. the card itself is fine. if its sucking air in through the back then the fan isn;'t working right. just buy something cheap that'll cool it and youre fine.
 
No the overheating is just the most recent problem. I've had artifacting from day 1 and, even running perfectly, this thing simply does not perform. 320SP my ass even if it is true it's irrelevent with whatever else is crippling this card from the inside that AMD/ATI does not want us to know about, and it shows up in many, many games. Trackmania Sunrise, DIRT, Anno1701, SOASE, FEAR, Stalker, Supreme Commander, Bioshock, IL2-Sturmovik, and even Crysis are handled more ably by a single 8800GTS, and I should know as I had one here last week to play with. Nearly every benchmark that takes minimum framerate as well as overall average into account seems to back this up, and the stutter lag that used to plague the 9700 series when we were early on in catalyst series 3 has come back with a vengeance.

The 3870 series is a dud. Period. I don't care if the die-hard ATI boys support this thing, most of the rest of us buy whatever is the best choice for a die hard gamer, and this is far from the best of the current offerings. I have no axe to grind, and I've been called an nvidiot and a fanATIc more times than I can count. I'm a gamer, and I worship the best 3D video card for games. Always have. Voodoo to a 2 to a 3, then the TNT2 when I realized the prevailing winds were blowing 3DFX away and T&L in. Really, what were they thinking? Now it's 9 years later and once again nvidia is back on top. For now. ATI will probably win me back again in a couple years. We'll see.

Anyway, no more rambling. Forget the paper specs on the 3870, I've been around long enough to know inferior when I use it. 2 more days to my new 9600s...
 
For a single card solution i use a 3870x2 compared to a single GTS..Each has its own Problems,Fan swithing and heating upATI// and Memory Fan issues for Nvidia as well....Ive sent 3GT's and two GTS back before i sent 1 3870x2 back all for heat or fan or memory problems.

1st,,
I am very happy with the 3870x2 two GPU's on on PCB .Im really not a fan to like dual card solutions which was two 3870's crossfire or SLI two GTS's. SLI/Crossfire do offer performance and run good but id rather have ONE CARD if it fails its one less thing to worry about.

2nd,,
I use the beta Release Driver with Cat 8.3 and it did seem to help crysis alot..I also dont get the low CPU perfromance or low 3Dmarks that just the 8.3whql has..There is also bad Fan switching that the 8.3 driver and 8.2 driver has when using a WHQL display driver included in both Cats...

I have a 3870x2 ...it was going up and down all the time with 8.2 and 8.3...So i use the Beta release display driver with cat 8.3 control center..Crysis also released 1.2patch which helps alot..ATI needs to rethink the drivers some more..These cards do have a lot held back in them because of drivers and Fan switching problems....Ive been using Nvidia and ATI and finaly went back to ATI for the x2 series ..Im not disapointed over not using the GTS512mb. Seeing i grabed a ATI 3870x2 for $383 when it was at Microcenter.

yes Ati users do need to tweak the cards but Nvidia has had its share as well...This game of Card performance is the worst in several years..it happens.
 
Well 6 days now with no response to RMA email request. Anyone else have gecube RMA experience? Am I wasting my time?
 
My card doesnt get hot at all! On Crysis with all maxed out settings After 3 hours of game play the max heat is at 63 degrees Celsius, and when I have it over clocked it gets about 68 degrees! But overall I believe VisionTek put out the best of the 3870 series!
 
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