8800gts Overheating on P-6860 fx (causes crash)

For quite awhile my computer while playing games will black screen and powerdown.

I've been monitoring my GPU and it seems to powerdown when the GPU Temp is somewhere above 90 degrees celcius.

I have a warning to pop up when my gpu temp reaches 90. When it does so, i'll go to desktop to let it cool down a bit before resuming play... this keeps it from crashing but is quite annoying since it happens alot while playing games.

I have a notebook cooler, have boosted my comp a bit to allow more air flow.
I have cleaned the fans and verified that the comp is free of dust.

I have tried over 6 different drivers... none of them keep it from overheating.

Do I have any other options? Or am i stuck?

I do undervolt my cpu, but turning that off doesn't stop the problem.
I have underclocked my GPU by 10% but that doesn't affect heat levels at all.

 

You probably have dust clogged up under the heatsink. You will need to take apart the whole laptop to get to your GPU and clean out the dust that can not be removed by compressed air. you can use this thread for instructions http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/382408-gateway-fx-disassembly-guide-covers-all-17in-fx-notebooks.html

 

Yah, I saw that... That's kind of daunting and i'm afraid I would totally break something. You basically have to take apart the WHOLE thing just to get to the GPU right? I don't trust myself to do that without messing something up.

 

Yeah it is an intimidating task but many people have solved their issues with heat by doing that. EX.

 

Hey Erik,
Thank's for re-iterating that you think it was a dust issue. Since I didn't want to take apart the whole computer I decided to clean it with an air-compressor once again (already cleaned the whole thing like 3 times).

But this time I focused on only the GPU and blew in air through the outtake grate (the orange thingy on the side).
I did this for about 3 minutes straight trying to make sure I didn't whir the fan too much. And guess what? About 3 times out of that 3 minutes I must have hit the right spot because a cloud of really fine dust came shooting out. First time I saw it, I was like WOW haven't seen that before... And just kept spraying air in there and it happened twice more.

Before, just idling at Starcraft 2 menu or Warhammer Menu would cause temp to hit above 90c and shut down the computer. So i just did a real simple test and let it sit at the menu screen for half an hour and it never went above 51C.
So thanks alot... i really didn't think any more dust could be in there after cleaning it out 3 times... but I was wrong. Keeping at it through the outake vent finally did the TRICK!

 

I'm still having the same issues as you. It seems like there is just no better way to get around it than just going in and taking the computer apart and applying as5 to the cpu and cleaning out dust from every fan

 

If your CPU is overheatig you should apply some new thermal paste. It is alot easier to get to compared to the GPU.

 

changing thermal paste sucks. My CPU never went above 55 one year ago now it sometimes its above 75.

This thermal paste when its old really sucks.

 

i work on a lot of old dell laptops/PCs and after they are 3-5 years old the original thermal paste disappears/evaporates or something. everytime I have a pc that locks up after running for X amount of minutes. i take the heatsink off and the spot where the cpu touches heatsink is missing all thermal paste. re-apply new paste and works like new again.

A few weeks ago my friend had problems with his BFG 9800GT in his desktop pc, very sluggish performance and crashing. i blew it out -- which it needed bad, but that didnt fix it. i took the heatsink fan off and again, thermal paste was gone. applied some, reseated and worked like new again.