Safe Temps for the 680m

Did we ever get a limit on the safe temps for the 680m?

Mine had never really gone over 80 before and suddenly (as in, I noticed it today after it not doing it before) is bouncing off of 89 consistently in BF3.

I don't seem to have a throttling problem. I tried GPUZ, HWInfo and Afterburner. They all report the same temp settings. As soon as I quit BF# they plummet. I haven't had any issues with it overheating, no crashes or anything. I do have it custom vbiosed and overclocked, but as I said before I stressed it when setting up the clocks to make sure they are stable and they have been running at this level for nearly 4 months. It has been an instant thing, not an increase over time.

Possible sensor problem? Fan issue? What is the safe range to work in and when should I start worrying?

EDIT: So I just tested it in Furmark and it climbs to 90 almost instantly, then bounces back and forth from 88 to 89 for however long I leave it on.

 

Just blow out the fans. The card will shut itself off before it overheats, so don't worry.

Take an air can, take the back cover off and blow the radiator and fan out.

 

NVidia cards throttle on 90 degrees, that's why you should not get higher temps even if cooling is inadequate. But this comes at cost of losing performance.

 

That is the odd thing. I'm not losing performance. It runs at exactly what I would expect it to.

I also cleaned the fans and nothing changed (I keep them clean). I'm gonna repaste it when I can take it apart tonight, but it has only been a month or so since my last repaste.

 

How do you know that you are not losing performance? Often only benchmarking is the way to really know, especially when it drops like 10-20% only

 

The only reason I know is because I run BF3 with Vsync on. On most maps I get a couple of skips where it will drop to 30 fps since Triple buffering can't handle the lower than 60 frame rates. I have not seen an increase in these at all. Basically It seems like it is running the exact same as it ever has. I get the same frame rates in every game. I only noticed the temps because my fans were kicking on to super mode. I know this is not a perfect gauge, but I can see simple things such as my over clock not being on this way, so I assume it is a pretty good measure of Any lack of performance.

I don't think I would have noticed at all. I usually run some stuff to check temps once every two weeks to make sure everything is fine and the last time I did it it was still running sub 80. Today when I noticed the noise from the fans I checked it.

 

If you play with VSync on fluid 60, most often your card will not be running at 100% utilization, this usually is enough to take slack of thermal throttling. Again, if you want to be sure thats thermal throttling is not happening, you need to do proper benchmark, and benchmark without VSync obviously.

But its pretty certain that you should not allow card to ever reach 90 degrees, because this is thermal throttle threshold for 680M.

Did you move laptop around at all? Maybe cooler plate became dislodged from chip.

 

Anything in the 80s will be fine.

 

Same rule for rock music ^^.

 

may sound a bit stupid but what country do you live in? winter isn't coming anymore and maybe this is simply due to the rise in general temperature?

 

No, It doesn't move, and I keep the room it is in pretty chill (around 68 usually). I did bench it last night, but all of the scores fell within the standard deviation I've had before. I run with Vsync on in BF3 because it makes everything smoother and makes it look better to me, but because I keep it mostly on ultra it keeps the card at about 90% (between 85 and 95) under most circumstances. I haven't had the time to sit down and repaste it. Gonna give that a try and see what comes of it.

Oh and Jaycob, good choice!

Thanks Meaker, I'll make sure it stays in there.

 

Don't forget to use a high quality paste like IC diamond

 

I've got some GelID and some good ol AS5.

 

Clean fans, repaste, and you are good to go. Also, make sure you have something to help elevate the notebook. It will help with the air flow.

 

Seriously it does, just some bottlecaps on the back feet really helps.

 

AS5 is good, though most would advise ICD or Prolimatech.

 

Only if you turn it to 11