Gigabyte GV-N460OC-1GI is very hot!!!!

A friend of mine bougut this card a week ago, he said the card wasn't stable when playing metro 2033. So he asked me to check the card for him. I tested the card under full load in an open case, nothing happened. So I tried to remove the card from the mb. However, I felt pain when I touched the back of the pcb!!!!! :eek: So I tried to get a thermal sensor on the mosfet area, the result is beyond my imagination...:shocked:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/3817/img5152h.jpg
92 degree c ... and the heatsink is on the front side of the mosfet. I guessed the mosfet itself must be over 100degree c.

So I tried to test the same area of my reference gtx 460 card.

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/8435/img5154zd.jpg
it only went to 78 degree c, it is a normal temperature I guessed. But no heatsink on the front side of mosfet.

I also searched the google and found the serveal compaints about this card, maybe the reason why this card is not stable under full load (because mosfet is overheating.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

An extra fan should help then I suppose. But yea that's a good find that probably would be useful for other Gigabyte GTX 460 OC owners too. :)

Take the heatsink off and remount it with some proper TIM. Lap the HS base as well, it more than likely needs it. After doing that the fets should be under reasonable control.

I am getting 2 of them in today. Will test at let you know if i get the same issue. Hope not i will be pissed. I waited for the newer 104 to get bugs worked out of the 100 chip. :up:

If you look at the back of an ASUS GTX460 you can note that there is an extra ridge where the pushpins from the heatsink are. Seems to me that there just isnt enough pressure being applied and that one could just put some of the old fashioned cardboard washers that we used to use to keep screws from dmging the pcb on older motherboards. Fit something in there non metal to allow those push pin springs to be pulled harder and that should drop those temps. Asus did their own thing to fix the issue but i would suspect that some thing to make those push pins pull harder would work the same.

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4355/bottoma.jpg

Yep it's common for the VRM's on the 460's to be very hot, your lucky that the card came with a heatsink for the VRM section, I had to make one for mine. Anyhow it is a good idea to take the heatsink off and apply some ceramique (do not use any other TIM besides ceramique on the VRM section).

Also Im certain that the card bios can have effect on some params pertaining to the VRM section. I know this because when i first got my palit 460 the VRM's would get hot enough to melt your fingerprints off, now a few bios revisions later and they are much cooler. So perhaps you should check if a newer BIOS rev. is out for the card.

I will just use a 120mm fan to cool the region, should be running rather hot when increasing the voltage. Also the F3 bios might help if you're not already using it.

Thats why i alwais recommand a card with stock VRM cooling or to add yourself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

I will just use a 120mm fan to cool the region, should be running rather hot when increasing the voltage. Also the F3 bios might help if you're not already using it.

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What is this F3 bios? What is so special about it and where can I get it?

ive tortured my 460OC card to hell and back and never had any crashes or issues. :shrug: