Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Condor on March 25, 2016, 01:41:52 PM
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Skuzzy suggested that the below expected performance I am seeing from my AMD HA6950 card may be due to heat. Does anyone know of a good heat monitoring utility for video cards? I know I've used one for CPUs in the past. Would also appreciate recommendations for CPU temp monitoring. The last one I downloaded was 8 yrs ago and it went away with my old XP machine.
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GPU-Z for video card.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ (https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/)
It's usually best to download from the motherboard manufacturer the utility for monitoring CPU temps. CPU-Z can help you figure out what motherboard you have.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)
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CPUID Hardware Monitor is what I have: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html). Nothing fancy but it tells the most important things for both CPU and GPU
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CPUID Hardware Monitor is what I have: http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html). Nothing fancy but it tells the most important things for both CPU and GPU
+1 :aok
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GPU-Z for video card.
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/ (https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/)
It's usually best to download from the motherboard manufacturer the utility for monitoring CPU temps. CPU-Z can help you figure out what motherboard you have.
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html (http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html)
Thanks, I downloaded gpuz. While running AH 3 I saw a gpu temp of 77C and the 3 sensors ranged from 76-87C. Now while in forum they read 45-40C. Now how hot is too hot?
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Thanks, I downloaded gpuz. While running AH 3 I saw a gpu temp of 77C and the 3 sensors ranged from 76-87C. Now while in forum they read 45-40C. Now how hot is too hot?
FYI. I checked several sites and it appears the safe limit for the HD6950 is 95C. My max fan speed only went to 36% so I guess I can increase that if I get up to 90C.
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Set your fan to 100% or as high as you can stand the noise. Don't wait until you get too hot. Keep temps as low as you can from the start.
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Set your fan to 100% or as high as you can stand the noise. Don't wait until you get too hot. Keep temps as low as you can from the start.
That's my thinking too. Trying to figure out how to set fan speed. Catalyst control center is not very intuitive. None of the menu selections bring up anything related to fan speed. An internet search was no help. I'll keep searching but it will be appreciated if anyone can tell me how. Should be simple.
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That's my thinking too. Trying to figure out how to set fan speed. Catalyst control center is not very intuitive. None of the menu selections bring up anything related to fan speed. An internet search was no help. I'll keep searching but it will be appreciated if anyone can tell me how. Should be simple.
Answer from AMD :banana:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/254 (http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/254)
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Answer from AMD :banana:
http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/254 (http://support.amd.com/en-us/search/faq/254)
Thanks. Unfortunately following those simple instructions did not give me access to fan speed settings. It may be disabled by the manufacturer (Saphire) so now I need to locate their tweaking software.
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Thanks. Unfortunately following those simple instructions did not give me access to fan speed settings. It may be disabled by the manufacturer (Saphire) so now I need to locate their tweaking software.
Sapphire Trixx. Hope it works for you. My video card fans go up to about 65% while running AH3 around 75C temp.
http://www.sapphiretech.com/catapage_tech.asp?cataid=291&lang=eng (http://www.sapphiretech.com/catapage_tech.asp?cataid=291&lang=eng)
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Sapphire Trixx. Hope it works for you. My video card fans go up to about 65% while running AH3 around 75C temp.
http://www.sapphiretech.com/catapage_tech.asp?cataid=291&lang=eng (http://www.sapphiretech.com/catapage_tech.asp?cataid=291&lang=eng)
Thanks. That did the job. Supposedly the fan automatically speeds up as temp increases but that doesn't seem to work right. In one session I had a GPU temp close to 90C and one sensor got to 94C but the max fan speed was 37%. I just tried AH3 with the fan set at 64% and the highest temp was 68C. So the right setting for AH3 is probably somewhere between 40% and 60%. It's easy to change back to auto so I don't wear out the fan or have to listen to it when I'm not in AH3. My temps don't get above the 70s in AH2. I know I'm running on but there may be someone else with the same problem.
Again, thanks for the help
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I had the same problem too. Set a custom fan profile that runs all the time and is just like original except starting at 60C had it ramp up to 100% at 80C and above.
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I had the same problem too. Set a custom fan profile that runs all the time and is just like original except starting at 60C had it ramp up to 100% at 80C and above.
I saw the custom option and will probably give it a try.
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The HD7750 on the wife's computer has this problem too.
I installed the ASUS software that came with it and set the custom fan speed profile.
The ASUS software is very annoying to me if it runs all the time so uninstalled it.
To my delight discovered that the video card custom fan profile still worked after the software was gone.
Maybe same will work for you too if your software ever annoys you.
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Just noticed that Skuzzy already mentioned to you basically the same thing I did in your other thread....
You can make a AH2 and also an AH3 specific profile, to where you can load the profile for the game, so your fan speed settings are only ramped up during game play....
I prefer to set my fan speed settings to manual instead of relying on the automatic fan speed control and profiles ....
Good luck, hope this helps
TC
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I think part of the problem may be that my son built this computer with a positive pressure case. I've read that although they keep the components cleaner they don't cool as well. I have a nice Antec 500 case my old XP machine but don't feel like doing the rebuild.
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Would it be possible to turn some fans to change the pressure to negative?
One fan for intake in the front and two (or one plus the PSU) up in the rear to blow warm air is the good old fashioned thermodynamically sound recipe.
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Would it be possible to turn some fans to change the pressure to negative?
One fan for intake in the front and two (or one plus the PSU) up in the rear to blow warm air is the good old fashioned thermodynamically sound recipe.
Actually, I think I'm OK with respect to case cooling. The case is a Silverstone Raven RV02-E. It has 3 180mm intake fans on the bottom and the A lot of perforations at the top plus a 120mm exhaust fan at the top centered over the CPU cooler. The power supply fan also exhausts out the top so there is plenty of upward airflow throughout the case. I did discover two issues. My son (who built it) likes a quite computer so he had the three intake fans set at low speed (700rpm). I changed the settings to 1,000 rpm and my idle GPU temp dropped from 41C to 37C with little increase in sound.
The 2nd issue was a real surprise. The fan on the Cool Master CPU cooler appears to have failed completely. I did check the BIOS and it was configured to run automatically based on temp. I changed the setting to 100% always and the fan still didn't run. 4 pin connection to the MB looks fine. I'm looking at replacing it with an Arctic F12 PWM Rev 2 120mm fan. It appears to be better than the OEM fan for about the same price. Would appreciate advice from anyone who has dealt with the same issue.
I figure the airflow in the case must be pretty good for the computer to be running at all. If anything, the blades of the failed fan are probably impeding air flow through the CPU cooler.
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Hi All,
To help out w\ understanding how the fan speeds on Radeon vid cards work from AMD's perspective I've attached a copy of an AMD white paper on how AMD's PowerTune is designed to work.
In short PowerTune controls the vid card's fan speeds as part of it's calculations to actually try to run the GPU at as close to the GPU's TDP limit w\o going over it to maximize the GPU power and clock speeds to attain the max GPU performance per watt of power used and is why the fan speeds on an AMD vid card do not spin up as we are used to seeing w\ other cards. When using AMD OverDrive the fan speed that is set is the max speed % that the fan will spin up to based on the PowerTune calculations made to optimize the GPU according to the GPU's TDP limit and is cumbersome to use outside of this. This is why the AMD R9 290\290X series were notorious for heat as AMD actually designed too poor of a GPU cooler on these at the start to allow PowerTune to maintain control of the GPU temps so they would run hot but also the Hawaii GPU was designed w\ a TDP of 95*C as well so they were designed to run hotter than most. From my testing w\ my XFX BE R9 290X card the GPU would maximize it's performance around the 84*C-86*C range which at the time was approx. 15*C-20*C above the competition but the XFX DD cooler was more than enough to maintain this GPU temp curve at fairly low fan speeds. The Fury X that I currently am using has a GPU TDP of 75*C and it will make it's max GPU performance numbers when the GPU temps are above 60*C (I currently set my fan speed curve to allow PowerTune to optimize GPU between 63*C-65*C GPU temp range) and it is due to how PowerTune 2.0 works is the main reason why AMD went w\ a liquid cooling solution for the Fury X vid card. My Fury X will hold the 63-65 temp range all day long w\ max fan speeds of 40% or less when playing the Beta regardless of GPU load. When playing AHII my GPU will not come close to this temp as PowerTune 2.0 calculates that the GPU doesn't need the power necessary for the GPU load needed to run AHII and so the cooling fan runs at the lowest speed set of 30%.
To set up a fan speed control on these cards that will work similar to what you may be used to seeing or want to see you will need to use a 3rd party software to do it (like MSI Afterburner, Sapphire Trixx, etc) as they are written to hook into the AMD driver and allow a user to set up an auto fan speed control that works like a user wants it to to "somewhat" override the AMD PowerTune GPU control, but when you do that you will throw off AMD's PowerTune calc's and possibly end up cutting some GPU performance due to PowerTune throttling power back to the GPU due to the GPU temp being too low.
This is somewhat hard to understand for most folks when using AMD vid cards and is 1 of the reasons for poorer GPU performance w\ AMD vid cards that are using PowerTune 1.0 and PowerTune 2.0.
Just to put in perspective I also tested Nvidia's GPU Boost software using what I learned from this AMD white paper and I realized increased Nvidia GPU performance as well by running the GPU as close to the GPU's TDP limit when I was using my Nvidia vid cards.
Hope this can help out.
:salute
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Hi All,
To help out w\ understanding how the fan speeds on Radeon vid cards work from AMD's perspective I've attached a copy of an AMD white paper on how AMD's PowerTune is designed to work.
In short PowerTune controls the vid card's fan speeds as part of it's calculations to actually try to run the GPU at as close to the GPU's TDP limit w\o going over it to maximize the GPU power and clock speeds to attain the max GPU performance per watt of power used and is why the fan speeds on an AMD vid card do not spin up as we are used to seeing w\ other cards. When using AMD OverDrive the fan speed that is set is the max speed % that the fan will spin up to based on the PowerTune calculations made to optimize the GPU according to the GPU's TDP limit and is cumbersome to use outside of this. This is why the AMD R9 290\290X series were notorious for heat as AMD actually designed too poor of a GPU cooler on these at the start to allow PowerTune to maintain control of the GPU temps so they would run hot but also the Hawaii GPU was designed w\ a TDP of 95*C as well so they were designed to run hotter than most. From my testing w\ my XFX BE R9 290X card the GPU would maximize it's performance around the 84*C-86*C range which at the time was approx. 15*C-20*C above the competition but the XFX DD cooler was more than enough to maintain this GPU temp curve at fairly low fan speeds. The Fury X that I currently am using has a GPU TDP of 75*C and it will make it's max GPU performance numbers when the GPU temps are above 60*C (I currently set my fan speed curve to allow PowerTune to optimize GPU between 63*C-65*C GPU temp range) and it is due to how PowerTune 2.0 works is the main reason why AMD went w\ a liquid cooling solution for the Fury X vid card. My Fury X will hold the 63-65 temp range all day long w\ max fan speeds of 40% or less when playing the Beta regardless of GPU load. When playing AHII my GPU will not come close to this temp as PowerTune 2.0 calculates that the GPU doesn't need the power necessary for the GPU load needed to run AHII and so the cooling fan runs at the lowest speed set of 30%.
To set up a fan speed control on these cards that will work similar to what you may be used to seeing or want to see you will need to use a 3rd party software to do it (like MSI Afterburner, Sapphire Trixx, etc) as they are written to hook into the AMD driver and allow a user to set up an auto fan speed control that works like a user wants it to to "somewhat" override the AMD PowerTune GPU control, but when you do that you will throw off AMD's PowerTune calc's and possibly end up cutting some GPU performance due to PowerTune throttling power back to the GPU due to the GPU temp being too low.
This is somewhat hard to understand for most folks when using AMD vid cards and is 1 of the reasons for poorer GPU performance w\ AMD vid cards that are using PowerTune 1.0 and PowerTune 2.0.
Just to put in perspective I also tested Nvidia's GPU Boost software using what I learned from this AMD white paper and I realized increased Nvidia GPU performance as well by running the GPU as close to the GPU's TDP limit when I was using my Nvidia vid cards.
Hope this can help out.
:salute
Thanks. does this mean hotter is better with respect to performance of AMD GPUs? The max temp for my HA6950 is 95C so should I be shooting for mid 80s. I downloaded TRIXX so I could set a fan speed profile. I cant in CCC because Saphire disabled that feature of the software. I was seeing temp of about 90C with one sensor at 94.5C with the fan speed never increasing above 37% until I changed the profile using TRIXX.
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Hi Condor,
According to that white paper I attached, that is the intended goal w\ AMD vid cards to maximize their GPU performance that have the PowerTune coding embedded in the GPU.
This is why I attached this white paper as most users have learned and been told that a GPU runs best when kept as cool as possible to minimize electrical leakage at the transistor level so power levels can be better controlled (meaning needing less power to achieve the same result) and also to show that this isn't just me saying this........it's AMD's engineering dept saying this, the one's who designed and built these products.
AMD engineers designed their GPU's to be a little different starting w\ the HD6000 series and up until recent & designed PowerTune to control this by using GPU power and GPU cooling to maximize GPU performance as close to the GPU's thermal design limits.
So AMD says the hotter the better their GPU's will perform when allowing AMD's PowerTune to optimally work....just make sure that the cooler on the card is up to the task. This is where you will want to be using an AIB AMD vid card instead of an AMD reference vid card as the AIB's will install MUCH better coolers on them to maintain the higher operating temp ranges to optimize the AMD GPU's.
The AMD R9 Fury series is the only series AMD reference vid cards that AMD has actually put a good cooling solution on them to allow their GPU's to optimize w\ PowerTune so they have learned their own lesson.
When used as is intended it does work and work well.......but it also takes some getting used to seeing GPU temps operating that high. A good, well ventilated case is almost a necessity when using an AMD vid card to it's strengths to help maintain the temps properly.
Hope this helps.
:salute
PS--How I set up my vid card's fan speed profile in MSI Afterburner looks like a L laid over on the long side. I set the 100% dot at 5*C below the GPU's TDP limit then set the other dot on the low fan speed % line at 15*C below the GPU TDP limit so the fan will not spin up off the lowest fan speed % set until the GPU operating temp crossed the 1st dot then the fan will ramp up proportionally to every 1*C GPU temp rise. An example using your card's GPU TDP:
30% fan speed until GPU temp crosses 80*C then fan speed will ramp proportionally until GPU temp hits 90*C at which time the fan speed should be at 100%. How good the vid card cooler\case air flow is will determine how close the GPU will get to the 100% fan speed of 90*C (I actually used this very same example w\ my XFX Radeon BE R9 290X vid card which has the same GPU TDP limit & leveled out in the 84*C-86*C temp range at full GPU load w\ fan speeds hovering between the 50%-70% range & it came very close to matching my GeForce GTX 780Ti in maximum performance in a delta of less than 5% between the 2 cards running the same game on the very same hardware that you see in my sig at the bottom of my posts).
I have a posting here on the BBS detailing all this testing if you want to read it. Just run a search in the H&S section..............
YMMV.
:salute
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Pudgies got it.
Just to clarify the reason that I set custom video card cooling fan profiles is because my video cards were overheating and throttling back while playing video games with the factory cooling profile. Looks like your video card is doing this too.
This was occurring on my HD6850, HD7750, and GTX760 video cards.
The XFX R9-380X OC I just installed has adequate cooling so there's no need for me to set a custom profile.
With that CPU fan dead most likely your CPU is throttling back from overheating which can cause a similar effect.
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You know, after typing all this I had another thought that I just have to get off my chest per se...........
I know some will say that AMD did this to cover the fact that their GPU architecture is inferior & poor & all that...............
And you might be right......but to date I haven't come across ANY data from AMD or any other reviewing site that can confirm this so until this data surfaces as far as I'm concerned it's just speculation.........
But what I have witnessed is that AMD as well as Nvidia are building products according to their companies design philosophies, what they see as important to the gaming market and is tempered by their perspective development budgets and will market these products to try to capture as large of a segment of the market as they can get. ATI had a track record of being innovative in this genre in times past but since AMD bought ATI at a time when AMD had made some ill conceived moves w\ their CPU line (made the decision to bet the farm on CMT for their CPU's becoming a mainstream standard starting w\ the Phenom series CPU's AND giving Intel a license to use the Athlon X 64 CPU multi-core architecture in Intel's CPU's when they had Intel on the ropes--which debuted w\ the 1st gen Intel I7 Nehalem series CPU's on Intel's X58 chipsets which were also built using the AMD layout for the NB\SB to mem socket mobo layout developed for the Athlon X 64 series CPU in which Intel read the software developers better than AMD & meshed good SMT IPC performance within the Nehalem design whereas AMD didn't w\ Phenom & up--and AMD having Jim Keller leaving at that time to go work for Apple along w\ ATI's Raja Koduri as well put them at a disadvantage that AMD has been paying for ever since....but make no mistake that AMD can still make a good product. They also have a tendency to look at things from an out-of the-box perspective and will build products w\ some very forward leaning thinking that will sometimes get them in a bind as they also didn't do a good enough job of making sure that users of their products are well versed in how to use the innovations that they do come up with (like PowerTune) and over hype at times (like Fury\Fury X)......Nvidia has done this in times past as well but they learned from their mistakes (anyone remember the Nvidia FX series GPU's?).....and also AMD made the mistake of holding too much of their work too close to their vest as opposed to Nvidia....meaning that they didn't trust the users to actually make good use of the stuff they have coded into their products so they did not provide access to a lot of their GPU innovations that were actually there (identical to a lot of the features that Nvidia has put out to the public) and have made setting choices w\ these innovations that in reality hindered the performance of their products relative to the competition instead of providing users direct access thru their provided product's interface software like Nvidia did w\ NVCP so the user can tune their product to their satisfaction (AMD's CCC in particular & still even now w\ AMD's Radeon Settings...the "new" settings that you see now in Radeon Settings\Crimson drivers have been coded in some Radeon GPU's for quite some time....but you needed a 3rd party software to access this stuff like Ray Adams' ATI Tray Tools or John Maturi's Radeon Pro utility software, which is an inditement against AMD that they have also paid the price for and are still paying the price for today IMHO.
Hopefully AMD is beginning to show signs of waking up now and the big test will be w\ the Zen CPU as well as Polaris\Vega GPU's as the earlier mainstays of AMD CPU development (Jim Keller) was back at AMD long enough to redesign the CPU architecture (Zen) and ATI's Raja Koduri (who had a BIG hand in designing the ATI Radeon 9000 & 800 series GPU's that brought Nvidia to shame back in the day) is back at AMD and is now in full charge of all GPU architecture design & development along w\ the software development to compliment them starting w\ Polaris so we will really now see just what AMD is going to put out & how it stacks up against the competition going forward. As I see it, it's swim or sink time now for AMD........
Sorry for the hijack but it had to come out so forgive me.......or flame me if you must..................
Ok I'm better now so back to the regular scheduled thread already in progress...............
:D :salute
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The 2nd issue was a real surprise. The fan on the Cool Master CPU cooler appears to have failed completely. I did check the BIOS and it was configured to run automatically based on temp. I changed the setting to 100% always and the fan still didn't run. 4 pin connection to the MB looks fine. I'm looking at replacing it with an Arctic F12 PWM Rev 2 120mm fan. It appears to be better than the OEM fan for about the same price. Would appreciate advice from anyone who has dealt with the same issue.
Condor the replacement fan maximum CFM rating should be close to or more than the old fan.
The original and replacement fans need to have same mounting flanges.
You might be able to replace the fan without removing the whole cooler.
There's some good videos on youtube for this. Something like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaxPdVla1Kg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaxPdVla1Kg)
The heat exchanger fins can be very fragile and may bend easily. Plus they can cut you.
Youtube has some good videos about dealing with static electricity too.
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Hi Condor,
So AMD says the hotter the better their GPU's will perform when allowing AMD's PowerTune to optimally work....just make sure that the cooler on the card is up to the task. This is where you will want to be using an AIB AMD vid card instead of an AMD reference vid card as the AIB's will install MUCH better coolers on them to maintain the higher operating temp ranges to optimize the AMD GPU's.
:salute
You obviously have a lot more expertise than me. What do you mean by AIP AMD card vs an AMB reference card. I did a brief search and it doesn't appear that AIB is a vid card manufacturer. My card is a Saphire and I see a note that they are AIB partners.
Saphire disabled the fan control software in catalyst control so I am using TRIXX. Is there a different fan utility I should be using?
Salute
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You obviously have a lot more expertise than me. What do you mean by AIP AMD card vs an AMB reference card. I did a brief search and it doesn't appear that AIB is a vid card manufacturer. My card is a Saphire and I see a note that they are AIB partners.
Saphire disabled the fan control software in catalyst control so I am using TRIXX. Is there a different fan utility I should be using?
Salute
AIB is a acronym for an aftermarket vid card maker (Asus, MSI, Sapphire, PowerColor, XFX, etc) that AMD\Nvidia allows them to design the PCB boards, coolers & power chokes, etc that they use the AMD\Nvidia designed GPU\ memory architecture and will also allow them to overclock them as well within an agreed limit. These vid cards are usually better designed & built to higher tolerances & higher performance deltas as a general rule and usually cost a little more than a reference design vid card.
Reference design means that the entire vid card was designed and built by AMD\Nvidia and can be purchased either directly from AMD\Nvidia or from the same AIB partners as listed above who are not allowed to alter or change the vid card design in any way but are allowed to overlay their company's branding on the vid card housing for marketing purposes. Recent examples of reference designs are the AMD R9 Fury X\ R9 Nano vid cards, the R9 390\390X vid cards w\ the blower housing design that looks similar to the Fury X's casing (Nvidia reference cards are the metal blower designed housing in either silver or black w\ the plexiglass window that you can see the GPU cooler fins thru). Usually these aren't overclocked but some are (usually the Nvidia reference line will offer factory OC reference GPU's). In times past w\ AMD in particular, it was these vid cards that were notorious for overheating mainly due to AMD installing coolers on them that were inadequate for the GPU and the designed operation of them (refer to the AMD whitepaper that I provided in earlier post) but the AIB designed cards were usually much better designed and built to arrest these issues and so usually performed better.
This is why I typed what I did in earlier posting.
Sapphire's Trixx software should do you just fine as the intention of it is to give you the user the control to control the GPU clocks & power (to a certain extent) and the fan speeds by allowing you to set up a custom fan speed profile that will cool the GPU within the realm of the embedded AMD PowerTune GPU control within the GPU.
Hope this helps you out.
:salute