GPU running weirdly hot

Hey everyone... I’m starting this thread because I am dealing with a massive headache right now! So, I’ve been running a GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB, and honestly, everything was perfectly fine until about a month ago. Back then, when I was playing stuff like Crysis 3, the temps would hit maybe 45 or 50 degrees max—totally normal—and once I stopped gaming, they’d settle right back down to around 28 or 32. But now? Now things have gone completely sideways. Just turning the PC on puts the GPU at 29, but within five minutes—doing absolutely nothing at all, mind you—it climbs to 36. And don't even get me started on gaming... I tried playing Luxor Quest—which is a super light, low-demand game, by the way—and the temperature shot up to 50 degrees, and then it took a full ten minutes just to drop back down to 45, where it stayed stuck! No matter what I try, the heat spikes instantly, and it takes forever to cool down, and even then, it barely moves a few degrees... It's infuriating! The card is only 8 months old and features those dual WINDFORCE fans, but I opened up my case today and noticed something terrible—the fans are spinning incredibly slowly, and if you even barely touch them with your finger, they just stop dead. What am I supposed to do here? Does anyone have any actual advice?!🙄

Did you maybe manually adjust the fan curve using the override function in the AMD tool?
http://www.ehow.com/how_8155154_chan...fan-speed.html

Yeah, I tried messing around with the Speed fan settings too, but honestly? It’s making absolutely zero difference in the RPMs... just spinning the same old way. And now—get this—I just noticed my motherboard temps have climbed up to 40 degrees, and the SSD is sitting at 42... the only thing actually staying chill is the processor (my FX 6300), which is hovering at a cool 27 degrees. This is ridiculous because the motherboard and the CPU are only five days old!

What kind of case are you running? Specifically, how's the airflow, and has the room temperature gone up lately?
It’s pretty straightforward: your idle temps have likely crept up because the PC has been running longer, combined with the rising ambient heat now that summer is hitting. Plus, if your case lacks decent airflow, there's your answer. These aren't critical temperatures at all; seeing 70°C under load isn't even bad—it can easily climb past 70°C without much concern.

If your GPU stays under 50°C while gaming, it's basically ice cold (though that particular game probably doesn't push it that hard).

Kimberly Gomez34 said:What kind of case are you running? Specifically, how's the airflow, and has the room temperature gone up lately?
It’s pretty straightforward: your idle temps have likely crept up because the PC has been running longer, combined with the rising ambient heat now that summer is hitting. Plus, if your case lacks decent airflow, there's your answer. These aren't critical temperatures at all; seeing 70°C under load isn't even bad—it can easily climb past 70°C without much concern.

If your GPU stays under 50°C while gaming, it's basically ice cold (though that particular game probably doesn't push it that hard).

I've got five fans in my rig (it's one of those MSI Dragon gaming cases)—airflow is absolutely perfect, every single component practically has its own dedicated cooling, which is exactly why I'm so worried! The main issue here—the most important thing—is that the screen goes black, the mouse and keyboard just freeze up completely, and I'm forced to do a hard restart... and then everything works perfectly fine again!

Having too many fans can actually cause air turbulence inside your case, which prevents fresh air from actually circulating. Aside from the PSU, GPU, and CPU fans—which are stuck where they are—you just need to make sure you have a clear path of airflow from the front to the back. Basically, you want intake at the front and exhaust at the rear.

If you think you've got some conflicting airflow directions, try turning those extra fans off and then checking your temps. You might actually find things run cooler if you aren't fighting internal turbulence caused by a fan spinning the wrong way.

darkowl72 said:Having too many fans can actually cause air turbulence inside your case, which prevents fresh air from actually circulating. Aside from the PSU, GPU, and CPU fans—which are stuck where they are—you just need to make sure you have a clear path of airflow from the front to the back. Basically, you want intake at the front and exhaust at the rear.

If you think you've got some conflicting airflow directions, try turning those extra fans off and then checking your temps. You might actually find things run cooler if you aren't fighting internal turbulence caused by a fan spinning the wrong way.

I've already tried that—the difference was maybe a degree or two, nothing more...

Nancy Parker6 said:I've got five fans in my rig (it's one of those MSI Dragon gaming cases)—airflow is absolutely perfect, every single component practically has its own dedicated cooling, which is exactly why I'm so worried! The main issue here—the most important thing—is that the screen goes black, the mouse and keyboard just freeze up completely, and I'm forced to do a hard restart... and then everything works perfectly fine again!

that's the real problem here
Have you tried pulling the card out, blowing the dust out of the slot, and cleaning the contacts on the card itself?
Another possibility might be that the thermal paste on the GPU heatsink needs replacing. Some older AMD cards came with really terrible factory paste—I remember having an issue with my old 4870 from EVGA

It could be a driver issue; try installing the latest version or perhaps rolling back to an older one.

Alright, I’m going to try everything you all suggested—let's just see how this plays out... Mind you, the card is practically brand new, only six months old, and there isn't a speck of dust on it since I gave it a good blast with some compressed air just a few days ago. Now, the only thing left to do is tackle that thermal paste!

Just make sure you don't void your warranty by messing with the cooler (don't peel those stickers off the screws). Honestly, those temperatures look totally normal to me, and I'm starting to think what you're dealing with is just a software issue—maybe some driver glitches

Kimberly Gomez34 said:Just make sure you don't void your warranty by messing with the cooler (don't peel those stickers off the screws). Honestly, those temperatures look totally normal to me, and I'm starting to think what you're dealing with is just a software issue—maybe some driver glitches

Well, there you have it... I pulled the heatsink off, and the thermal paste was actually still pretty decent, but I went ahead and wiped it clean anyway, applied fresh stuff, bolted everything back together, and—surprise, surprise—exactly the same result! And before you even ask, the driver is the absolute latest version available! Now, while I'm sitting here typing this, my GPU is sitting at 42 degrees, the CPU is at 37, the SSD is showing -37—which is physically impossible, obviously—and both HDDs are hovering right around 40, and I'm barely even doing anything on this machine!

So, just like Quote: The New Guy mentioned—once you've gone through the motions of testing the latest drivers, maybe try rolling back to an older version... perhaps one from back when your graphics card wasn't giving you any trouble in the first place.

George Sanders37 said:So, just like Quote: The New Guy mentioned—once you've gone through the motions of testing the latest drivers, maybe try rolling back to an older version... perhaps one from back when your graphics card wasn't giving you any trouble in the first place.

Well, I went ahead and did exactly that—followed the advice—and within five minutes, my temps shot up to 40 degrees without me even doing anything besides typing this damn post...

Nancy Parker6 said:Well, I went ahead and did exactly that—followed the advice—and within five minutes, my temps shot up to 40 degrees without me even doing anything besides typing this damn post...

The cold, hard truth is that my M4 Carbine motherboard temp spiked by 40 DEGREES, the SSD hit 40, the processor is at 40... and I am literally doing NOTHING!

Then you definitely don't have enough airflow through the case. Is the tower sitting on a flat, hard surface—far enough away from things to actually pull in some fresh air?

Maybe try opening up the side panel and then checking the temperatures again.

That’s a solid fix. I keep mine wide open all the time, sometimes even venting it manually while it's running just to clear out those hot air pockets...

Nancy Parker6 said:The cold, hard truth is that my M4 Carbine motherboard temp spiked by 40 DEGREES, the SSD hit 40, the processor is at 40... and I am literally doing NOTHING!

soooooooo? where is the actual issue here? 🤷 😵

1. Summer is right around the corner, so isn't it just totally normal for everything to start running hotter?

2. You probably just have a massive dust bunny situation going on. Honestly, I just gave my GPU and everything else a good cleaning after a few months of buildup, and man, the temperatures dropped like crazy—my graphics card went down by like 15°C, and the rest of my parts saw a nice little dip too. My hard drive usually sits around 96°F, but if it climbs up toward 107°F or even 113°F, it's definitely feeling the heat.

As long as everything is actually working fine, you really shouldn't sweat it too much.

But look—if those temperatures are already driving you crazy, why not just pull that card out of its PCIe slot, give it a good blast of compressed air to clear out the dust, and see if that fixes things? If you've already done all that and the temps are still "high," then you can probably just blame the summer heat.

or maybe you accidentally bought some shady Bitcoin miner that's running itself in the background while your GPU just cooks for no reason lol? :P just kidding, mostly, but hey, might be worth a quick check!

I suspect he’s more frustrated by his computer freezing up mid-task than he is by the temperatures. Honestly—it feels like the heat might not even be the issue here.

George Sanders37 said:I suspect he’s more frustrated by his computer freezing up mid-task than he is by the temperatures. Honestly—it feels like the heat might not even be the issue here.

Exactly—that’s the real headache right there—the heat isn't even the primary concern... what keeps me up at night is the fear that my GPU is slowly dying on me, though—thankfully—it's still under warranty.