switched my 5870 to litecoin mining but extremely high temps

[evlew]

I came across an extra computer with a PCIe slot.  I leave the side off and installed a 500 watt 80+ bronze PSU. 
I noticed the temps climbing rather high so I crank the fan to 100%.  The temperature still rose to damn near 100c.  what the heck?  I never had a problem like that mining bitcoins.  Although i did turn down the memory freq and voltage.  I still don't see how it's rising 30+ degrees over mining bitcoins (70c).  Can anyone provide some insight?

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[kuusj98]

Probably the VRM's are not cooled and with a bad design that could mean some serious problem...

[evlew]

It is an XFX reference style card.  I will try putting a house hold fan blowing on it since maybe the case does not get enough airflow.  I still think that's way too hot for 5 minutes of mining.

[miningatnight]

That is hot even for litecoin.  I would add the fan you talked about.  Make sure there is good cooling.  Litecoin can add some heat, but that is higher then i would want to run.

[miningatnight]

It is an XFX reference style card.  I will try putting a house hold fan blowing on it since maybe the case does not get enough airflow.  I still think that's way too hot for 5 minutes of mining.

I just saw brand.  XFX is not really a preferred brand for most. Is it one fan model to?   

I would again add a fan and get open air, but next time maybe change brands.

[evlew]

Yea, I only let it run for a few minutes before I shut it off since I didn't want to damage it.  I'm leaving it off until I can correct this issue.  Something tells me it's beyond adding a desk fan, but we'll see.  It is a one fan reference model. 

That's weird because I thought XFX was preferred among bitcoin miners.  This always ran very well for that purpose as well as gaming.  I actually just retired this card from my gaming rig for an upgraded card.  Was hoping to recoup the costs of the new card via mining with the old one.

[conspirosphere.tk]

I've got a 5870 Xfx and a 5830 Xfx and both of them get much hotter even mining BTC compared to other brands that I've too.
In short, they have crappy cooling. Try to mine some SHA-256 alt.coins with low mem freq settings and undervolting, or try some creative DIY cooling, or just dump the damn thing.

edit: yes, it's normal that cards get much hotter mining LTC or any scrypt coin compared to SHA-256 coins. That's why I will possibly mine again just in winter.

[evlew]

Thanks conspirosphere.tk

Would replacing the stock thermal paste with something like AS5 be worth the trouble?  Would that help the crappy cooling design any?

[conspirosphere.tk]

Thanks conspirosphere.tk

Would replacing the stock thermal paste with something like AS5 be worth the trouble?  Would that help the crappy cooling design any?

Probably yes. At least some degrees. I did not not try yet on those cards. On other brands it helped sensibly in my experience. Let us know about your results if you do it.

[superfastkyle]

In my experience mining ltc is about 12 degrees hotter than an memory underlocked 5800 series running bitcoin, it shouldn't be thirty. Here's what I would check in order of most likely to least likely

Check that fan is still operating full speed
Thermal paste may need to be reapplied
Heatpipe on cooler could be damaged
warping of heatsink (rare but I've seen it happen)
some cards like being perfectly level and will give off high temps if not

[emunebtk]

I would try downclocking instead of overclocking the card which seems to work for some cards. Try a 925/1075 or something in those ranges to try and keep the temps down.