I may sound a little idiotic, naive perhaps, but as per my title, for those who haven’t, do so.
I run a 2080Ti so not the quickest piece of kit anymore but it was the top dog when I bought it, in 2020!
I recently upgraded to a 5800X3D and therefore updated my bios just because they’d never been done in 2.5 years.
I was running FS yesterday and for the first time in a long time, opened HW monitor just to see my temps.
I was shocked to see my GPU hot spot at around 110c!
I immediately closed the sim and started up MSI afterburner…
Unknown to me, my afterburner settings that is set a while ago we’re not as I’d set, so the GPU fans were barely kicking in.
Anyway to test, I set my GPU fans to run 100% and I ran the sim again for a 2.5 hour flight. Memory didn’t go above 85 but hotspot was between 95-99c. Fans on 100% remember.
Took the 2080 out this morning and replaced the thermal paste.
Fans don’t go above 3000rpm now (4000 is max) and my hot spot never went above 85c
FWIW, my test with 100% fans was in a very low impact part of Alaska with no Ai etc.
Today was arriving in to anchorage with a good amount of FSTL traffic - smooth and cool.
Ideally thermal pastes should be replaced from time to time may be every 2-3 years. Because thermal paste seems to dry up and its effectiveness starts to decrease. But the worst case scenarios is if it cracks which sounds like what happened to your card.
Problem is not everyone is comfortable opening up a gpu and apply thermal paste themselves. There are many different designs of GPU which are built differently and needs to be opened accordingly, then there are cards where they use glue and/or some plastic latches which tends to break unless opened carefully, some times fan and led wires tend to rip appart if one is not careful. Then they need to preserve the thermal pads also which sometimes tend to rip appart. So unless the card is built in a very DIY friendly way or the user have a good tutorial on how to open that card, it’s not for the faint hearted.
Replacing the thermal paste on the CPU on the other hand, well it should be done once every 2-3 years if you build your own PC.
there was never such a rule and I own gpus (systems in general) which are much older and work fine.
I not understand why some users run into that thermal paste issue.. But on other side, as we know that how the qualitiy of hardware ( in special from N* ) was decressed since some years, we need possible such a rule
It’s not really a rule.. like I said ideally.. not necessarily. And sometimes OEM application is not perfect, so that tends to cause problems. But yes, unless one is having termal issues, then one should not be worried about it.
then I hope my 2080TI ( asus strix oc ) will not get the same issue. I have it since April 2019 running and I assume at least 5 years should this thing running without any need of maintenance.
I have a RTX 2080Ti (Zotac) the same age and the TIM seems to be doing fine. However I did manage to decrease its temp running FS by average 10°C just by switching to a newer PC case with better airflow.
My GF5500 is also working well in my Win98SE PC As well as my Voodoo 1 (Orchid Righteous) together with the onboard Rage Pro in my Win95b machine
Ideally the GPU thermal paste should be changed out every 2-3 years, but I would not recommend it unless you know what you’re doing or can follow a Youtube video step by step. There’s lots of things that can go wrong with the process if you’re not careful.
On another note, a high GPU hotspot sensor isn’t necessarily a cause for concern as long as the GPU core temp is still within acceptable range, as boosting behavior is dependent on the overall core temperature among other things. The hotspot temperature reported is the hottest die sensor out of numerous sensors on the die, and ideally the difference between the reported core temp and hotspot should be <20c difference. A single high hotspot temperature just means somewhere on the die, there’s bad thermal paste or heatsink contact.
where is the source of these assumption ?.. thermal paste should at least work fine 5 years and more. There is normaly no need in whole pc lifetime to change that.
The only reason for need to change the thermal paste after two years was a thermal paste which was “old” or simple wrongly used ( with air bubbles, etc. )
Hence the term “ideally” it should be changed after a few years. Whether or not it needs to be changed out this often is a different discussion. Even after 2 or 3 years of use, most people would likely see some improvement, especially if replacing factory thermal paste which is notorious for being lower quality or inferior application. There’s even some hardcore people that change it out every year. Complete overkill, but that’s their thing.
yep.. thats too mention .. usually a change of the thermal paste is only necessary in case it do no longer its job. I owned a lot of systems in my life, and I never needed to change the thermal paste on the gpu’s and seemingly the thermal paste I used for the cpu was allways good enought for six years and more. Also serious manufactors , which stands for quality and not for quantity ( e.g. noctua ) ensure 5 years and more.
a note :If my gpu needs a replacement of the thermal paste within the warrenty time , then I would ask the manufactor about a new or repaired gpu ( I think asus get 36 months ).
If repasting the gpu it’s best to have a selection of thermal pads handy as other components are also cooled by the heat sink, if not you can carefully smear on a thin layer of NON-ELECTROCONDUCTIVE thermal paste onto the old pads or the thinnest layer of glue. Do not use Arctic Silver or others that may contain tiny metal particles unless you are absolutely certain components won’t be bridged.
.. usually a change of the thermal paste is only necessary in case it do no longer its job. I owned a lot of systems in my life, and I never needed to change the thermal paste on the gpu’s and seemingly the thermal paste I used for the cpu was allways good enought for six years and more. Also serious manufactors , which stands for quality and not for quantity ( e.g. noctua ) ensure 5 years and more.