Alright I'm gona cave, need some advice on WC capacity.

[SuB]

Hello, as per my Signature, I have 2 580 GTX's on a loop using an EK Coolstream XTC 280 with push pull, through a Laing D5 Vario...

One of the cards is fine, tops out around 40 degrees under full load, the other however seems to be topping out at 57 degrees now, and can on occasion go crazy all the way up to 80~90 degrees.

At first I thought the issue was the motherboard chipset dumping heat into the top card because it gets quite hot, and had no fan on it. So that's now water cooled on the second loop.. no problem...

But the temps still seem high to me.. I'm in discussions with EVGA about sorting a replacement, but I can feel the 'we sent you a different card of equal or better performance' coming which would scupper my SLI setup...

Can I just check with the resident H20 boys.. that XTC 280 should handle both the cards right? what gets me is that one card is so much hotter than the other, the bottom card stays at a stable temperature yet the top one seems to go nuts

It's been suggested I re-tim the card, but I don't want to break my warranty, + it's like a days work to drain, take out, refil etc etc etc...

Just want some advice from the local techs please.. I'm open to ideas, but I'd like to avoid doing 10 empty and refils if possible...

 

[Perturabo]

To be honest it does sound like the hotter card probably isnt making good thermal contact with its heatsink. If cooling capacity were the issue you would see both cards sitting at the same high temperature as the temperature difference between the "hot" and "cool" parts of the loop is a few degrees at most.

So if you dont want to cause warranty issues, which is understandable you are probably going to have to see if EVGA can sort you out a replacement. Tell them you are running SLI so that if they send you something different it is no good to you.

 

[S_I_N]

first off EVGA's warranty does not exclude you from opening up the card to re-tim it. Secondly whats the flow order of the cards?? top first bottom second or reversed??? have you tried reversing the cards top to bottom and so on. I know its a royal pain in the arse to drain and refill but its gonna have to be done. I think a 280mm rad should handle them fine i have 2 6950's unlocked and overclocked beyond 6970 specs on a 280mm 60mm thick rad you didnt mention the thickness of yours.

 

[SuB]

It's 55mm so tbh it should be fine (as i thought it would be).

It's Res/Pump -> Top card -> bottom card -> radiator -> res/pump, but like it's been said there shouldn't be such a massive difference in thermals between the two cards regardless... so I think there's definitely something wrong.

I've setup an RMA with EVGA, I'd prefer to do the 'pay for a new one to come and send back the old one after' but it sounds like they can't do that on these cards now.. which is worrying me a bit about the replacement.

I've put in a second request highlighting that if it's not exactly the same card I'm in a pile of expensive stinky poo lol.. Guess we'll see what they say.

If it comes to it and the only, easy, viable option is to re-tim it.. then i guess that's what I'll do. But if i can get them to send me a new one then I'd rather do that really.

Just done a spot of battlefield, top card was topping out around 55, second card 39.. so something is definitely not quite right unfortunately...

Should get a response back from EVGA tomorrow on the RMA, I just wanted to ensure it wasn't something as stupid as " you need a bigger radiator ".

 

[S_I_N]

well bro I'd re-tim it if it were me first to see if that helps this will help avoid the damn they sent me the wrong card scenario. But realistically EVGA knows what card you have the only thing they can do is send a higher classed card if yours isnt available, but as long as you tell them its in an sli setup they should abide by your request and i am sure they will I have dealt with them in the past with ZERO issues.

 

[SuB]

Well the RMA got accepted so I think i'm gonna just send it on.. I'm plenty confident that I can re-tim it if needs be, I've done loads of GPU blocks in the past I just went for the EVGA one for convenience, but at this point that requires twice as much time which I just don't have

Guess it's drain time again! *sigh* such a pita lol

*fingers crossed* Won't have time to do it this week (I have an hours commute to work both ways so it's pretty late by the time i get in) I'll get it stripped and posted this coming weekend I guess.

Thanks for the extra confidence in EVGA though SIN, appreciate it. I did make it very clear in the RMA request that I need the exact same card for SLI.. so here's hoping.

 

[tinytomlogan]

Faulty card. Ive had cards do this before and they were fooked.

Saying that you need a bigger rad when you take them apart

 

[SuB]

Faulty card. Ive had cards do this before and they were fooked.

Fair enough I'll send it back on the RMA, postage to Germany will be fun!

Saying that you need a bigger rad when you take them apart

Sorry I don't follow mate? What do ya mean?