Video Card Is Super Hot!

Whenever I'm playing Maplestory and watching a video from Hulu, the graphics card runs at super hot temperatures.

The GPU is a Nvidia 8800 GTX and the idle temperature is around 85 Degrees Celcius.

When I'm playing Maplestory, the temperature on the graphics card goes to 130 Celcius +.

Eventually, after a few hours, the game looks like this:



But the rest of the desktop screen looks completely normal.

Specs:
Dell Computer - XPS 410
3 Years Old
E6600 2.4 Ghz Core 2 Duo Processor
Nvidia 8800 GTX graphics card, not overclocked
Over 100 Gigs Free on Hard Drive
4 Gigs of DDR2 Memory

It's definitely overheating but I don't know how to fix it.

Should I install another fan inside the motherboard? And if so, which one?

This is in an Air Conditioned Room set at 66 Degrees Farenheight with the side case off.

I have manually set the fan to 100% and it's still that hot.

take a pic of the insides.

 Spoiler

It got a little bit better after I cleaned the fan.

It runs Maple at 105-110 Celcius.

^ That's a weird motherboard/case. (I know OEMs make it difficult to change the internal components, but that's just ridiculous.)

Back on topic, you need to do further cleaning. For that video card, I think you should aim for under 85 deg. C (under load). Or at least get the load temp. below water's boiling point.

How would I go about going that?

Should I buy another fan to put inside it right above the card?

Or should I try to disassemble it and put thermal paste on it? (How hard is it?)

Or should I just go and take it to a store and have them do it for me?

My first recommendation is to get a can of compressed air at somewhere like WalMart(they cost around 5$). and blow out all of the dust in the computer, especially trying to get the airflow through the slats in the graphics card. Be careful with the can not to turn it upside down or straight horizontal because instead of air, the liquid will come out and that could damage your computer.

Secondly, and the more immediate and effective of the two fixes, is to get a program like the nVidia ntune software and turn up the fan speed to 100%. Your computer will make a little more noise but you should get about 70% more fanspeed. Another great fan-control program is Rivatuner, which can be gotten here: RivaTuner Download. It's a bit more difficult to use but if you follow the screenshots I post below it shouldn't be too bad.

Screenshots for Rivatuner:

 Spoiler

Main RivaTuner Window

Under the part where mine says "GPU0 in the upper center - select the little arrow beside 'Customize" and select the leftmost option in that list.

Step #1. Select Enable Low-Level Fan Control checkbox. After that a window will pop up asking about detecting or restarting - select Detect Now
Step #2. Select the Fixed option, and drag the slider as high as you want (100% can do for testing purposes).
Step #3. Select Apply at the bottom right of the window.
Step #4 If you select the Save option in the middle of the window, the settings you apply here will automatically load on startup. You might have to do this AFTER clicking Apply which is step 3.
Step #5. You can now hit ok and close the program - you should have heard or noticed a noise-increase coming from the graphics card fan.

Hopefully that will solve your problem.

EDIT: I see you've already done the fan thing - and those temps sound outrageous for being already at 100%. I'd definitely check out adding another fan to your case if you have a hole for one.

These items will probably be helpful to have: a Phillips-head screwdriver, an anti-static wrist strap, a can of compressed air, a vacuum (with its attachment set), 90+% rubbing alcohol, cotton swabs.

To clean your graphics card, follow steps 1 and 2 in this guide: http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/344600-g...-card.html

You shouldn't need to do steps 3 and 4 in that guide. Removing the graphics card's HSF, removing old thermal material, putting on new thermal material, and so on is unnecessary. It will be more trouble than it is worth.

Also, if the fan blades are still dirty after using compressed air or a vacuum, you can apply the 90+% rubbing alcohol to the cotton swabs to remove any residual dust.

After cleaning, if you are lazy about cleaning your video card, I wouldn't recommend setting fan speed to 100%. If you do so, your video card temp. may be lower, but the dust will re-accumulate faster. So the tradeoff will be determined by how often you want to clean the video card + your ability to withstand a noisy GPU fan versus the temperature difference between default and 100% fan speed settings. (<< To determine temp. difference you will have to vary the fan speed and see the results under idle/load.)

Thanks! I openned up the video card case and it now idles at 80 Celcius, and is only 85 Celcius while watching a Hulu Video.

That's still not as good as I want it though so I also bought two PCI fans to put right under the GPU.

The Dell case has the graphics video card fan right under the CPU heat sink so its not really getting much air.

I bought two of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6835119066

And am just going to have them blow directly below the GPU on the case, hopefully that will lower the temp to 50-60 Celcius while idle.