do I need to change my gravics card.

[=CJW= Namarah (W)]

Hey all quick question I have a nvida gtx 295 and it last night hit 100c when playing dawn of war 2. Now this is the 1st time it happened but it never did that before.

Its is idaling at higher temps too. so not too sure. if there is anything you need just ask and I'll supply it.

[sleepysheep]

Have you checked the fans and made sure they are working properly, aren't dusty, and the airflow in the case is still good? Cause that's pretty hot.

Is the card running stock? Spring is here, summer is on it's way, and the weather is getting warmer, so your card is only going to get hotter ^^

[=CJW= Namarah (W)]

yeah I checked all that last night and gave the case a good hoover and so yeah aldo my house is always at least 5c cooler that outside. I was thinking of upgrading anyhow but I don't want to unless I have to.

[ratbuddy]

Do you have hairy pets or smoke in the house? Those will clog up the fan over time. You might want to clean out the heatsink with some compressed air.

[=CJW= Namarah (W)]

yeah I have a cat. and do Kids count? I put the hoover on full and got surpisingly a lot of crap out. still a little high but nowhere like last night.

[ratbuddy]

Eek, you never want to use a vacuum on computer parts, you can give them a life shortening (or even ending) static shock. Always use compressed air instead.

[=CJW= Namarah (W)]

will do in future. Though I thought vacuming is air going the other way?

[ratbuddy]

Problem is the plastic hose collects static and if you touch the end to a component... zap. You want to use compressed air in a can. It's made for this purpose.

[=CJW= Namarah (W)]

Cool I'll have invest in one. Though I do make sure not to touch the hose to anything on the pc.

[Ralux]

You should remove its cooler, clean it and apply new thermal paste - problem fixed.

Oh and the next gfx card you buy should have a custom cooler on it, those are usually so much better than the stock cooler and not much more expensive.

I have an arctic cooling gtx xtreme on my heavily overclocked gtx260, that one keeps it below 50°C at all times and I can't hear it

[SquareSphere }12thVR{]

you can grab compressed air in a can for $2-3, and they're on sale lots of times in value pack.  totally worth it.

[ratbuddy]

I would avoid removing the cooler unless you are quite sure of what you're doing. The 295 is fairly complicated and more than one person have killed their card trying to reapply thermal paste.

[Ralux]

A monkey could be trained to reapply thermal paste to a gfx card, really...

You just have to have a non-shaking hand and decent skills with a screwdriver. Everything else is self-explanatory. Did it like 10 times already.

If you don't trust yourself - there are lots of tutorials on how to do that.

[=CJW= Namarah (W)]

@relux. I suffer from dispraxia so shaky hands is normail. Though I haven't killed anything on my pc while putting it together.

[Ralux]

Oh - well then if might be a better idea to let a friend do it.

You'd have to remove about 12 (or 20 if you have the dual-pcb 295) screws without touching anything around those screws, that could be hard with shaking hands.