[mnemonicj]

I have an XFX graphics card with an Nvidia GeForce 6800GS that is running temperatures between 64 and 68 degC during normal operation. That seems a little high to me. The fan is working, I just cleared fan and heat sink of dust, and it still seems to run hot. I haven't played games in a few months on this graphics card, but I remember playing NFS Most Wanted a few months ago and even though I had the video settings set the same as I did more than a year ago when I played the game all of the time, the game was freezing and skipping not like it had ever done before.

I know I have gotten my CPU temps down by cleaning the heat sync and the processor and applying new thermal paste, but this GPU is one with a whole contraption of stuff surrounding the fan and heat sync. How hard is it to get to the processor on these cards? Should I just get a new graphics card?

[nightfire]

Well, I had the same card die, at least I think it was the same, might've been BFG...

If you can push in the plastic pins on the back of the card you can pull the heatsink off, maybe having to remove some small screws on the side, but it sounds definitely worth it. Those cards are all possible to remove the heatsink, so shouldn't be impossible, then just reapply paste to the main core GPU after cleaning it off. The one I cleaned off there was Dust under the solid heatsink, which had two horribly dirty fans, Removing the dust under there is important as it insulated the chips.

I don't know if you have to repaste the chips that surround it, I usually don't, but if somebody knows otherwise, please speak up