Dennis wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:55:08 GMT, "Augustus"
wrote:

Thanks loads, Augustus. Removed the heat sink and found a piece of
paper between the paste and the sink. Amazing. Card now idling at
58C. Do you happen to know what the most "normal" range of temps, if
there is such a thing, would be for this card? In any case I'm very
content now thanks to you.

Dennis




I'm not exactly sure what an 8500 should run at, but by way of
comparison, my 8800GT has a maximum idle temp of 50c and 65c under load.
Considering that your card probably has a less efficient cooler, but
also runs at lower speeds, you shouldn't approach those levels.

40-55c is pretty standard for idle temps of most any videocard today,
it's more to do with the ambient case temp than anything else, but it
shouldn't radically deviate under load, so definitely no 100c or above
temps. Generally a 20-30c increase is considered normal for about any
decent chip. I do know that 8600GT's fairly cool as well.

I've been seeing a lot more people with budget cards getting faulty HSF
installations lately. I think some of these brands don't train their
employee's worth a damn. All they really do is rebrand a reference
board from manufacturing, slap a custom HSF on (or not) and package it.