I am going away for the weekend, and am concerned about letting my graphics cards run at full-tilt while I'm away.

They are water-cooled, and sit at ~68 on full load. When they overheat, my screen will typically turn black - but the computer doesn't turn off. My computer also does not stay off with power outage (something I wish I could change, but the setting doesn't exist in my BIOS).

While I'm away this weekend, and I have my graphics cards running at 99% - if one of my radiator fans cuts out and the temps go over 85 - will they overheat and self-destruct?

Running windows 7 x64 with two 6950s

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2 Answers

Your graphics card GPU has the same safeguards a CPU has, namely that when the temperature breaches a certain threshold, the card will either lower the clock speeds or will cut out entirely.

There is always a possibility that this will crash (and restart your PC), and there is always a possibility that there will be lasting hardware damage (though unlikely).

However, I can't exactly advise that you leave a machine unattended for such a long period of time. Your local fire brigade will likely recommend that you unplug most of your appliances if leave home for any period of time, so they might consider leaving your PC running with the GPU running at full tilt a little bit imprudent!

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Your GPU will auto shutdown at a certain temperature, or under clock the GPU. There can be damage done but its unlikely what I recommend is installing speedfan, and installing a remote desktop server on your pc that way you can just be anywhere, rdp into the comp and check the temperature.

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