A Couple Tech Questions from a Newb

[OwlEyes]

Hiya, folks!

I hope this post finds you all in good spirits. Soo, here's what's going on and how I need some halp...and please keep in mind that I'm NOT tech savvy at all, so talk to me like I'm a child please, lol.

I just recently bought a new gaming PC setup (ASUS "Republic of Gamers" G20CB) and it's been generally amazing so far. I'm running WoW and Heroes of the Storm at max settings with zero problems. However, when I play Overwatch, the GPU (GTX 970) hovers consistently around 75-80 degrees Celsius. I know this is a safe temperature, but it is near the upper limits of safe and I don't like that. Haha. Consequently, one of my questions is: how can I cool the GPU down a bit? I was thinking adjusting fan settings could help, but I don't know how best to do this. I was told that I could get into the BIOS and do it there (however, my computer doesn't have any case fans as you'll see if you look it up) OR I was reading that I could download a program such as Afterburner (?) and do it that way. Do either of these sound best? Or is there something else I'm missing?

My other question is about updating drivers. I absolutely hate doing this as in the past I've always seemed to break things when I try. I don't know where to go to do this and "how" to do it so that things only get better and not worse. I feel like this shouldn't be difficult. Could somebody lead me in the right direction with this please?

Thank you SO MUCH in advance!

[OwlEyes]

Thank you so much for the quick response, Vegas! Could you explain your second sentence though? I'm not sure what that means exactly. Also, when you say from the "appropriate site" - what site would that be? I've been told before that I shouldn't deal with drivers from individual sites like Nvidia, but rather get them all from the manufacturer themselves...in this case ASUS. Is this true?

[OwlEyes]

I'm still totally stuck here. I would really appreciate any & all help with this, please & thank you.

[Djuntas]

erhm....no case fans? What ? or did i read wrong. Who the hell buys a end-tier desktop PC with no good cooling? Anyway I think as defaulth the gtx 970, atleast mine does asus strix, just ramps up the hotter it gets..so it know when it cool more, trough fan only starts spinning at 65 degree's, and then ramps to...4000? before you should see it go above 66-67 degress.

Anyway, if you need driver support....Always first do restore point before mass install's...but go for Driver easy....gr8 driver program. Snip. Its handy program in the league of cc cleaner, anti-beacon for me.

User was infracted

[the boar]

where did you manage to buy a pc with no case fans at all? even the worst 5 year old technology sold at 5 years ago prices pre-built PC World rip-off computer has a case fan or two!

um, msi afterburner will let you set a custom fan curve for your gpu fans, google will let you know how to do it and what a good load of settings are for that.

but first go get some case fans, you need air flowing through your pc so all that hot air from everything isn't just trapped in the case blowing around and around..

[Magnerz]

I take it no one actually looked at the computer they bought?

It's a small form factor customized case with focus on being quiet... So by that it's not gonna have much in the way of case fans.

Don't worry about the graphics card hitting 75 - 80 degrees, it's honestly not that bad. Even if it were hitting 90+, it would start what's called thermal throttling which reduces the cards speed and voltage to lower the temperatures, this is a function of the card put in by the manufacturer and I'm sure they know what their cards can handle.

If you still want your temperatures to be lower, which to be honest with a closed small form factor case I'm not sure you'll see much more difference for the amount of increased noise the fan will make... Yes the suggestion of using MSI Afterburner would work. There's a multitude of guides/video guides on how to do this, or at least how to use it to overclock, you'll want to avoid that bit and just focus on the fan speed slider, you can set the fan speed higher the higher the temperature goes if you like.

Again, I'd like to re-enforce that your computer was DESIGNED professionally to do a specific thing (gaming) with low noise and you really should trust them to do their job.

[Djuntas]

Again, I'd like to re-enforce that your computer was DESIGNED professionally to do a specific thing (gaming) with low noise and you really should trust them to do their job.

While it does seem it was a weird small factor build designed for silence, it strikes me as a odd choice, why the OP would buy it. Anyway high temperatures usually always leads to less life on your components.

If you really want a silent PC there are other ways of doing it :P Id rather just go for the middle-way and get a good case, and if you have the money buy a good cpu cooler, and maybe even replace stock fans, but thats probably over-kill.

anywho in perfect world electronics wouldn't get hot and we could all have a oval/tin can shaped PC :d