I have a GPU temp question... only mining for about 3 months and the weather has been nice- however, the last 3 days here (in Texas) its starting to warm up and my back room and rigs are showing the results. I plan on moving the rigs to another room with better cooling in a few weeks, but until then please advise. I have 2 rigs with 3 GPU each (MSI R9280x) and also currently using 3 external fans to help. They normally all run in the 70-79c range but now I am seeing some peaks at 82, 83 on a few cards, and I know those will rise as our weather continues in that direction soon. What can I do to lower those temps? (I am ok to lose some hash in the process) Will lowering my intensity number or TC help? What max temp should I really be concerned with? I want the cards to last through their normal lifespan so don't want to really max them out too quick. I have heard 80c is what you want to stay under, but not sure if that is valid. I appreciate any advice!
Have you under-volted them yet? This significantly reduced my temps (5-10 C). Here is a great How-To
http://www.cryptobadger.com/2013/10/undervolting-in-linux-via-modified-bios/. I run a single rig with 4x R9280X's running at 1.100, 1.100, 1.081 and 1.075, all running incredibly stable.
Also, CGMiner has a lot of really nice "Auto" features that help considerably. I have my "Auto-GPU Engine" set at 500-1040 so that during the day when it's hot in my garage, it throttles down to reduce temps, then at night when it cools off it opens up and increases my hash rate. Temps rarely exceed 78 C with this system.
I've also toyed with the idea of setting up two voltages (you can do this in VBE from the How-To above) so that when it's cool, it ramps up voltage and gives more headroom for the GPU clock, but reduces the voltage as the clock is reduced during the hot days. Anyone tried this?