How to turn off 100% fan burst on start-up

[1bigphil]

Searched threads for quite awhile and only came up with this one:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=118012&referrerid=83726

which says this is a normal function for ATI boards with a built-in fan. I am wondering: is there any way to turn it off? Or at least decrease it to 20% or something reasonable? For an otherwise silent PC/living room, the 6 - 10 sec burst from the video card fan at every start-up/wake from sleep is annoying. I tried editing the BIOS with RBE, but I am not sure if I'm doing anything to affect the power on routine.

suggestions?

 

[niko084]

Nothing that can directly effect that at this current time, RBE will edit the bios settings for various clock modes, I'm more than willing to be that the fan spin up is hard coded for self testing.

 

[qubit]

There's no known cure for it, unfortunately. Like Niko says, it's likely a test mode hardcoded into the BIOS.

My HD 4870 did this and it bugged the hell out of me too. Problem disappeared with the GTX 285 I bought later on. The 4870 found its way onto eBay...

Can anyone tell me if the 5xxx cards ramp up like this?

Oh and welcome to TPU.

 

[Nosada]

Can anyone tell me of the 5xxx cards ramp up like this?

My HD5850 has passive cooling atm, so I can't test it anymore, but I can't remember it ever doing that.

 

[sweeper]

Hmm... my HD4870 doesn't spin up but my CPU fan does for a about 3-5 seconds then slows down. My 4870 gets really loud at 100% so I know that isn't spinning up or it might be but not at 100%.

 

[sbt01]

my 4870 spins up when I turn on the computer and again when im turning it off

 

[1bigphil]

Appreciate the responses... hmmmm...so I guess I'll need to mod the card or get one with passive cooling. Is there a good aftermarket passive cooler for the 4890, or should I just try to sell mine and get one with passive cooling? Does passive cooling really work when gaming? I'm a moderate gamer and have not had a need to oc my card yet.

 

[qubit]

A 4890 kicks out a lot of heat. Can you even get a passive cooler for it?

Mind you, a replacement cooler that makes less noise at 100% will make the whole problem a lot less, anyway.

 

[1bigphil]

Okay, worth a shot. What are some good 'quieter' replacement coolers for the 4890?

 

[exodusprime1337]

my 5870 will ramp up some times when booting the pc from a cold boot. My experiences have been that it's just testing the fan to make sure it's working properly

 

[erocker]

The reason why they ramp up like that is to make sure the fan starts up. When a fan gets older, it has more trouble starting up. I quick blast of voltage gets it going. In RBE there is a checkbox to fix the problem. It doesn't get rid of the problem but it only lasts for about a second as opposed to a few seconds.

 

[JousteR]

my 5870 will ramp up some times when booting the pc from a cold boot. My experiences have been that it's just testing the fan to make sure it's working properly

My 5850 sometimes does this too..But not all times..?

 

[niko084]

The accelero s1, hehe it pwns!

Cheap and you can stick some fans on it if you like, I recommend against using the "turbo" module. Better off using a few zip ties if needed and attach a few 80/92/120mm fan(s) to it.

BTW, in my Antec 300 which has 2 120mm fans that move about 50cfm each my 4850 @ 745/1050 stays cooler than it did at 100% fan speed with the reference cooler.

 

[qubit]

The reason why they ramp up like that is to make sure the fan starts up. When a fan gets older, it has more trouble starting up. I quick blast of voltage gets it going. In RBE there is a checkbox to fix the problem. It doesn't get rid of the problem but it only lasts for about a second as opposed to a few seconds.

That sounds like a very plausible explanation for it, erocker. However, it still doesn't give them an excuse in my book - it's just a cheap money saving fix for a potential problem that will happen a long time down the line. Also, that repeated spin-up will wear out the fan that little bit faster, too.

All they have to do is invest a little more money and you could have a system that detects the fan speed. If it's not spinning sufficiently after say, three seconds, it can give a quick blast of juice to get it going. If that doesn't help after a couple of tries, the card can be switched to a low power safe mode, a beeping sound made and a message sent back to the card driver to alert the user to the problem with a "fan is failing" popup window. It really would be quite cheap to implement and save the nerves of thousands of people, me included.

The thing is with niggly issues like this, is that the annoyance factor can be initially quite low, but if you keep hearing it during repeated reboots or resets, such as when troubleshooting a PC, it can get annoying very quickly. Then, once you're sensitized to it, it bugs you every time you hear it. It was exactly like this with my 4870 which ended up on eBay.

 

[1bigphil]

Okay, so I took niko's advice and replaced the stock cooler with an accelero S1 and attached a Nexus 120mm fan to it. But when I went to plug the fan's 4-pin mini-plug into the 4-pin header on the 4890, the fan's plug is about double the size of the card's headerbanghead. Why can't these things ever be standardized? I'm not talking about the giant 4-pin molex size for floppies, this is a mini-4-pin plug on the fan and mini(er)-4-header on the card- sheesh. Do they sell VGA specific micro-4-pin fans? Or is there an adapter to go from mini- to micro-plug? I plugged the card into one of the motherboard's case fan headers (fits fine) and no more whoosh at startup, but now the fan spins at 100% all the time. I'd rather have the 4890 control the fan speed as normal. I thought about disconnecting the individual wires from stock micro-plug and trying to figure out the sequence to use it with my Nexus, but seemed to be more trouble than its worth.

Advice?

 

[newtekie1]

If you plug the fan into the graphics card, it will spin up to 100% at boot also.

I believe you want to plug the fan into a motherboard fan header, that is how they are designed to work.

 

[robal]

Searched threads for quite awhile and only came up with this one:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=118012&referrerid=83726

which says this is a normal function for ATI boards with a built-in fan. I am wondering: is there any way to turn it off? Or at least decrease it to 20% or something reasonable? For an otherwise silent PC/living room, the 6 - 10 sec burst from the video card fan at every start-up/wake from sleep is annoying. I tried editing the BIOS with RBE, but I am not sure if I'm doing anything to affect the power on routine.

suggestions?

It's possible to disable it with RBE (reduce spinup cycle to 0%).
However it's NOT RECOMMENDED to do that.
Spinup cycle helps the fan to actually start (with age it will have more and more static friction), and also helps blow off some of the dust build-up.
Better leave it as it is.

Cheers

 

[RejZoR]

Someone did not do his job with BIOS settings. I also had this stupid problem with HD4870. Changing the spinup cycle in RBE to 30% did the trick. It still starts up, but not so violently as with 80-100% spinup cycle.

 

[Lionheart]

Yeah my HD5870 does this but not that long at all, about a second actually, doesn't bother me at all, but my HD5970 that I sold off awhile back did much longer, it did annoy me because I thought something was wrong with the card, but after time I got used to it

 

[1bigphil]

@ robal/RejZor: I tried editing the BIOS with RBE before I posted here, but never noticed where you can adjust the fan spin-up cycle. Where do you control this 'feature' in RBE?