2080S GPU fan speed locked. Unlocked compatible Bios? maybe?

[grayau]

Hello. The GPU in question is a Dell Alienware branded 2080S that comes with a 2nd slot AIO. The GPU item SKU is NO8K59J, though it is listed as a 2080 it is in fact a 2080 Super.
The problem is, that one of the fans is controllable, and the other's speed is unable to be controlled. No matter what you do it runs @ 89 percent speed (1000RPM), and I believe it to be the pump. Speeds jump to 2000-2400 when card's under full load and that's when it's really audible, yet it says 89 percent speed.
From what I can see, there are FOUR wires running from the card itself along the coolant-tubing to the secondary card that disperses the heat, so it should be a 4-pin fan?
That makes me believe it's the gpu's BIOS that is forcing a constant speed.
It doesn't need to be that speed at all times though, I could reduce some noise by lowering it, especially when the GPU idles extremely cold (20's).

pictures attached, forgive the dust the base build is going on it's 8th year and it's so incredibly dusty where I live it gets this bad in about a month...

Does anybody know of a BIOS or compatible BIOS for this GPU that will allow full control speeds? Thank you very much,
-grayau

 

[kiddagoat]

What have you tried using to control the fan speed?

That is an Asetek rad card. The pump, fan, and radiator are all on that 2nd card. I would fathom that the pump speed is kept constant and that the fans on the GPU and the radiator was what is being varied.

 

[grayau]

I've tried MSI afterburner and also "fan control."
I get this message with fan control it happens with either a graph, manual control, flat speed, anything. In afterburner it simply says the speed is 89 percent (it does here too) and ignores any control you give it.

It's actually fan #2 that is doing this. Fan 2 won't idle lower than around 1000 but it will ramp up to over 2400 in full load and I can't control it. The card barely reaches 65 degrees under full burden and that fan is louder than fan 1, it's supremely annoying I have no ability to tweak it. It just does completely what it wants regardless of software. Also my PC Bios doesn't support fan control speeds for GPU, only cpu and case fans.

I have opened up the PC and confirmed it is only fan #1 that responds to manual speed change.

 

[cvaldes]

As far as I can tell, your GPU cooling solution has three motors:

• fan on graphics card: looks like a blower fan for the VRM/memory
• fan on radiator: hard to tell from photo, maybe another blower, used to cool liquid in radiator
• pump: internal to radiator card

You actually haven't specified which fan is the noisy one that runs at a constant speed.

Your system is only reporting two speeds likely the two fans and thus omitting the pump speed.

The fan with variable speed control is likely the radiator fan since that's what will help cool the GPU under a heavy load.

The VRM fan can run at a constant speed as well as the radiator pump. Unless you open everything up, there's no way of telling but there's a good chance that both are 3-wire 12V devices running at full speed.

As far as I can tell, there's not much you can do especially in your high dust environment. You might open up the housings and try to remove the dust around the blower fans with the hope that'll help reduce the fan noise.

Best of luck.

 

[grayau]

Only the blower fan ON the card can I control.
I thought the radiator fan was the pump but it's not..
The radiator fan is the one that I am unable to control, specifically. I have confirmed this by opening the PC up and manually changing the fan speed I can control, and the one that responds to manual control is the fan that is directly on the card.
The dust isn't causing any fans to blow faster it's just built up on the mobo. The card's only a couple weeks old.

 

[cvaldes]

So this graphics card isn't in its original system?

Dell does a lot of proprietary stuff and it doesn't surprise me that this graphics card isn't accessible to third-party utilities for complete fan control. Clearly the radiator fan is running off a fan curve from the graphics card BIOS. If Dell decided to lock out user adjustments to the GPU radiator fan curve, that would be very characteristic of them.

Blower fans have a long reputation of being noisy which is why consumer-grade after market graphics card manufacturers favor axial fans. Same with the fans used on radiators (both custom cooling loops and AIOs). Sadly you may be stuck with this noise.

 

[kiddagoat]

I was about to add, yes that configuration looks to only be done for the Alienware. I haven't seen this implemented elsewhere outside of your typical OEM (HP, Lenovo, etc).

That would be very Dell of them to have this locked down to how it would perform inside the original Alienware chassis. Alienware Aurora Gaming Desktop with Intel 10th Gen CPU | Dell USA

Yeah, that is definitely going to be locked down to however Dell configured it.

The only thing I could think of would be to try the Alienware Command Center, if it will even install. Maybe Dell's software will let you tweak it.

 

[grayau]

I was wondering if I can perhaps flash a different BIOS to the card? If not I'm willing to hardmod the card itself for performance, either by re-routing the fan directly to a 4 pin on the mobo or perhaps splicing in a speed controller

 

[kiddagoat]

That is going to be a custom Dell BIOS for the card. I wouldn't trust putting something else on it. There are different headers on it for the pump and the radiator fan that aren't on other cards. You very well could end up bricking the card. I would say it is probably very likely in this case.

Looking at other images of the card, it looks like only the radiator fan is in the second card. The pump and blower will be on the GPU. You would have to take it apart and look for yourself.

Though honestly, I would leave it alone. There is much to be said for if it isn't broken, don't fix it. A 2080 Super is still a very good card.

I would 100% try the Alienware Command Center software for it before doing anything else.

 

[grayau]

Unfortunately their software won't install to a different system. Is it possible to back up and even edit the BIOS present on the card to unlock further control?

 

[kiddagoat]

Pretty sure that vBIOS are no longer able to be edited on the Nvidia side after Pascal. Turing and forward are locked down by Nvidia.

 

[grayau]

Pretty sure that vBIOS are no longer able to be edited on the Nvidia side after Pascal. Turing and forward are locked down by Nvidia.

okay thanks, I may just splice the cables to another header then and have it match it's speed with my directly controllable gpu fan, seems easy enough assuming I can open the radiator unit