Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX970 100% fans in Windows

[PLAfiller]

Sup all ? I hope you're having a productive weekend. I need a bit of a hand here. So, I got a 2nd hand GTX970 a while ago. Previous owner said 3rd fan was broken and the "others spun wildly without it". Since I had a kraken G10 laying around, I didn't really care about it, because I was paying less. Card runs fine with the Kraken, max temp is 46C. I decided to fix the original cooling and ordered the same fan model from Ebay: T128010SM , 02A. Fan arrived yesterday and I replaced it on the shroud, assembled the card and popped it in the PC. However, this happens : in BIOS and without drivers -> two fans work, 3rd is not in IDLE. When Windows kicks in, all 3 fans go to 100% regardless if I have nvidia or windows default drivers installed. Card BIOS is rev. F2. Gigabyte released one updated BIOS : F3, but funny enough their BIOS flash tool doesn't recognize the card. It says: no card here. But it perfectly recognizes my Gigabyte RX560. I run Heaven's on the card with 100% fans on, and the results are normal. Card hits 65C temp and stops there: this is what all reviews show is the regular operating temperature. Nothing outside the normal. My PSU is brand new, a few weeks of use. I saw a few similar threads on Google, but they are a variation of the same thing: wiggle the cable a bit and it will go away. I can say I wiggled the fan connections more than a bit and nothing happens. I entered my MB BIOS, but there really isn't many options there. Under the tab "Graphics configuration" I can only choose which is the primary display: PCIE or CPU, that's all. Nothing else. Specs are in my signature. Any ideas ?
I feel like it is the MB, that is the trouble. I will try to install in some friend's PC to see if the same thing happens, but I cannot test this option right away.
You can see the 3rd one is different:

 

[enxo218]

it sounds like the card is at fault
1 its not being recognised by the manufacturer's bios flash tool that would concern me more than the fan problem
2 card works fine with custom cooler but not with its reference one...it may be unable to properly utilise all 3 fans is it a thermal sensor problem or are the fans at 100% because its stuck at oc mode and the card is just compensating

 

[PLAfiller]

it sounds like the card is at fault
1 its not being recognised by the manufacturer's bios flash tool that would concern me more than the fan problem
2 card works fine with custom cooler but not with its reference one...it may be unable to properly utilise all 3 fans is it a thermal sensor problem or are the fans at 100% because its stuck at oc mode and the card is just compensating

Thanks for the time given and I will address both your ideas. About the BIOS tool, according to GB support, sometimes it needs GB motherboard to work- other people complained about the same thing. Could be the same case. Every other piece of software recognizes full specs and model on the card. Your second idea, I don't know. Clock in idle is 135mhz and with boost goes to the default setting 1300 or so. No OC, on my side. I played for an hour yesterday, no hiccup. Anyhow, I gave up and slapped back the Kraken and I am just run it to the grave like this.

 

[enxo218]

Thanks for the time given and I will address both your ideas. About the BIOS tool, according to GB support, sometimes it needs GB motherboard to work- other people complained about the same thing. Could be the same case. Every other piece of software recognizes full specs and model on the card. Your second idea, I don't know. Clock in idle is 135mhz and with boost goes to the default setting 1300 or so. No OC, on my side. I played for an hour yesterday, no hiccup. Anyhow, I gave up and slapped back the Kraken and I am just run it to the grave like this.

its cool as long as its usable on the kraken

 

[ExV6k]

Have you tried flashing the bios using NVFlash?

 

[PLAfiller]

Have you tried flashing the bios using NVFlash?

No, and I am coming back to this issue. This is what I am about to do. I know there a bunch of threads even here and I already read most of it, but I am stuck at step 1-> starting nvflash.

I have backed up the original BIOS from GPU-z and I will back it up again when I get Nvflash runnig. From the screenshot below I can see the card uses the "DP"-version ( display port version) of the BIOS, but it says "F60". On Gigabyte's website there are only : F13, F3, F42 and F51 ( all 4 are for Samsung or Hynix memory). Mine uses Elpida.... Anyhow, I will figure this one out. What I can't do is start nvflash...yes. Right-click and run as admin on the exe gives me the same result as open command prompt in admin mode and navigating to the exe that way. Both times I am greeted with "press enter or "Q" for exit". I am unable to type any command and to start my work. If mods agree that are too many threads on this, please delete this one, but I really couldn't see where I am getting wrong when starting the program. Except may be that I don't use a USB stick, but run straight from SSD. Can anyone give a push on down the hill here? Thank you in advance.