GPU fan won't do low speeds, ASUS GTX 750 Ti

[GardenInTheStars]

Summary of problem: The GPU fan won't run at less than 60% speed, regardless of temperature, so it's really noisy.
My GPU: ASUS GTX 750 Ti FML-OC-2GD5
This model has a single fan.
It constantly does the following, starting from when Windows 10 starts up:
- revs to maximum speed (about 4000rpm) which takes about 3 seconds and makes a lot of noise
- stops completely (0 rpm)
- waits about 10 seconds
- repeat
The loud fan noise happens every 10 seconds and is very annoying.
Installing the driver (from https://www.asus.com/supportonly/GTX750TI-FML-OC-2GD5/HelpDesk_Download/) didnt make any difference.

'MSI Afterburner' software shows that the GPU's temperature is staying around 30 degrees C, so there isn't a temperature problem. In Afterburner the 'fan tachometer' shows the fan speed going up and down between 0rpm and 4000rpm in correlation with the noise.

I've also tried using Afterburner to set the fan speed %, both directly and indirectly by setting a speed curve. The fan obeys values between about 60% and 100%, but if I set it to anything below 60% the fan shuts off completely to 0 rpm, causing it to then ignore Afterburner's settings and resume the usual cycle described above, surging between 100% and 0%.
So, I could permanently keep the fan at 60% (2800rpm) but this is way too fast and loud. I want to set it to something quiet like 35%, but the fan won't do it. My guess is that normally the fan is trying to run at a low speed, but for some reason it can't, so it shuts off, then panics and does a surge to 100%.

 

[P4-630]

If it's too annoying you could remove the shroud , remove the original fan, attach a quiet fan (with tiewraps or 3m double sided heat resistant tape), connect the fan to a fan header on the motherboard.

 

[eidairaman1]

Clean the fan or replace it.

 

[purecain]

Ive seen this with a laptop but never on a desk top GPU. I would rule out a software issue first by just getting rid of everything related to gpu and reinstalling.

I'd repair the OS as well using cmd. If all of your software checks out, pull your GPU and do what eiderman1 above suggested, clean the card. You could even take the shroud off completely and repast it.

If that doesnt work just replace it with a better fan and upgrade your gpu. A cheap AIO waterblock ghetto modded onto the card and a few heat sinks on the memory and your card will love you for another year or two and you can always move the cooler to another gpu when you manage to upgrade.

Good luck

 

[pavle]

Looks like fan controller is malfunctioning. Was the BIOS of the card altered in any way?
Perhaps disconnect the original fan and mount an 80 or 92mm fan to the card and connect it to either 5 or 7 (between 12 and 5 (for gnd)) V.

 

[purecain]

@pavle - Thats not a bad solution, but wont the new fan have the same behavior if its on the same controller???

 

[DrCR]

@pavle - Thats not a bad solution, but wont the new fan have the same behavior if its on the same controller???

He’s talking about an undervolt, not controller (PWM) connected.

 

[pavle]

@pavle - Thats not a bad solution, but wont the new fan have the same behavior if its on the same controller???

I'm sorry, I wrote less than I should. I meant just plug the new fan into "IDE"/Molex connector. Either between red an black or between yellow and red (7V).

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Looks like fan controller is malfunctioning. Was the BIOS of the card altered in any way?
Perhaps disconnect the original fan and mount an 80 or 92mm fan to the card and connect it to either 5 or 7 (between 12 and 5 (for gnd)) V.

depending on the quality of the fan, expect most fans to need 7v to start spinning, 5v is fine to sustain speeds.

 

[DrCR]

I’ve never had problems with a pure 5v, albeit that was with SPCR favored fans of yore (S-Flex, Slipstream, Yate Loon, et al.) that I still use.

 

[GardenInTheStars]

Thanks to all that have responded.
I can give some more info on the situation that will narrow down the causes:
- The problem isn't caused by overheating or an unusually noisy fan. When the fan is at a normal speed it has a normal noise level. The problem is the speed. It's either off or crazy fast.
- I've attached the card to 2 different PCs, and the same problem occurs on both.
- I've only just got hold of this card. It's second hand. It had the problem as soon as I attached it, both before and after I installed the driver. I don't know if it had this problem before I got it. I don't know if the BIOS has been altered.
- The fan and heat sink look clean / dust free. I'd like to eliminate software-based causes before taking anything apart.

I would rule out a software issue first by just getting rid of everything related to gpu and reinstalling.

I'm not very knowledgeable on GPUs. What do you mean by "everything related to GPU".
When installing the driver I selected 'clean install', which first deletes previous driver. I don't know what else to get rid of.

I'd repair the OS as well using cmd.

Does cmd mean Windows 10 command line? I don't know anything about this. Can you suggest what search terms I should google to learn about how to do it.

 

[oobymach]

My guess is someone modded the bios since it happens in 2 different machines and isn't dirty, have you tried flashing the original bios back onto the card? There should be a few on this website, can you take a picture of the front and back of the card (make sure stickers are legible for card model number etc).

 

[pavle]

@GardenInTheStars, I think the simplest thing now without flashing the card's BIOS would be to test its fan connected directly to 5 or 12V (to the molex connector) if it's whisper quiet at 5V (red and black), it's good and then you flash the card with a different BIOS to see if it was somehow corrupted. If behaviour persists (60% speed), then fan controller is malfunctioning.

 

[droid-I]

Please post a GPU-Z screnshot of your card.

You can also do a MD5 check of your current GPU BIOS and compare it with
the MD5 Hash seen of the official BIOSes of your card listed in the VGA BIOS collection.

Save your cards BIOS with GPU-Z(its next to the UEFI checkmark), run a certutil on the saved BIOS.

At the command prompt:

> certutil -hashfile <yourbios.rom> MD5

compare value to what is seen in the different versions found for your card in VGA BIOS collection.

If there is no match found while the version numbering, etc is exact, likely it is a modded or mining BIOS.

 

[GardenInTheStars]

Attached are files created by GPU-Z's analysis of my card, as suggested by droid-I

 

[looniam]

save the bios for rom file via GPU-Z then use maxwell bios tweaker to see if the min fan speeds were messed with:
(just drag the bios to the exe on your desktop)

mind those RPM, TMP PER 11 entries on the top left for minimums. TMP is temp, RPM speed PER percent; both for fan..

 

[Nike_486DX]

Attached are files created by GPU-Z's analysis of my card, as suggested by droid-I

Well according to your current bios (the one you submitted at least) the fan curve for this card is looking ok at 990rpm at 35C - 2250rpm at 75C - 4500rpm at 95C. Nothing wrong about it. My assumption is that the fan is worn out and when the controller tries to do something with it via pwm the fan just freaks out (this card should have pwm but i suggest you double check that, need to count the fan connector pins, if its 4 then its pwm). Also, does this happen under load (like furmark)? Like what if you heat the card to 70-75C, does the fan behavior remain the same?

 

[pavle]

Well according to your current bios (the one you submitted at least) the fan curve for this card is looking ok at 990rpm at 35C - 2250rpm at 75C - 4500rpm at 95C. Nothing wrong about it. My assumption is that the fan is worn out and when the controller tries to do something with it via pwm the fan just freaks out (this card should have pwm but i suggest you double check that, need to count the fan connector pins, if its 4 then its pwm). Also, does this happen under load (like furmark)? Like what if you heat the card to 70-75C, does the fan behavior remain the same?

Indeed, lowest percentage of fan speed is set at 22% and highest @100; I'd still try connecting said fan to straight 5V and then maybe 7V to see how it behaves.

 

[GardenInTheStars]

save the bios for rom file via GPU-Z then use maxwell bios tweaker to see if the min fan speeds were messed with:
(just drag the bios to the exe on your desktop)

mind those RPM, TMP PER 11 entries on the top left for minimums. TMP is temp, RPM speed PER percent; both for fan..

Below is the screenshot of Maxwell BIOS Tweaker, for my GPU's rom file.
I believe its showing its set to 22% for temperatures below 35 degrees C.

Looks like fan controller is malfunctioning. Was the BIOS of the card altered in any way?
Perhaps disconnect the original fan and mount an 80 or 92mm fan to the card and connect it to either 5 or 7 (between 12 and 5 (for gnd)) V.

@GardenInTheStars, I think the simplest thing now without flashing the card's BIOS would be to test its fan connected directly to 5 or 12V (to the molex connector) if it's whisper quiet at 5V (red and black), it's good and then you flash the card with a different BIOS to see if it was somehow corrupted. If behaviour persists (60% speed), then fan controller is malfunctioning.

@ Pavle

I have unplugged the GPUs fan power lead from the GPU. It's a 4 pin PWM connector. But I dont know where else to plug it. I cant see any suitable header on the motherboard. The case fan and CPU fan are connected to differently shaped headers.
Available are large molex connectors from the power supply for powering a hard drive. Do I need to buy an adaptor to convert from that to a suitable header for the GPU fan?

 

[Nike_486DX]

Below is the screenshot of Maxwell BIOS Tweaker, for my GPU's rom file.
I believe its showing its set to 22% for temperatures below 35 degrees C.

View attachment 238848





@ Pavle

I have unplugged the GPUs fan power lead from the GPU. It's a 4 pin PWM connector. But I dont know where else to plug it. I cant see any suitable header on the motherboard. The case fan and CPU fan are connected to differently shaped headers.
Available are large molex connectors from the power supply for powering a hard drive. Do I need to buy an adaptor to convert from that to a suitable header for the GPU fan?

yea, you will need an adaptor if you want to plug it directly into molex or sata power. Or you can strip the wire and hook up the red and black (depends on your graphics card, but they usually have blue-yellow-red-black (blue is pwm, yellow is rpm reading, red and black are power). So you can ghetto mod those to run off the psu (5v is quiet, and 12v is noisy but more powerful, on psu cables red is 5v and yellow is 12v, in case your psu got pure black cables you will need to google molex pinout to find the cables). PS Actually seen a similar issue on another forum, the guy got a used 1060 and the fan behaved similarly. Just replaced the fan and everything got back to normal.

 

[pavle]

I have unplugged the GPUs fan power lead from the GPU. It's a 4 pin PWM connector. But I dont know where else to plug it. I cant see any suitable header on the motherboard. The case fan and CPU fan are connected to differently shaped headers.
Available are large molex connectors from the power supply for powering a hard drive. Do I need to buy an adaptor to convert from that to a suitable header for the GPU fan?

A bit late but yeah, as Nike_486DX said either try looking for an adapter or better, disconnect the fan from card's supply and with a very small screwdriver or a pin you can dislodge black and yellow cables of the card's fan out of the connector (just press on their little metal tabs and gently pull them out - for reinstallation they just click into place) and then depending on the size, they usually fit into a molex connector (it is for testing anyway). For 5V: yellow wire of the fan into red of molex conn. and black into black or for 12V: yellow into yellow and black into black.

 

[GardenInTheStars]

Thanks to everyone that replied. I got as far as I could with it, but have decided to send it back to the seller and get a refund.
The BIOS was ok so it was either a problem with the card's fan controller or the fan itself, which would have required more time, and possibly money, and may have been unfixable.
I tried to dissect the fan's connector to separate the wires, to plug it into a different power source, but I couldn't do it without possibly breaking it.

 

[eidairaman1]

Thanks to everyone that replied. I got as far as I could with it, but have decided to send it back to the seller and get a refund.
The BIOS was ok so it was either a problem with the card's fan controller or the fan itself, which would have required more time, and possibly money, and may have been unfixable.
I tried to dissect the fan's connector to separate the wires, to plug it into a different power source, but I couldn't do it without possibly breaking it.

Smart move, don't try to fix any pcb.