Just noticed one of my 7970 Dual-X fans isn't working.

[Frag Maniac]

This GPU is a little over 4 yrs old now, but I may need to hold on to it some time longer, as I'm waiting to look at Vega and the 1080 Ti. I was really shocked when I saw one fan not spinning, because I can run Furmark burn-in at under 75c for 5 min, and the Bench test under 80c for 15 min. However for a while now, I've noticed severe texture artifacts happening at times.

Anyways, to my question, is it worth getting a new set of Dual-X fans. I've seen the original ones on eBay as cheap as $11.99, with free shipping. That's the two fan set and wiring harness, but no mounting screws. The only ones I could find that were actually claimed for the 7970 model were from China.

One of my concerns is I recently saw on a Linus Tech Tips video, Linus said that one cause of fan failure can be over-spinning them when blow cleaning, which can supposedly burn out the fan header. However this fan harness connects both fans to one 4-pin header.

I've heard various stories about what can cause fan damage via cleaning, some say blowing them reverse direction hurts the bearings. I'm not going to lie to you, I HAVE spun up these fans when blow cleaning, but I never felt it was a speed that exceeded their RPM rating, and since one is still working, it seems the header is fine.

So...

1. Is my header fine if one fan still works off it?
2. China (likely Hong Kong) is a reliable source for some things like Korean made monitors. Are they trustworthy for this type of item?
3. Has anyone replaced something like this before without taking off the shroud? I managed to get the 3 screws off easily enough when looking at the fan, but un-clipping the old wiring harness and clipping the new one back in might be tough with the slim space between the shroud and PCB.

For now I've just ramped up the fan profile to start at 60% at idle instead of 40%. Plus I've adjusted the clock speed switch back to the 950 MHz position, instead of the 1000 MHz OC position.

This is the seller and the item I referred to. Not a top rated one, but has very good feedback and has sold a lot of these.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/85mm-Sapphire-AMD-R9-280X-280-270X-Dual-X-Fan-Replacement-FD7010H12S-12V-0-35A/111981633358?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid=222007&algo=SIC.MBE&ao=2&asc=40832&meid=cf81dd7cc2944da1aef3ce1ee63df39e&pid=100005&rk=2&rkt=6&sd=111981633248

 

[natr0n]

1. Just buy and replace the fan why so much typing ?
2. unplug fans when blowing them out if worried
3. Linus is a douche rag.

 

[tabascosauz]

It costs next to nothing. You have nothing to lose.

As for the fans, I still don't understand why people don't just stick a pencil between the fan blades when they're blowing the fans out. Simple as that. If you do that, there's no need for any debate over whether spinning up the fans will break them.

 

[jboydgolfer]

1. Just buy and replace the fan why so much typing ?
2. unplug fans when blowing them out if worried
3. Linus is a douche rag.

Perfect response
Especially number three

 

[Frag Maniac]

@natron,
Actually lately I HAVE been holding the fan in place while using my compressor. And as I said, I'm trying to determine if buying new fans will even fix the problem. So far no one's verified if they even know if the header could be damaged by over spinning fans while cleaning. And yeah, I know sometimes Linus gets things wrong, but again, no one here has said if they even know if he's wrong about the headers.

That said, at $12 including shipping, I'm tempted to just get them, but I also don't really want to have to remove the shroud either. I'll probably wait a few days and see how it games with the new fan setting (60% @30c, straight up to 100% at 80c), plus wait to see if I get any responses on the header thing and the shroud thing. I get the feeling one just burnt out before the other, because I spun them both equally while cleaning. It probably lasted 3 yrs then went kaput.

Thanks anyways, even if a bit testy. Why's everyone so testy here lately? It's like the whole world has gone I hate Trump angry. We had a bunch of protesters marching against him in front of my apt building today. Took an extra half hour just to get back in my parking space detouring around all of them. I call it the idiot parade, not because they're all idiots, because they actually think it will accomplish something. I never thought much of protesters as you can see.

 

[Frag Maniac]

After more play testing of Mafia III at the above fan setting, I'm still getting really bad artifacts, even though the GPU temp never goes above 60c (verified while playing via Afterburner onscreen stats). I'm wondering at this point if the Mafia III ReShade 5.1 mod I'm using got corrupted somehow.

I'm going to test some other games and see how they run. I'll probably try installing 17.1.1 too.

 

[kn00tcn]

the real douchebags are calling linus a douchebag, wtf...

just cuz he's mildly irritating doesnt mean he doesnt know what he's talking about, it's that other chubbier guy that seems a bit out of it, or how about jayz

frag, can you show screenshots of the artifacts? i dont know why you're talking about gpu temp when lots of people talk about vrm temps, in fact evga nearly recalled their 10 series due to vrms... the gpu temp is irrelevant when it's the one that has the copper

i would disassemble the fan & put some case fan to blow onto the newly opened hole in the shroud

edit: do you not have vrm temps accessible in any software? my 4870x2 had gpu1/mem1/vrm1,2,3/gpu2/mem2/vrm4,5,6

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

i noticed artifacts for the first time ever with my sapphire Hd 7970 when i was stuck into GTA the other day. ........never happenned before, the only change i had made was turning on "chill" in Radeon settings. When i turned it back off the artifacts stopped.

it may not be related but you never know......it solved it for me. We have the exact same GPU btw.

 

[animal007uk]

My HD7970 did this to so rather than try getting a total fan replacment i decided to do a poor mans mod and got the intel fan from my 2550k cooler and modded it onto the GPU then wired it to the other GPU fan so it was controld from the card itself and this seemed to work a treat.

The one fan on mine that stoped working would only kick it after i forced the GPU fan speed to 100% but once i droped down to below 40% the fan would just stop again and NO this was not a feature of my card.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Well, turns out it seems to be driver related. I tried to install 17.1.1 via AMD's Clean Install option. I got an error saying Radeon Settings couldn't install due to Qt5Core.dll and Qt5Quick.dll files missing. I did searches for what these files are. One said they were Intel related, but had my doubts. I'm wondering if the Qt is QuickTime, since ReLive uses H264 and you often get codec identifiers seeing it as QuickTime.

Anyways, I searched for, DLed, and scanned those two dll files before placing them in System32. Then completely uninstalled all AMD stuff via Driver Sweeper, and tried this time just installing 17.1.1 without AMD's Clean Install. The result was the driver installed with no error message this time, but I can't get Radeon Settings or ReLive to install. Mafia III is now back to playing fine with no artifacts.

I've about had it with AMD. I may try installing the last WHQL before the 16.12.2 one. I wanted to try using ReLive on Mafia III, because this mod makes it look pretty good. The artifacts are kinda hard to describe. The worst were the kind where you have huge swaths of textures emanating from one spot, sometimes filling half or more of the screen. Others were much more subtle, related to light and shadow textures flickering.

Note that sfc /scannow resulted in no problems found, and even trying to re-register those two dll files via command prompt yielded a module not found error. BTW, I went ahead and ordered that fan set for $12. Even though I know it isn't the problem now, at least it's cheap. Damn this one an that still works is loud at 3000 RPM. Had to put my closed back Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pros on to stop hearing it.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

Yea the latest crimson drivers are shit over had quite a few odd issues with them from crashing to freezing, not installing md5 checksum being incorrect when downloading them etc etc worst driver I've ever used...

 

[Frag Maniac]

Yea the latest crimson drivers are shit over had quite a few odd issues with them from crashing to freezing, not installing md5 checksum being incorrect when downloading them etc etc worst driver I've ever used...

I find ATI/AMD have had problems for a LONG time with software in general. Their driver installer before AMD took over was confirmed to be crap by Angel Trinidad, the guy that made the Omega drivers by streamlining the stock drivers to take the problematic bloat out of them.

Here they are all these years later and it still seems they don't have a clue. It's a shame too because the GPUs themselves are actually pretty good, especially considering what you can get them for.

Anyways, I just DLed the last WHQL before 16.12.2, which is 16.10.1, and I'll see if I can at least install Radeon Settings and ReLive.

 

[Kursah]

I find ATI/AMD have had problems for a LONG time with software in general. Their driver installer before AMD took over was confirmed to be crap by Angel Trinidad, the guy that made the Omega drivers by streamlining the stock drivers to take the problematic bloat out of them.

Here they are all these years later and it still seems they don't have a clue. It's a shame too because the GPUs themselves are actually pretty good, especially considering what you can get them for.

Anyways, I just DLed the last WHQL before 16.12.2, which is 16.10.1, and I'll see if I can at least install Radeon Settings and ReLive.

Ahhh...Omega drivers...man that brings back some memories...and nightmares. Well AMD drivers in general elicit those feelings as well.

AMD has really struggled in this department for as long as I can truly remember. Though admittedly, the past year has been my best experience with AMD drivers in 10+ years which speaks volumes to me. BUT...that said, and this most recent release has affected a couple of folks with 7xxx-series GPU's and we've had to roll them back. So you're on the right track here.

Clearly ReLive isn't quite ready or as-smooth as GFE pulled off on their end. I have high hopes that they'll get their shit together and keep pushing forward. I think AMD's trying to get a little too aggressive with their releases and throwing QA into second string...I hope they back of a little and spend a little more time sanding down the rough edges and fixing the issues that are causing big problems. Hopefully rolling back solves your fan and corruption issues. Not often I'll see a driver from NV or AMD cause such issues...but it does happen and it sucks even more-so if/when a card is damaged permanently because if a bugged driver release or issue.

... Why's everyone so testy here lately?...

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/more-w10-lulz.229522/
What, like this?

 

[Frag Maniac]

Just got conformation the fan set is shipped. Won't arrive until Feb 14, 3 week shipping. Not the best delivery time from China I've seen, but certainly not the worst.