Question Asus ROG Strix 1660 Super fans are not PWM???

[DonoDonato]

Hello,

Have this GPU: Asus ROG-STRIX-GTX1660S-O6G-GAMING
It has a 0db fan, which i've noticed does not begin to spin until the GPU hits 55'C. When it hits that temp the fan spins up to ~800-1000 RPM and cools the GPU by 1 degree instantly. The fan then stops and ramps up again in a second when GPU hits 55'C again. When it does that it makes terrible noises.

I tried to make a custom fan curve in the MSI Afterburner app, however i've imediatelly dicovered the fan does not spin below 27% @900 RPM. The only way to get rid of the obnoxious spin up/winde down sounds is to keep the GPU fans at this speed, but then they make enough noticable sound on their own.

Is there any way to lower the fan speed or fix this somehow? Would appreciate any insights/tips/tricks.

Dono.

I have a problem with the R

 

[Prad_Bitt]

PWM doesn't have anything to do with whether or not fan speeds can be changed. They can be changed through voltage too. And fans always have a minimum speed, your fans have it at 900rpm probably

 

[hotaru.hino]

All fans have a minimum RPM required to spin. If an electric motor stalls (i.e., can't spin the fan), then you risk burning out the motor.

 

[DonoDonato]

PWM fans have a tendency to have lower RPMs. Although the AMD stock cooler fan was PWM at 900RPM minimum as well. Makes me wonder what cheap components were used in theese fan motors. My last card was a Inno3d 1060gb and the fans worked great from ~200RPM i believe and it was so silent.

I regret buying the card. There were no reviews on it on the web, but at the price and the ROG Strix brand, i thought i couldn't go wrong.

Is it hard to replace GPU fans? And what fans with low RPM capability would fit this gpu? Would GPU's fan control chip even allow that?

 

[Prad_Bitt]

PWM fans have a tendency to have lower RPMs. Although the AMD stock cooler fan was PWM at 900RPM minimum as well. Makes me wonder what cheap components were used in theese fan motors. My last card was a Inno3d 1060gb and the fans worked great from ~200RPM i believe and it was so silent.

I regret buying the card. There were no reviews on it on the web, but at the price and the ROG Strix brand, i thought i couldn't go wrong.

Is it hard to replace GPU fans? And what fans with low RPM capability would fit this gpu? Would GPU's fan control chip even allow that?

Components aren't necessarily cheap if the RPM can't go lower. My Noctua 3000rpm PWM can only go as low as 750rpm. I'm not sure what "terrible noises" you're talking about because I can't hear my gigabyte GPU fans even at 1500rpm over my case fans. Just set the bottom of the fan curve higher at like 60 C if you have noise problems. Not once have I heard my fans wind up at 55 C even though they always do wind up

 

[DonoDonato]

I sure hope so. At that price the motos better be golden But yes, the sound of fans ramping up to 900rpm within miliseconds and cooling the gpu instantly and then shuting down, and doing it over an over again does create a very specific sound. Maybe gigabyte fans have a slower spin-up/spin-down time in MS. In the MSI b550 bios i can control the spin-up/spin-down speeds of my case fans, wish i could do it in the gpu fans too somehow, that might actualy help, i think.

I wonder if other owners of this card noticed it. In Hardware monitor the RPM speeds look like they are switching from 0 to ~900 constantly.

 

[Prad_Bitt]

I sure hope so. At that price the motos better be golden But yes, the sound of fans ramping up to 900rpm within miliseconds and cooling the gpu instantly and then shuting down, and doing it over an over again does create a very specific sound. Maybe gigabyte fans have a slower spin-up/spin-down time in MS. In the MSI b550 bios i can control the spin-up/spin-down speeds of my case fans, wish i could do it in the gpu fans too somehow, that might actualy help, i think.

I wonder if other owners of this card noticed it. In Hardware monitor the RPM speeds look like they are switching from 0 to ~900 constantly.

There must be some software for Asus Strix. Gigabyte has Aorus Engine which allows me to set a custom fan curve. I can even make it rely on passive cooling completely

 

[DonoDonato]

I've installed the:
Asus GPU Tweak II. And now, even when the app is off, the fans behave more adequatelly. When it reaches 55'C it doe snot straight up go to 900RPM, now i see it go in the range from 200 to 900. So i asume 200RPM is the lowest speed. But i'll explore the app a bit more, but just installing the app seems to have fixed the main issue.

EDIT: And it made a whole lot new problems. Actually the fan is trying to do lower speeds but seems not able, so it randomly takes any curent it has and spins in that range. Also it seems Nvidia drivers stopped working (the frame limit option in an Open GL game stopped working.). I'll play with it all see what happens.

 

[DonoDonato]

I played with Asus GPU tweak, which proved to be very buggy on my b550m mortar with 3300X. The bios does not give me full manual control over the fans. For example, it will turn fans on at 55'C, even if i move the curve to 58'C. In bios2 (P mode switch), the fans spin at 30C even if i set it to 35C etc.

I found that if i decrease fan speed by 1% i can get it down to 500RPM, Then a bug kicked in at 14% and i was not alowed to change the fan speed below 24% even after counless restarts, default rollbacks etc.

I think it needs a bios update to work with the 3300X on b550 motherboard properly. Idk. i'll keep looking. Right now, even after uninstaling GPU tweak i am having driver issues.

 

[frozensun]

I have Ti version and with your card fans should not spin at all until temp hits 55 C that is for my Ti and suppose it is same with your model.
Besides there is a way to manually setup fan speed for each fan with GPU Tweak II.
But don't see an issue why would you bother,let the card manage the fan speed based on gpu temp...be sure to remove MSI AB cuz it has issue with GPU Tweak II,either use one or the other.

 

[Prad_Bitt]

I played with Asus GPU tweak, which proved to be very buggy on my b550m mortar with 3300X. The bios does not give me full manual control over the fans. For example, it will turn fans on at 55'C, even if i move the curve to 58'C. In bios2 (P mode switch), the fans spin at 30C even if i set it to 35C etc.

I found that if i decrease fan speed by 1% i can get it down to 500RPM, Then a bug kicked in at 14% and i was not alowed to change the fan speed below 24% even after counless restarts, default rollbacks etc.

I think it needs a bios update to work with the 3300X on b550 motherboard properly. Idk. i'll keep looking. Right now, even after uninstaling GPU tweak i am having driver issues.

Maybe that's some manufacturer BS because they often don't play well together. My board and GPU are both Gigabyte 🤷🏻‍♂️ never had to go into bios to change gpu fan curve

 

[DonoDonato]

Well, here's what i learned form my personal experience.

1. The fans CAN work at lower speeds, but the card won't let it. It will keep pushing it to ~900RPM minimum.900RPM.
2. MSI afterburner scanned the VBIOS right. It does not allow to mnaully set lowe than ~900 RPM speed.
3. Asus GPU Tweak II got it wrong. It allows to drop the fan speed in 1% increments all the way to 15% @500RPM. At 14% the app messes up and sets the hard fan limit to 24%. Defaulting or doing restarts does not solve that.

4.The card has 2 bioses. Qbios starts fans at 55C, and Pbios at 30C. Giving no flexibility or ability to make a meaningful fan curve manually. In other words: Auto is best.

1. Asus GPU Tweak II messes Nvidia drivers. After uninstalling the app i had to reinstall the drivers. Also Asus GPU Tweak left junkware on my computer and a runing Windows service (Asus COM Service). Can be found on RUN>services.msc. Unfortuantelly i had to manually remove it, as there was no other way.
2. The motors make audible spur of tickig sounds (similar to sounds PWM fans make, but much louder) when they start at 55*C. When i am runing a LOW load app like RTX voice it jerks from 54 to 55 making the ticking sound constant.
3. I think there is some compatibility issues between my MSI b550m motehrboard's bios and Asus GPU bios. Won't go into detail because i do not know which of the bios is bugged or the AMD driver. Fixable by going to motherboards bios and just leaving without saving anythng.
4. Also the card has very loud high pich coil whine when game is on High graphic settings. My last card (Inno3D Gaming OC, the rare GDDR5X scew with 5 copper heat pipes) had none of theese issues and was much cheaper. Because of the coil whine i have to run lower settings, and at those my old Inno3d was far superior in cooling/noise deppartment.

This card does look great tho. And one of the coolest things about is that it blows the air out the back of the card also. Because of the poor experience with the card, this card will be the last Asus GPU i will ever purchase.

 

[kissela]

Since the problem appears primarily in temperature areas where the fans start/stop, what if you would try to prevent the GPU staying in that temperature range by adjusting the cooling of the case? So to avoid temp range 29-31 C with silent bios and 54-56 with performance bios. In practice this would mean either reducing the fan speed of your chassis fan(s) to allow slightly higher GPU temps (GPU fan running all the time) or by increasing the chassis fan(s) speed to keep the temperature below 55 (fans do not start).