GPU fan speed maxed, even when idle

[TheRadical1]

Hi guys

I've got a gigabyte gtx 760 with a windforce cooler. The last couple of days the fans have been acting up. The fans are spinning to the max rpm even though the card is only at 30C and then after a few seconds they drop all the way down to 0 rpm for a few seconds and then this repeats. Sometimes the fans will stay extremely fast and loud for ages so it's very random, no distinct pattern. Adjusting the fan speed manually on MSI afterburner has no effect, nor does setting a custom fan curve. (However I was able to do this only a couple of days ago before this issue occurred).

Interestingly, MSI afterburner still thinks the fans are running at 20% even though the noise they make suggests that they are running much faster. This makes me think that it's possibly a problem with the card itself, or the BIOS? Does anyone have any suggestions or should I just wait for Black Friday and get a new card.

Thanks heaps

EDIT: forgot to mention that my case is very clean and dust free and I have uninstalled drivers (which didn't change anything) and also reinstalled the latest drivers. i have also rebooted the computer.
Other things I have done:
- Re-seated GPU
- Re-seated Ram
- Rebooted numerous times
- Uninstalled all overclocking software and removed my overclock (this did nothing)
- Flashed an updated BIOS onto the card, still the problem persists

So yeah nothing has worked so far.

 

[Viking2121]

I've always had issues with Gigabytes fans on video cards for years, usually they fail, Are the fans vibrating or making any weird sounds apart form the moving air? You may have to take the side off your case to be sure, if the fan is vibrating its going to need replaced.

If the fans are fine other then really fast, I would remove anything that can control the GPU's fans, uninstall them and the profiles, and reboot the machine, see if the fan speeds go back to normal.

 

[TheRadical1]

I've always had issues with Gigabytes fans on video cards for years, usually they fail, Are the fans vibrating or making any weird sounds apart form the moving air? You may have to take the side off your case to be sure, if the fan is vibrating its going to need replaced.

If the fans are fine other then really fast, I would remove anything that can control the GPU's fans, uninstall them and the profiles, and reboot the machine, see if the fan speeds go back to normal.

Hey Viking2121, thanks for the reply. I've just had a good look inside my case and noticed that only two of the three fans spin, while the middle fan jiggles a bit like it's trying to spin but can't. This must be why the two other fans are spinning so fast. The middle fan will then eventually start spinning again for a little while and then stop. I assume the fan will need replacing.

I even took the graphics card apart, cleaned all the dust out, reapplied thermal paste and re-plugged the fans, and it still hasn't changed anything. Also, all profiles are deleted and the card is on stock speeds.

looks like my best bet is to get a new card since this one is pretty old now.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Viking2121]

Yeah, the Windforce cards run really cool, but their fans do not last. I've had a HD5850 with the Gigabytes dual fan cooler before they called it Windforce, and I've had a GTX 660 and GTX 770 Windforce they all ended up having a fan fail or make noise at one point.

You can get replacement fans that are not Gigabyte that will work with the cooler, but you will probably have to cut and re join the wires.

 

[urbanman2004]

I know this is an old thread but I had an issue where the fan of my blower-style GTX 1070 GPU would spin at full speed after booting up the system and intermittently during video gameplay even after setting up a profile on ASUS GPU Tweak II w/ a custom fan curve. It got so bad to the point that even on idle it would spin at full speed. So to my suspicion I knew it had to be a hardware problem so I unscrewed and pulled the shroud off my card and noticed the manufacturer applied excess TIM (which was pretty sloppily done) and as a solution I removed it and replaced it w/ CoolLaboratory Liquid Ultra. Problem officially solved.