Question GPU temps, and best way to change GPU fan speed?

[netloss]

I have a Zotac 1080ti. Recently I've played lots of Call of Duty: Warzone, and had various crashes and errors, most of which are probably not due to my hardware (which is usually stable). But some of them might be a result of the game pushing my hardware limits. To that end, I'm trying to eliminate variables.

I installed a piece of Zotac software called Firestorm which lets me kick the GPU fan up to 100% when temp exceeds, say, 50 or 60 C. It works, but I have to manually approve it via UAC every time I reboot, and then manually select the desired profile. (It has the option to auto launch and apply previous settings on boot - but even though the icon appears, it doesn't actually work unless I go in and click on "Apply" every time.)

Questions:

1. What is a reasonable temp at which GPU fans should run at 100% speed? (If it's high enough, maybe I don't need to mess with fan speeds at all.)

2. Assuming that I should increase GPU fan speeds, is there a way to adjust my fan speed curve in BIOS or firmware?

3. Finally, assuming that the only way I can tinker with GPU fan speeds is software, is there a better software solution?

Thanks!

 

[RTX 2080]

A popular solution is MSI afterburner. You can configure your own custom fan profile in the "fan" tab and setup the fans to spin at 100% starting at whatever temperature you want. For your purposes, I would recommend ramping the fans up to 100% somewhere around 60 degrees, although feel free to go lower if you want.

In the "general" tab, check the boxes for both "start with windows" and "start minimized." Then on the main page of the software click on the windows symbol under the word startup. Doing all this will run the software for you automatically in the tray on startup every time with no input from you. The moment the software runs, your custom fan profile is enabled.

This is my own permanent method for GPU fan control, I have no need or desire to adjust anything GPU related through the firmware or the BIOS.

 

[jay32267]

I think the bottom line is you want your GPU to stay under about 85C.
I'm running three GPUs on 3 different machines.
They all are running on auto fan control....no tweaking.
They all peak at 82C at 100% usage.
GTX 1060 (4 years)
GTX 1080 (3 years)
RTX 2080Ti (going to be pushing 2)
As long as you are under 85C I don't think you will hurt anything.

 

[Windyear]

I have same issue lately with my 4-year-old AMD R9 390, which has a 50C idle temp. I did same things as well: cleaning, replacing thermal paste, and using Afterburner for fan speed; fans are functioning properly. I wonder what is the issue here, thermal paste quality?

 

[RTX 2080]

Thermal paste gets old; it needs to be replaced at some point or another.

 

[Windyear]

Yeah, I just did a physical exam inside the case while PC is running idle and noticed: airflow was good; GPU part was significantly hotter upon palpation than the connected heat sink; power supply was cooler than GPU heat sink upon palpation; CPU heat sink was cooler than GPU heat sink too.

Question is: is it normal for GPU to produce so much heat that it can raise IDLE temp to 53C, even assuming thermal paste is not functioning properly? Thermal paste is easy to fix, but I wonder if there is anything wrong with the GPU itself.

Ambient temp ~23 C with decent airflow.

 

[Windyear]

Replaced thermal paste again using one point method. This time the GPU heat sink warmth felt the same as GPU itself, although IDLE temp is still 55C. Any thoughts?

 

[netloss]

Thank you all for the input. It sounds possible that I don't need to run any fan control software. I'll disable it and pay close attention to exactly how hot things get when I play the game, and make my decision based on what I see. I'll try Afterburner if I do need software.

(I should note that I probably don't have a problem with thermal paste / absolute cooling power. When I set fan speeds to 100%, the temp usually doesn't go much above 65. It's just a matter of when, exactly, the card decides to apply full fan power - and whether I'm OK with its built-in logic.)

 

[Windyear]

The thing is idle temp should be ~30-40C, with fan speed sitting ~20-40%.

 

[netloss]

Ok. Idle, or mostly-idle, it's usually in the low 40s... but it can spike at times when I wouldn't expect temp to be an issue. (As demonstrated by me changing the fan curve to jump up at 50c, and then sometimes hearing it rev up for a minute or so).

I may have to look into the thermal paste possibility. The card was a manufacturer reconditioned unit, so it's probably got more miles on it than it it were bought new.