I severed out a broken fan from my GPU now the remaining one ramps up but never down.

Gabriel_Garcia

Commendable
Sep 20, 2016
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Hey guys, I got a used MSI Gaming X GTX 1080 from a friend of mine on an insane deal. It had 2 broken fan blades on one of the fans which made it completely unstable and would tremble the whole building. (It isn't related but it had an unstable voltage and after much troubleshooting I downclocked it 200MHz down to reference and now it's mint).

Facing that my case airflow is great and it's winter in Vancouver (the GPU wouldn't go beyond 68C on 40% fan speed), I decided to cut out the broken fan (with the promise of buying a new on AliExpress), temperatures are great, it doesn't go beyond 70C no matter what.

AansmR8.jpg

2fDV86U.jpg


The problem is that now the remaining fan ramps up fine but then doesn't ramp down, and it never respects any kind of fan curve (tried MSI Afterburner which worked fine before removing the broken fan). If I restart the PC it goes to a stop, mildly ramps up, but when I launch something graphics intensive it ramps up and gets stuck, never ramping down, obnoxiously loud.

It's one of those set of fans that they merge together into a single fan header in the GPU, no connectors to be removed, so I had to cut it.

My question is, does anyone here with enough electrical savviness could propose a solution to get this fan quiet? Like an adapter, for the severed part or for the header itself, maybe cutting the wires deeper? (My cut was near the fan, not near the header).

Disclaimer: I tried searching physical stores for replacement parts, tried North America wide and only found a $150 listing on Amazon. AlliExpress has good enough replacements for $14+$2 shipping. So I needed a temporary solution.

And honestly, if I can make this fan behave as intended, I may keep it the way it is.

By the way, the fan curve reports properly on GPU-Z (sensors) but the tachometer doesn't, it's always 0 (kindof as expected).

Thanks very much for the effort guys! Sorry about the long post, I tried being as thorough and clear as possible.

 
My guess would be that you've cut out the sense wire for the cooling RPM feedback circuit. Without it, it's pretty doubtful the system has any idea how fast those fans are going or can offer any variable control. Have you checked the monitoring software to see if there is even an RPM reading now?

https://www.ebay.com/i/173285858908?chn=ps

https://www.amazon.com/PLD10010B12HH-R9-290X-R9-270X-R7-260X-Cooling/dp/B076Q7R2BB

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Original-95MM-PLD10010B12HH-Ball-Bearing-Cooler-Fan-For-MSI-GTX-1060-1070-1080-TI-RX-470/32860273106.html

https://www.ebay.com/p/95mm-280-PLD10010S12HH-Video-Pld10010b12hh-Card-Hd7850-VGA-7870-Fan-MSI-270-USA/1439058873

https://www.dhgate.com/product/pld10010b12hh-pld09210b12hh-vga-gpu-cooler/415473726.html


I'm sure there are plenty more where those came from.
 

Gabriel_Garcia

Commendable
Sep 20, 2016
13
0
1,520


It's reading 0 RPM as stated :(

Interestingly enough, I've cut only the wires coming out of the first fan, as depicted in the picture.

Looks I'm stuck with a loud MF while I don't get a new pair of fans :/

Regarding the purchase options, only two of your links are available, both from China with quite long delivery times.
 
D

Deleted member 217926

Guest
Blowing that dust out of it will help temps too. There's some pretty good build up on the heatsink for a card that new.
 

Gabriel_Garcia

Commendable
Sep 20, 2016
13
0
1,520
Thanks for the observations guys. Regarding cutting the fan's blades, I thought that just removing it would be neater, mistakes to be learned from. I would never realize that if the controller doesn't get RPM feedback it wouldn't be able to send the proper voltage. Probably it's in a loop where it increases the voltage but the fan stays on 0 RPM, as it was stuck, increasing the voltage until maximum independent of the curve.

Isn't there any way to override this behavior? I guess I could connect it to an MB header.

About cleaning the heatsink, that's a good idea indeed, I hadn't realized that. I just arrived in the country so I still don't have stuff like compressed air.
 
Your latest image isn't showing like your first two.

Yes, that might be possible, I'm not sure if the controller on the card requires both signals to interpret an accurate command or not. I would think not, but you never know.

They sell compressed air in cans (Dust/lint remover) at most electronics stores, retain chains and home centers.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ultra-Duster-Aerosol-with-Trigger-12-oz/16630941
 

Gabriel_Garcia

Commendable
Sep 20, 2016
13
0
1,520
Thanks for the instructions darkbreeze, marking your answer as the most correct.

After double checking I realized that the green wire (tachometer) was only present on the fan I removed, hence the problems :(

So I ghetto modded the shit out of my GPU and bought 2 noctua nf-f12, temperatures are freaking awesome now :D (and relatively silent)

Now I just need to buy proper zipties (I had to bundle a bunch together) and an air compressor to clean the heatsink!

Thanks everyone!