Is this normal? EVGA GTX 970 very loud...

[elowell]

My ATI Radeon 290 bit the dust last week, so I am swapping it for a EVGA GTX 970. I got the card brand new, popped it in and powered on the machine. First thing I hear is what sounds like fans running at 100%. I didn't think anything of it and installed the drivers, updated, etc. I usually use Afterburner to regulate fan speeds, but EVGA recommends their software PrecisionX. So I uninstalled Afterburner and installed PrecisionX, but the card still seems like it's screaming at full speed. The fans are only at 20% according to CPUID HWMonitor and the card is at 34C. I guess my question is (and I'm new to NVIDIA), is this normal? My Radeon was always quiet until it got hot and the fans came up to 80% - 100%. Any input is appreciated.

 

[littleleo]

No not really the fans on mine don't even run until the card heats up. Something sounds very strange. When you increase the Fan speed profile to say 75% do you hear a change in the sound of the FAN? I wonder if the old driver correctly uninstalled you could boot up in safe mode and check if there is anything strange showing up in the device manager.

 

[elowell]

No not really the fans on mine don't even run until the card heats up. Something sounds very strange. When you increase the Fan speed profile to say 75% do you hear a change in the sound of the FAN? I wonder if the old driver correctly uninstalled you could boot up in safe mode and check if there is anything strange showing up in the device manager.

Nothing strange in Device Manager. All drivers (and the actual card) seem to be installed and working fine. All voltages, temperatures, and clock speeds look great. One thing I noticed is that the fans aren't actually running when I boot the PC. The noise isn't coming from the fans apparently (but it sounds like fans running at top speed). Is there an internal fan that is always on in these cards?

 

[littleleo]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

 

[elowell]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

 

[Decends]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

 

[elowell]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

I moved the card into a different slot as far away from the PSU as it could be so I could differentiate between the two fan sounds. Doing this allowed me to see the GPU fans more clearly and BEHOLD... the back fan (closest to the I/O slots) is causing all the issues. It's running at top speed from the moment I press the power button on my machine to when I turn the machine back off...

 

[Decends]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

I moved the card into a different slot as far away from the PSU as it could be so I could differentiate between the two fan sounds. Doing this allowed me to see the GPU fans more clearly and BEHOLD... the back fan (closest to the I/O slots) is causing all the issues. It's running at top speed from the moment I press the power button on my machine to when I turn the machine back off...

Then you have no choice but to RMA the card. Or live with the irritating fan noise.

 

[Draqone]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

I moved the card into a different slot as far away from the PSU as it could be so I could differentiate between the two fan sounds. Doing this allowed me to see the GPU fans more clearly and BEHOLD... the back fan (closest to the I/O slots) is causing all the issues. It's running at top speed from the moment I press the power button on my machine to when I turn the machine back off...

Then you have no choice but to RMA the card. Or live with the irritating fan noise.

Live with the irritating fan noise knowing that fan will anyway break sooner rather than later, possibly fry his GPU and he'll have to RMA it anyway.

Yep, a wonderful choice you gave him! 😛

 

[Decends]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

I moved the card into a different slot as far away from the PSU as it could be so I could differentiate between the two fan sounds. Doing this allowed me to see the GPU fans more clearly and BEHOLD... the back fan (closest to the I/O slots) is causing all the issues. It's running at top speed from the moment I press the power button on my machine to when I turn the machine back off...

Then you have no choice but to RMA the card. Or live with the irritating fan noise.

Live with the irritating fan noise knowing that fan will anyway break sooner rather than later, possibly fry his GPU and he'll have to RMA it anyway.

Yep, a wonderful choice you gave him! 😛

Never said the options were great lol.

 

[elowell]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

I moved the card into a different slot as far away from the PSU as it could be so I could differentiate between the two fan sounds. Doing this allowed me to see the GPU fans more clearly and BEHOLD... the back fan (closest to the I/O slots) is causing all the issues. It's running at top speed from the moment I press the power button on my machine to when I turn the machine back off...

Then you have no choice but to RMA the card. Or live with the irritating fan noise.

Live with the irritating fan noise knowing that fan will anyway break sooner rather than later, possibly fry his GPU and he'll have to RMA it anyway.

Yep, a wonderful choice you gave him! 😛

Yep, it's fabulous. But it's not a choice I'm willing to make, not because it's annoyingly loud, but because I know it's not running properly AND I refuse to put it right back into the box I just took it out of. There are tons of posts about different fan issues out there already for the GTX 970, and I'm currently in the process of going through each of them to see if anything helps... so far I've tried 4 different "fixes" but I'm still in the same boat. Seems to be more hardware than software-related.

 

[Draqone]

Too lazy to check but your GPU has 2 fans, and only one is crazy? If so, it's nearly certainly a hardware issue and you need to RMA it.

 

[littleleo]

No what you see is what you get no hidden fans perhaps a case Fan is making the noise. Perhaps during your new GPU installation one got knocked and is now making a funny noise.

No, it's the GPU. Just took it all the way back out of the case and powered on the machine and it's as quiet as it used to be. Put it back in and it's back running like a jet engine. Played a game just to get it hot and the fans actually come on and work fine. It never goes above 60C. This is driving me insane... Also, if it makes a difference in the diagnosis, I disconnected the power from the GPU and just left it in the PCI slot and it still runs like a jet engine when powering the PC on.

Maybe either the 970 has a coil whine issue, or the power draw it has is causing coil whine from the PSU?

I moved the card into a different slot as far away from the PSU as it could be so I could differentiate between the two fan sounds. Doing this allowed me to see the GPU fans more clearly and BEHOLD... the back fan (closest to the I/O slots) is causing all the issues. It's running at top speed from the moment I press the power button on my machine to when I turn the machine back off...

I only have one fan on my card but in the EVGA software can you adjust the fans separately?