[SOLVED] One card, two fans, two speeds?

[TM1172]

So I just got a used EVGA GTX 1080 TI Black Edition SC. It installed with minimal problems and runs very well, with temps topping out around 78* after 45 min at full load.
I have Afterburner controlling the fan profile, which I set. If I’m not using the custom fan curve, I just let the auto controller do its thing. Either way, when the fan settings are very low - 9-20% - sometimes both fans spin, sometimes only one fan spins, and sometimes they both stop.
Is this supposed to be happening? Are the fans on this card capable of spinning independently of one another, so one fan could be at 400 rpm and the other could be at 800 rpm (numbers just for the sake of example)? I’m pretty sure this card is out of warranty, so I’m not really interested in trying to RMA it. I’ve changed card fans out before and I am comfortable with that.

 

[John Chesterfield]

I have a 2080 and had this happen with a particular set of drivers, have you updated drivers at all?

 

[TM1172]

I have the game-ready driver from the Nvidia Experience program that was pushed out last month on the 20th (approx), is there another driver I need to update?

 

[John Chesterfield]

Try and older one, don't use experience program or GFE, uninstall those and Google Nvidia drivers. Download directly from their website and try a slightly older one.

 

[Nemesia]

Pretty sure this is normal. Some GPU fans can't go lower than a certain %. When they do they stop or they stop/start/stop/start in a loop. It's just a matter of finding what is the % and you set your fan curve to start at that % at a certain temperature. If all the fan work at 21% start at 21%.

 

[TM1172]

@John Chesterfield @Nemesia,

Thanks for your responses - worked late yesterday so I didn't get a chance to get back to you. John, I'll give that a shot with the older drivers. GFE always seemed too slick for its own good.

Nemesia, I had heard that was a big thing with centrifugal fans - they couldn't go lower than like 30% power or something? It makes sense other fans would have the same issues at different levels. I had a GTX 1050 fan go bad on me last year where it would do something similar to these fans at low power, but then eventually it stopped spinning at any level and I had to swap it out. That's the reason I was wondering about these ones. If they are close to failing, I want to know early, but if it's a normal thing, no problems!