Question about fan speed

[Herr_Koos]

Hi all,

Just a quick question that's been bugging me for a while now: GPU fans are designed to idle when the card is not being taxed, right? Now, I have an 8800GTS, and the fan idles at 60% duty cycle according to GPU-Z. I know that the 8-series don't feature dynamic underclocking etc, but I would at least expect the fan to ramp up under load. Based on GPU-Z's log file however, it barely moves, even when the card hits 80C plus.

To get around this, I created some custom fan profiles using the NVidia Performance tools. My question is this: Is it a bad idea to leave the fan at 100% permanently? Would this maybe decrease the lifespan, etc? Noise is not a factor; my case makes quite a racket anyway.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jennyh]

Having it spin faster will decrease the lifespan (of the fan) but should increase the lifespan of the chip at the same time.

If you can bear the noise, leave it at 100%.

 

[shadow187]

You can always buy some separate cooling as well; would work better than the fan for sure.

 

[Herr_Koos]

You can always buy some separate cooling as well; would work better than the fan for sure.

True, but I don't really want to spend money on extending the life of this rig. It's quite old by now and I'd rather save up for an upgrade a few months down the line.

 

[Herr_Koos]

Any other comments?