Will a fan not spinning in my graphic card effect the performance? (More details in post)

[Chrispurvis32]

I noticed that I was experiencing some issues on games, slowness in general use and I
wasn't sure what the problem was.,

I seemed to have quite a bit of trouble just doing some basic web browising while having a few other applications running.

So I tried to fire up grand theft auto 4 as I've played that a lot in the past on this desktop,

and no matter what settings I set it on, and it was only using half of the total Video ram and stuttering a lot during gameplay


Luckily, I had a spare Radeon 6790 to use in it's place, and it performs better than my 660 on older titles and I think in general use. where the 660 used to perform much better on

Is there anything I can do for the 660?

 

[vasilopoulos.gogos]

Check the temperatures of your GPU using any software (precision x, afternburner or whatever you want). Also check your system temperatures and report back.

Does your GPU only has 1 fan and it does not spin? or it has 2 and 1 of them does not spin?

The most obvious guess is that you are throttling your GPU and possibly your whole system because of high temperatures.

 

[twistyj10]

Some Gpu fans don’t start spinning until they need to. So they might not be an issue at all.

 

[velocityg4]

If the fan isn't ever working. It would cause serious throttling due to heat build up.

Options include
- You can figure out what size fan your card needs. Then try an aftermarket replacement.
- Remove the fan from the heatsink. Remove the heatsink shroud. Buy a high static pressure case fan. Zip tie it onto the heatsink. (Cheapest and easiest)
- Buy an after market universal GPU heatsink and copper heatsinks for the VRAM. You'll also need decent thermal paste if it isn't included.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

Check the temperatures of your GPU using any software (precision x, afternburner or whatever you want). Also check your system temperatures and report back.

Does your GPU only has 1 fan and it does not spin? or it has 2 and 1 of them does not spin?

The most obvious guess is that you are throttling your GPU and possibly your whole system because of high temperatures.

I can get the system information currently, i'll need to reinstall the "broken" graphic card again some time after a while and reinstall it's drivers to test it.

https://gyazo.com/62a399ba059275c7b93920cd2d6a8ae1 - A screenshot of my current system information while running Chrome w/ a few tabs Steam and HWmonitor running

Edit: Yes it does have 2 fans and only one spins, I didn't check it while under gaming load or anything,

it just stopped spinning on start up after I cleaned it out, and I just ended up connecting the the performance issues to the fan, and thought of switching the graphic cards out for the spare I had

 

[vasilopoulos.gogos]

yeah. then whatever velocityg4 said. Those are your options if you wanna fix it.

A 660 on an air cooled system hits 75-80c easily during gaming. So imagine what happens if the fan on the GPU was not working at all.
Probably, you were reaching very high temperatures, maybe even above 90-100c during gaming and as a result your GPU was throttling itself so it wont burn to ashes.
Keep in mind that super high temperatures for long sessions may cause permanent damage to your GPU.
Also it is possible that the super high GPU temperatures raised the temperature inside the case by a lot as well. Resulting in CPU and other components throttling as well which would justify the slow performance even when you were just web browsing.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

yeah. then whatever velocityg4 said. Those are your options if you wanna fix it.

A 660 on an air cooled system hits 75-80c easily during gaming. So imagine what happens if the fan on the GPU was not working at all.
Probably, you were reaching very high temperatures, maybe even above 90-100c during gaming and as a result your GPU was throttling itself so it wont burn to ashes.
Keep in mind that super high temperatures for long sessions may cause permanent damage to your GPU.
Also it is possible that the super high GPU temperatures raised the temperature inside the case by a lot as well. Resulting in CPU and other components throttling as well which would justify the slow performance even when you were just web browsing.

Well dang, Appreciate yours and everyone elses advice, with the current gpu does everything seem to look fine, this 6790 has one fan and if I chose to use it what termperatures should I avoid?

Also if it's worth mentioning, I have a black half 922 full tower for this computer, so it does have a decent ammount of airflow and isn't all compact.

 

[vasilopoulos.gogos]

yeah. then whatever velocityg4 said. Those are your options if you wanna fix it.

A 660 on an air cooled system hits 75-80c easily during gaming. So imagine what happens if the fan on the GPU was not working at all.
Probably, you were reaching very high temperatures, maybe even above 90-100c during gaming and as a result your GPU was throttling itself so it wont burn to ashes.
Keep in mind that super high temperatures for long sessions may cause permanent damage to your GPU.
Also it is possible that the super high GPU temperatures raised the temperature inside the case by a lot as well. Resulting in CPU and other components throttling as well which would justify the slow performance even when you were just web browsing.

Well dang, Appreciate yours and everyone elses advice, with the current gpu does everything seem to look fine, this 6790 has one fan and if I chose to use it what termperatures should I avoid?

Also if it's worth mentioning, I have a black half 922 full tower for this computer, so it does have a decent ammount of airflow and isn't all compact.

Im not sure about that. I have no experience with the 6790. Generally AMD stuff tend to run hotter so don't be surprised if you get higher temperatures than what you were used to before. As long as you don't see anything ridiculous in the GPU temperature like 90c+ you should be OK.

 

[velocityg4]

Well dang, Appreciate yours and everyone elses advice, with the current gpu does everything seem to look fine, this 6790 has one fan and if I chose to use it what termperatures should I avoid?

Also if it's worth mentioning, I have a black half 922 full tower for this computer, so it does have a decent ammount of airflow and isn't all compact.

The max safe temp varies by GPU. I try to keep temps under 75C. Although they can actually go a lot higher. Normally my temps under load are in the low 60's.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

Well dang, Appreciate yours and everyone elses advice, with the current gpu does everything seem to look fine, this 6790 has one fan and if I chose to use it what termperatures should I avoid?

Also if it's worth mentioning, I have a black half 922 full tower for this computer, so it does have a decent ammount of airflow and isn't all compact.

The max safe temp varies by GPU. I try to keep temps under 75C. Although they can actually go a lot higher. Normally my temps under load are in the low 60's.

I played a little gta 4 and my card ended up to sbout 65--70 C range within 30-45 minutes of game play.

if I didn't choose the refurbish route, do you think it would be worth it to pair a gtx 1050 with my Fx 4100 sometime in the future? It's a spare desktop that I have but I'd like to use it to run some older games with maxed out settings and no frame rate issues.

This 6790 isn't that good by todays standards but it's the only thing I had for replacement for now.

 

[velocityg4]

I played a little gta 4 and my card ended up to sbout 65--70 C range within 30-45 minutes of game play.

if I didn't choose the refurbish route, do you think it would be worth it to pair a gtx 1050 with my Fx 4100 sometime in the future? It's a spare desktop that I have but I'd like to use it to run some older games with maxed out settings and no frame rate issues.

This 6790 isn't that good by todays standards but it's the only thing I had for replacement for now.

For older games that should be fine. The GPU won't have any speed issues. While the FX 4100 isn't great for many modern games. It runs older games perfectly well. Although depending on the game. You may have compatibility issues with some old games on such a new GPU.

Off the top of my head. KOTOR and The Sims 2 require modding to work on modern hardware.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

I played a little gta 4 and my card ended up to sbout 65--70 C range within 30-45 minutes of game play.

if I didn't choose the refurbish route, do you think it would be worth it to pair a gtx 1050 with my Fx 4100 sometime in the future? It's a spare desktop that I have but I'd like to use it to run some older games with maxed out settings and no frame rate issues.

This 6790 isn't that good by todays standards but it's the only thing I had for replacement for now.

For older games that should be fine. The GPU won't have any speed issues. While the FX 4100 isn't great for many modern games. It runs older games perfectly well. Although depending on the game. You may have compatibility issues with some old games on such a new GPU.

Off the top of my head. KOTOR and The Sims 2 require modding to work on modern hardware.

I also still kept windows 7 on this pc, is it worth the upgrade to 10 or am I better off keeping windows 7 for older titles?

Makes sense on the older games having some issues with newer graphic cards, I hadn't thought about that. I kinda don't feel very comfortable purchasing a refurbished graphic card.

 

[velocityg4]

I also still kept windows 7 on this pc, is it worth the upgrade to 10 or am I better off keeping windows 7 for older titles?

Makes sense on the older games having some issues with newer graphic cards, I hadn't thought about that. I kinda don't feel very comfortable purchasing a refurbished graphic card.

Windows 7 will have greater compatibility on older titles. Although if it works in 7 it usually works in 10. You are more likely to find mods or instructions which fix compatibility issues designed for Windows 7. They may work in 10 or require minor tweaking.

Unless it is factory refurbished. It is not refurbished. Many sellers just clean up a GPU and test it. Then list it as refurbished. Since there is no legal criteria for refurbished. If it is more than a couple years old. Odds are it is not factory refurbished.

The real risk of a used GPU. You don't know how much it has been used, how strenuously, if it was overclocked, &c. Odds are if it works when you buy it and passes a torture test with Unigine Valley. It'll likely be fine.

Even if you were to buy a used card. If it is newer than the game you are playing there can always be compatibility issues. It really depends on the game.

The Sims 2 for instance has a list of compatible GPU. Anything newer won't be recognized. Forcing the game to use software acceleration and use minimum settings. A quick mod adds it to the list. Shadows had to be turned down as well. I think Sim City 4 and Sims 3 had a similar issue. Any older Maxis or EA game would be suspect to me. As I don't know if this is a general issue with EA or just the EA Maxis division.

KOTOR as I recall. Had issues with ATI cards that were X1000 series and newer. Some modding fixed it. Other than that. I have a big stack of old games which work without issue on newer hardware.

If they are really old games. They need a 32 bit OS and won't work on a 64 bit one. I have a DOS 6 VM just for that.

Also for old games. I keep around an Athlon 64 3000+ with a Radeon X800 Pro running XP. Just in case they won't work at all on newer hardware. I do have a few older GPU just in case (ATI Rage 128, GeForce 2 MX, Radeon X1600, GeForce 560 Ti). Although I haven't needed them.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

I also still kept windows 7 on this pc, is it worth the upgrade to 10 or am I better off keeping windows 7 for older titles?

Makes sense on the older games having some issues with newer graphic cards, I hadn't thought about that. I kinda don't feel very comfortable purchasing a refurbished graphic card.

Windows 7 will have greater compatibility on older titles. Although if it works in 7 it usually works in 10. You are more likely to find mods or instructions which fix compatibility issues designed for Windows 7. They may work in 10 or require minor tweaking.

Unless it is factory refurbished. It is not refurbished. Many sellers just clean up a GPU and test it. Then list it as refurbished. Since there is no legal criteria for refurbished. If it is more than a couple years old. Odds are it is not factory refurbished.

The real risk of a used GPU. You don't know how much it has been used, how strenuously, if it was overclocked, &c. Odds are if it works when you buy it and passes a torture test with Unigine Valley. It'll likely be fine.

Even if you were to buy a used card. If it is newer than the game you are playing there can always be compatibility issues. It really depends on the game.

The Sims 2 for instance has a list of compatible GPU. Anything newer won't be recognized. Forcing the game to use software acceleration and use minimum settings. A quick mod adds it to the list. Shadows had to be turned down as well. I think Sim City 4 and Sims 3 had a similar issue. Any older Maxis or EA game would be suspect to me. As I don't know if this is a general issue with EA or just the EA Maxis division.

KOTOR as I recall. Had issues with ATI cards that were X1000 series and newer. Some modding fixed it. Other than that. I have a big stack of old games which work without issue on newer hardware.

If they are really old games. They need a 32 bit OS and won't work on a 64 bit one. I have a DOS 6 VM just for that.

Also for old games. I keep around an Athlon 64 3000+ with a Radeon X800 Pro running XP. Just in case they won't work at all on newer hardware. I do have a few older GPU just in case (ATI Rage 128, GeForce 2 MX, Radeon X1600, GeForce 560 Ti). Although I haven't needed them.

Interesting, thanks for the information.

I don't think i'll play too many things pre 2006, only notable one would be Morrowind which works with this current system, although a little slower since it's modded and I downgraded the graphic card. May need to re do the mod set up

What would you do if you didn't have any of them spare parts lying around for them older systems and something quit working in them, just toss newer parts in there and hope they work with the older games?

 

[velocityg4]

Interesting, thanks for the information.

I don't think i'll play too many things pre 2006, only notable one would be Morrowind which works with this current system, although a little slower since it's modded and I downgraded the graphic card. May need to re do the mod set up

What would you do if you didn't have any of them spare parts lying around for them older systems and something quit working in them, just toss newer parts in there and hope they work with the older games?

Hope for the best. Look up solutions if it doesn't work. If the game's popular. Someone probably found a workaround.

 

[Chrispurvis32]

Interesting, thanks for the information.

I don't think i'll play too many things pre 2006, only notable one would be Morrowind which works with this current system, although a little slower since it's modded and I downgraded the graphic card. May need to re do the mod set up

What would you do if you didn't have any of them spare parts lying around for them older systems and something quit working in them, just toss newer parts in there and hope they work with the older games?

Hope for the best. Look up solutions if it doesn't work. If the game's popular. Someone probably found a workaround.

I decided to pop my 660 back in the other day and ran a few stress tests on it with no errors or crashes, the only games it has trouble on are Grand theft auto titles. Most of the other games I tested seemed to get respectable fps's.

As for the fan, it never turned on during the stress test after reaching 60 C. I stumbled on a thread on here with someone who had the same card as me and similar problem and they installed Msi afterburner to get the fan running, as I did the same and I can get it to work now.

Here's a few hours of use or so

https://gyazo.com/08b2a88b93b2e6a864bf5d31529e32aa