Loud GPU Fan

[Ilpav]

I have a ATI Radeon HD4670, and whenever I play a game with good graphics, the fan makes quite a loud noise. Every time I stop playing, it stays on until, presumably, it cools down enough (takes about a minute).

Recently, though, the fan started to come on for the smallest of things, like if I scroll up and down quickly, for example.

What could be causing this? Is the fan on it's last legs or something; because the only time It came on before was when I was playing a graphically-demanding game, but now it has to spin for small things like mentioned above, even for viewing my pictures in a slideshow, and sometimes even when viewing full-screen videos on the internet.

[syncview]

Maybe your heatsink is full of dust, try blowing it off with a small blower..

[Vette Boss]

I would recommend cleaning out the heatsinks, as well.

[Nabster]

My GPU fan started doing this randomly (at about midnight while I was trying to sleep) a year ago:

+ YouTube Video

Cleaned it out and added a dab of grease and it stopped. I upgraded anyway.

[Dogbert]

Has the fan RPM changed at all?

Is it making more noise than normal?

I would actually hazard a guess that it isn't your fan that's the problem. Try taking everything off and re-applying some thermal paste, for starters.

[epp_b]

Clean the dust out, lube the fan bearings.

Maybe your heatsink is full of dust, try blowing it off with a small blower..

Ha! Stick that, I use a tiny nozzle on a air compressor at 75 PSI. If that doesn't get the dust out, nothing will

[syncview]

Doing that way you might also lose the chipset and other 'necessary' things along with the dust and maybe the heatsink :p

[brydiem]

I just had my graphics card replaced along with my mainboard (today), it made quite a bit of noise before and ran very very hot. They cleaned it out a bit when they did it, and found huge clumps of lint (like you get out of your dryer) had clogged the fans. It's running a lot quieter now, but the noise on my right hand main fan I had before (grinding like yours) is still there, albeit more quietly as just stated. But yeah, cleaning it (if you can) is good.

In my defence, I can't clean my fans without voiding my warranty (laptop, have to pull the entire thing apart). That and one heatsink on a GPU like mine just isn't enough, especially when it is jammed in all around other junk that keeps the heat in. Bad designing much....

[epp_b]

Doing that way you might also lose the chipset and other 'necessary' things along with the dust and maybe the heatsink :p

Never had a problem with it, at least not on desktops.

[Hercules286]

Originally Posted by epp_b

Never had a problem with it, at least not on desktops.

Whoosh!

[Ilpav]

Originally Posted by Dogbert

Has the fan RPM changed at all?

Is it making more noise than normal?

I would actually hazard a guess that it isn't your fan that's the problem. Try taking everything off and re-applying some thermal paste, for starters.

How can I measure the RPM?

[Hercules286]

Originally Posted by Ilpav

How can I measure the RPM?

SpeedFan should give you a reading.

[Crazyjeeper]

Originally Posted by Ilpav

How can I measure the RPM?

RivaTuner will also give you GPU fan speed.

[syncview]

or you can use a timing light

[Paco]

I had a similar issue with an x1950xt a while back. I used atitool to adjust the temp at which the fan speeds up so that it doesn't run at 100% until the temp was high enough (about 10ºF above stock).

I don't think anybody has been maintaining atitool for a long while, so it may not work with your newer card, but you can probably find a better overclocking utility to adjust your fan/temp settings.

As was mentioned before, make sure there isn't any dust/hair/crap clogging up the heatsink/fan. If the bearing is going bad you can use sewing machine oil or other lubricant, but that is usually only a temporary solution and you'll have to reapply the lube after a while.

Or you could just get rid of that pesky fan alltogether...

[Dogbert]

Originally Posted by Ilpav

How can I measure the RPM?

SpeedFan will be useless if you don't know what it's normally supposed to be.

Fans don't just kick on by themselves. They kick on when the temp sensor they're linked with (in this case, the GPU) gets to a certain temperature... which means your GPU is getting hotter than normal for some reason. Since it still cools down for a little bit, but then gets hot again, I suspect the contact between the heat sink and the GPU, or the heat sink itself, to be the issue.

[Ilpav]

Well, I opened up my PC and took out the GPU to find out that one of the screws that hold the fan compartment to the main board has broken off, so there were two screws in one side, and none on the other. I only realized this when I turned on the PC and the monitor wasn't getting a signal. I then simply pushed onto the side where the screws were missing and then it got to work.

The thing is that I found only one of the screws that are missing (there are slots for 4), so there is one missing. For all 4 screws, there are supposed to be small metal rods coming out of the fan compartment that are used to screw the screws in after the main board is in place. One of the 3 rods has dislocated itself somehow from the fan compartment, and that's why the PC won't start properly; because both sides of the fan have to be secured. I just applied some super glue to the hole where the rod goes, and now I'm just waiting for it to set.

Also, I found a small tube of thermal grease from my old fan and applied it on the chip on the GPU's board; will that help reduce heat?

Another thing, does the GPU have it's own heatsink, or does it use the motherboard's? If the GPU's heatsink is that piece of plastic with bars on it beside the fan, then it looks fine. I just hope that thermal grease will help cool down the card, and one screw will be enough to hold the card down on one side.

[Ilpav]

Ok, I let the glue set for about an hour, but it still doesn't hold properly. I tugged at it without the screw and it felt secure, but once I put the screw in, out it came (probably because the screws have springs on them that have to be secured to something that is very tightly bonded.

I also realized that if the glue was strong enough, it would have probably melted once the card has gone hot.

Is there some special thermal glue that is heat resistant? Or should I go to my local computer store and maybe they can weld the little rod to the fan compartment?

[swraman]

You dont usually use glue in a computer b/c of the fact that it not only melts, but when it gets hot (and cools down) many times over and over its shape warps considerably (talking about plastics, and polymer based glues). I would imagine that you shouldnt run into ths problem unless the metal part of the heatsink is touching the gpu though.

The GPU's heatsink usually isnt removable, it is attached to teh GPU and doesnt move. It isnt made of plastic though, thats for sure. It would melt.

Thermal grease is a heat transfer meduim, it is only used between a heatsink and a chip. Teh heatsink and processor are not perfectly smooth, and thermal grease fills the tiny gaps between a heatsink and a processor so heat can transfer from teh proc. to the heatsink.

Do you have a pic of your GPU? or what model is it? Thatd make it wasier to say what the heatsink is and whats wrong; but from what it sounds like the initial responses that it was dust buildup seem right.

EDIT:
stupid me, you said it in the first post.
lookin at tis pic: http://www.productwiki.com/upload/im...70-400-400.jpg

the entire red thing with the fan engulfed in it is the heatsink. It has a plastic shell to hold it in place, but the heatsink is the metal inside the plastic case.
Try sticking the compressed air nozzle inside the fan's circle, pointing towards the front (the end with teh DVI cable on it) of the card, trying to spray into the metal slats in the heatsink. move it around a bit and try to clean out all the "fins" in the heatsink.

[Ilpav]

That's not exactly like mine, it's a Sapphire, so it looks like this:



So the heatsink is inside that blue/red fan casing?

Anyway, my main problem is that one of the little metal rods that the screws go into (that secure the fan casing to the main board) that should be welded to the fan casing (the rods are welded to the metal plate underneath the fan) somehow broke off.

As a result of this, the monitor doesn't get a signal when I turn the PC on, because the fan isn't properly secured to the main GPU board. I tested this by simply pushing onto the side that's missing the screws and then the PC starts normally.

All I have to do is secure the screw one that side.

As I said before, glue didn't work, and it won't be a good idea because of the reasons above, so the only way to fix my problem is to weld that little rod back onto the metal plate.

Either that, or I can just get a new GPU and all my problems will go away.