980 STRIX temperature / fan "waves"

[darkfalz]

Anyone else get a "wave" on their GPU temperature / fan speed? Mine goes up and down in a completely steady cadence on idle (from about 51 degrees to 63 degrees) and fan matches the up down pattern (24% to 34%). It does this over and over about once a minute between "waves". The weird thing is the curves match exactly, which makes no sense (ie. in the middle on say 28% on the way up, GPU temperature goes up, and on the way down, GPU temperature goes down - but at 28% fan it should either cool or not cool).

This thing is meant to have a 0% fan at idle but really the only time this happens is when the screen is off.

 

[bystander36]

The problem is it will hit higher temps, ramp of the fan and cool it enough that it drops to the lower fan speed.

If you want to change the fan profile, get MSI Afterburner, and create a new one, that has more steps.

 

[96Firebird]

Doesn't the STRIX card allow for the fans to be completely off when the card is below 65°C? That is probably what you are noticing. You can change the fan curve like bystander36 said, if you don't like that.

 

[SirCanealot]

Doesn't the 9xx series GPUs also have something that stops the fans from changing speeds too quickly? So perhaps it's something to do with that too? :/

 

[darkfalz]

The problem is it will hit higher temps, ramp of the fan and cool it enough that it drops to the lower fan speed.

If you want to change the fan profile, get MSI Afterburner, and create a new one, that has more steps.

It's not doing this though, it's perfectly in line rising and falling - and temperature DROPS as fan speed DROPS, which cannot be thermally controlled.

 

[darkfalz]

Found out this is due to the clocks not dropping to 2D mode due to 144 Hz refresh rate. Going to try desktop at 120 Hz instead.

 

[Cerb]

With a light load, I've had that same behavior on my MSI. Since the fans start at a higher temp than they stop, the GPU has time to warm up after they stop, to start the cycle all over again. With any amount of forced air flow, the cooling would likely be sufficient. So once it starts moving heat away, the temps just keep dropping. Then it stops, and case air flow is just barely not enough for the job (the dense heatsink and its shroud are blocking much of that air).

 

[Magic Carpet]

This whole propaganda with the fans off has been a joke, imo. Absolutely no point to have your card idling in the 50-60c. The Asus DirectCU fans have been quiet for the last couple of years anyway. Constant on/off cycles is actually worse for them. Wondering, how many people took this bait to upgrade, exclusively for this feature.

I'd just remove the top fan bracket (along with the fans) and put on a couple of Noctua 120mm fans instead. That way, you have both silence and efficiency. I've done it before and this way is far superior to the stock 75-95mm fans vendors put out to use. Of course, if you can't do that, then you have to deal with "the way it was meant to be designed". Feel lucky, if you don't have coil whine. No idea how TPU gave this card a perfect 10.0 score.

 

[Cerb]

My MSI Gaming GTX 970 idles <35C, and plays old games without ever turning the fan on. If you have such high idle, your case needs replacing. Both companies, however, need to make idle clocks work for multiple monitors and high refresh rates, since those things commonly prevent the GPU from ever actually idling.

 

[Magic Carpet]

My MSI Gaming GTX 970 idles <35C, and plays old games without ever turning the fan on. If you have such high idle, your case needs replacing.

It's not with a blank desktop, obviously. I just prefer to have constantly running fans at lower speed, than having something to speed up and down all the time. It's going to do that if you are using it for modern games.

I have a separate box for older games that run off iGPU, much better power efficiency. No reliability compromises for me.

Both companies, however, need to make idle clocks work for multiple monitors and high refresh rates, since those things commonly prevent the GPU from ever actually idling.

I agree. Albeit, that can be manually fixed.

 

[Cerb]

It's not with a blank desktop, obviously. I just prefer to have constantly running fans at lower speed, than having something to speed up and down all the time. It's going to do that if you are using it for modern games.

For modern games, it stays running, generally. It's only the few "modern" games that were also on the Wii that seem to do the up then down thing. The others are older, with sufficiently light games not making the fans come on at all. With headphones on, I don't even notice it, just see it if I check Afterburner. If the fan control also utilized a rolling window of power consumption measurements, however, a more stable configuration could be achieved, since it could could stay above an "off" theshold, even at low enough temps..

If they made video cards with slow and quiet fans at idle, I'd be fine with them on all the time (and have replaced video card coolers in the past, and may yet do so when these fans get noisier from bearing wear), but I would guess that would be too expensive.

 

[dacostafilipe]

I have the same "fan waves" on my new 970 GTX when idle (desktop).

My 290X makes less noise when idle.

Will try to return the 970.

 

[Spanners]

Some kind of hysteresis?