Glamorous question - are ATI fans as loud as I think?

[bravo261]

hey buds,

i got this Radeon card locally today to toss in a little brother's box, and the fan on that card just wails like no tomorrow. I fell out of computer interest and switched to cars, so the newest card I have is a rage 128 all-in-wonder, so passive cooling is all i know. impress yet?

between some sort of older thermaltake volcano HSF and a cheaper two-fan power supply, the card's fan is very very loud and high-pitched. of all the computers i used to build with misc fans here and there, i never met one so loud and obnoxious. its not a whir but a "weeeee" sound.

the guy i got it from never noticed the "problem" and allows me a refund, so i just wanna be sure its the card and not a standard sound.

i'm receiving a 8500 AiW soon, but would rather not wait until then to compare noises, so please excuse this simple question

 

[Elcs]

Well... the fan on my Sapphire 9800 Pro is pretty quiet. Much quieter than my Dual Fanned Leadtek GeForce4 Ti4400.

Unsure whether it contributes much to the noise of my pc as a whole..... but Im not complaining.

 

[IBdaMac]

a video card fan is not supposed to be so loud that it's all you can hear. If that's happening, then you might want to take that card out for a cleaning. I've noticed that after I clean my stuff, it makes less noise.

If that doesn't help....get rid of the card before the fan actually stops and blows up.

 

[Todd33]

I think they are, always posting in caps and stuff. Oh wait...

My Ti4400 fan is the noisest fan in my case (I think), it is even a replacement, the original was as noisy or noisier. You can't really get quiet at 50mm @ 5500 RPM.

 

[bravo261]

thanks for the three helpful replies. I put a bit of can-o-air to it and that didn't polish off the noise. I'm trying to convince myself that the noise is inherent is this fan, cause i don't want to keep searching for a $25 video card. but the sound is killing me!

 

[Pudgygiant]

If you're worried about noise, just stick a nice passive cooler on it and get a slot cooler. Not silent, but it turned out to be quite a bit quieter than my ti4600's stock fan.

Sometimes, though, it's not the db that's annoying, it's the whine it makes. The fan on my ti500 was pretty quiet, but it was so high-pitched I ended up switching it out with a blue orb. And yes, I tried oiling it.

 

[bravo261]

the passive cooling idea would've worked once upon a time for me, but then i'd have to find a small heatsink and another slot fan, and then i'm down almost half the cost of the card...and my current slot fan just died to boot.

i appreciate your suggestion, but i'm really looking for confirmation as to whether you guys would believe my fan is loud compared to my other fans, or s small high-rpm fan really that noisy and high-pitched?

 

[Pete]

Older fans may get louder as they deteriorate. You might try a drop of oil, but the eventual solution may just be a new fan or heatsink.

What kind of Radeon is it? Maybe you can call the company and ask them to mail you a replacement fan.

 

[BFG10K]

It shouldn't be wailing like that; it should be silent. I'd just RMA it.

 

[bravo261]

pete, thanks for that link...never actually read a how-to article on just oiling the things

i'd would do an RMA, but i got it used locally so its purely my problem.

 

[PCTweaker5]

ATI *fans* are too loud if you know what I mean.

 

[Viper96720]

If it sounds high pitched and whiny something isn't right with the fan. They shouldn't sound like that.

 

[screw3d]

Try stopping the fans for a few secs with your finger and hear the difference.

 

[bravo261]

Originally posted by: PCTweaker5
ATI *fans* are too loud if you know what I mean.

ok...if you say so



viper, your answer is more or less what i'm looking for. i have stopped the fan and it shoots up to that sound once it quickly hits full rpm. i'm going to assume it shouldn't be this loud, but would hate to give it back to the kid i got it from, so i'll wait until the 8500 arrives and compare it then. thanks for the replies, everyone

 

[PCTweaker5]

Lol, yeah if I say so.

 

[Viper96720]

I got a BBA 8500 64MB version and the fan isn't loud.

 

[Flyermax2k3]

I can't even hear the fan on my BBA Radeon 9600 AIW Pro. Then again, it's kind of hard to hear much of anything over my 5 case fans & TT Volcano 7+ w/6800 RPM Delta fan

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I have a asus 9800 pro and the noise isn't bad I have 10 fans including the 2 fans on the video card all that comes out of my case is a pleasant hum and the noise from my raptor seeking >.<

 

[bravo261]

any last comments?

thanks to those who have offered something already

 

[oldfart]

Noise is relative. If you have a noisy system, you wont notice the sound of the GPU fan. If you have a quiet system, you will. The stock 9800P HS/F was too loud for my tastes although I've heard much worse. I replaced it with an Arctic Cooling Silencer. Your description sounds like something is wrong though.

 

[Kung Lau]

I just got a Dell 8300 system with the ATI 9800 pro card in it this week. The fan is VERY loud, but does not sound like it's defective. In fact, it doesn't increase in speed and loudness until I run a 3-d based game. Then it's louder than my SLK heatsink and 80mm fan I had on my Barton.

I noticed that this fan and heatsink has a closed loop design while other 9800 pro's have an open heatsink and visible fan. Are the newer 9800 pro's shipping like this?

I may have to get a quieter solution. There has to be one.

 

[bravo261]

noise is relative and that goes without saying, but i've concluded that something is wrong. i received my 8500 today and that fan makes nearly no noise at all, or at least its drowned out by the other things in there. hopefully this thing will go back where it came from. thanks