Question GPU fan has gone bonkers

[philosofool]

I can barley sit in here it's so hard for me to work around a noisy graphics card. This morning the computer would not wake form sleep. I rebooted. Now the GPU fan jumps from silent to 100% at 50 degrees C. This is pretty close to it's idle temp and it is constantly spinning up like a dust buster and then stopping after about 3 seconds. I am going crazy. MSI afterburner and speedfan are unable to prevent this. Please help. I am unable to think or work with this happening.

Edit: the fan sounds normal--it's not whinning. But it's running about 3500 rpm, which is max, for no apparent reason.

 

[Guru]

What GPU do you have first of all and second we'll need more info on your hardware in general, as well as how old your gpu is, when this started happening, etcf...

 

[mindless1]

Yeah, what has changed versus previously when it was not doing this? If nothing, then it is probably fan bearing wear (I assume you have taken a look and cleaned dust out if needed, lol) and if it is a sleeve bearing with a removable lube bung, you may be able to extend its life with a drop of oil while you hunt down a replacement fan or warranty replace it if applicable.

I tend to find a use for video cards (even if not in my most adept gaming rig) for longer than their stock fans typically last, so that is one thing I consider when purchasing one, whether the stock heatsink would lend itself to strapping or screwing (etc) a standard fan on, even if it means I have to solder on the connector pigtail from the old fan because most fans don't come with a compatible connector, and often it means the new fan blocks an adjacent mobo card slot because it's taller but that's partially my fault because I want a thicker fan when possible, as they tend to last longer than the 15mm or thinner varieties, and move more air at lower RPM so quieter too.

 

[philosofool]

It's all in the sig file.

What GPU do you have first of all and second we'll need more info on your hardware in general, as well as how old your gpu is, when this started happening, etcf...

It's all in the signature. I should have pointed that out. Sorry.

 

[Guru]

I mean just do the basic stuff, clean dust off your GPU, get a can of compressed air and just thoroughly dust it off. I'd take the GPU off of the pci-e and off the wires when doing the dusting, to make sure you aren't spreading the dust around other components and avoid any electrical issues. I'd also reset the CMOS, since you said it wasn't waking up from sleep before the issue, so clear the CMOS while you are at it.

If you installed new drivers in the meantime maybe revert back to older drivers, make sure you haven't accidentally turned off 100% fan in the arenalin settings menu, etc...

Few cards did do that when starting your computer, spin up to 100% really fast for about 3-4 seconds and then idle, its a dust cleanup thing, very few cards do that though.

 

[philosofool]

Jeez...

Complete removal of drivers with DDI and reinstall seems to have fixed it. Why are AMD drivers never smooth? Do I have to pay Nvidia the green $50 price premium just to get rid of these problems. (I have always been happy with my AMD performance and in-game behavior, but I swear I have these Quality of Life issues that require a complete software reinstall about once every three months. In addition to requiring about an hour of my time, I have to reset settings for some games because they are old and require a little manual tuning.) Also, I have literally never had a totally smooth driver installation experience. There's always some weird thing that happens.

 

[Guru]

Don't update each time there is a new driver, if your drivers work then no need to update each time. Per game optimizations are small and specific, its not until 6-7 month of accumulation of optimizations that you get a decent overall increase in performance over more games.

Again unless there is serious security fixes or major new features, don't update all the time, disable auto windows updates of drivers as well. I have Nvidia, and I haven't had too many driver issues, but I also don't update all the time, when I was doing that I had much more issues as a lot of drivers required additional quick fixes.

So I only update once every 3-4 month if there are major changes in features or security. I also follow nvidia reddit forum and see what people are saying about new drivers, wait for performance testing and if I like what I see I end up updating several days later.