LOUD Leadtek 6800GT fan

[asearchforreason]

Hey all,

I just put in my 6800GT from Leadtek and everything was going fine at first. After a while though, there was a terrible noise coming from the case which turned out to be the 6800GT fan. I thought it might be the chipset fan since the MSI boards have had some problems with that, but I'm pretty certain it's the video card. Only after letting it cool off a while did the fan go back to its initial silent operation, but when it heats up again the RPM must go up and the fan gets loud. And when it gets loud, it gets really loud. It drowns out the noise from all 5 other fans in my case.

I did search the forums and only found one post from a while ago with the same problems so it looks like it's not happening with most cards. Anyone else have this problem and fix it? I'm trying to decide whether I should:
1) Try to fix it myself if anyone has any ideas
2) RMA it to Newegg and wait another couple weeks to use my comp
3) Buy an aftermarket HSF for the card (suggestions?)

Let me know your experiences and opinions on this. Thanks.

 

[fstime]

1) Try to fix it myself if anyone has any ideas

Not a smart move, you may void your warrenty by taking the heatsink apart, or screw somthing up.

2) RMA it to Newegg and wait another couple weeks to use my comp

The best thing you can do, if your fan isn't working properly, that's bad news if it fails and you overheat it.

RMA it and get a new working card.

3) Buy an aftermarket HSF for the card (suggestions?)

You will be once again voiding your warrenty, risk damaging the card, and paying extra for the heatsink.

 

[asearchforreason]

I installed some drivers for the card and now while in Windows, it runs great and only makes minimal noise. Whenever I restart the computer though it makes noise while booting up the system until it gets to Windows and quiets down again. This sounds like the problem others were having with this card:

The only time I can hear my Leadtek GF 6800GT is during boot-up. Its bloody noisy at that point, heard over everything else. However, once windows boots, I can't hear it anymore.

Perhaps the card BIOS is sending the fan RPM up to astronomical levels; I may try to update it. Suggestions welcome.