Question about Sapphire HD 7850/70 fans

Onox

Member
Nov 24, 2012
29
0
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Hi,

I have two questions, one specific to my graphics card, and a general one :

1. I noticed that my Sapphire HD 7870 makes the same noise as the one in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjNXyq4wszE (at 0:13 and 1:15), when the fans start spinning after exiting monitor power saving mode. Someone in the comments wrote his card does not do this, and the one who posted the video said that he later got a replacement, which also would not make the noise. However, someone else said that this is caused by the fans briefly spinning in the opposite direction in order to remove dust, if I understand correctly. This behaviour would therefore be normal. Can anyone confirm this ?? (I am not even sure my card has made this noise since the beginning, or if it started at some point later)

2. Is it bad to frequently alt-tab/press the Windows key to return to Windows desktop while gaming ? I like to do this sometimes to check things on the web, but I thought it might be detrimental for graphics card because temperature would go down and up again everytime you do this, although my card never seems to get very hot. I think the max I have ever seen was 65 °C while playing during summer. Could this reduce the lifetime of the graphics card ?

Thank you
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
2,559
136
The fans do not spin backwards in that video. You can see that thanks to the text written on them. I would be willing to bet the fan blades are actually hitting something on the heat sink or the plastic casing. Once they speed up the force of the fan pushing against air lifts it up and prevents it from touching anymore. I bet if you pressed a bit on center of the fan it would start rubbing.

I alt-tab out of games all the time. Be it BF4 or KSP. Temps drop a little on the card, but I do not seeing it be an issue. The temp extremes are not large enough to cause issues.
 
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