Video Card Fan Died...

[DubbaEwwTeeEff]

I was poking around in my case today, and I discovered that the fan on my nVidia GeForce 5900 no longer works. The result: when idling, I get around 93-94 degrees Celsius or higher. I think I got around 46 degrees back when the fan worked.

So here's my questions.

First of all: The driver sets a Core Slowdown Threshold of 140 degrees. Considering that, is it safe to run at a 93 degree idle temperature?

Second: If I need to replace it (and I think I will), what would you recommend I replace it with? I Googled around, but that was no help really; I couldn't seem to find any sites that sold the stock fans, and I would have no idea what to buy for a third-party one. I did see some Zalman heatsink solutions that looked interesting, especially because I think I've gotten used to the complete lack of noise from my video card... Anyone have any experience with those?

 

[mastersommelier]

All mechanical components fail..to dismiss one company outright for something that happens all of the time...and is predicatble...is not really logical. How long had the fan been running? If your temps are below the manufacturer's specs, warranty-wise you are safe.

Arctic Cooling has some fine, quiet cooling solutions. Check them out.

 

[Cheesetogo]

Is there still a warrnaty on it? If there is, they will replace the fan for you.

 

[John]

Fans die on a lot of different products so please keep that in mind before you 'boycott' a company.

Here's one solution

This may or may not fit

 

[DubbaEwwTeeEff]

I probably should've clarified my "never buy a gainward again" statement. This isn't the only problem I've had with Gainward. When I bought the card the first time, it died completely the same night I installed it - nothing but horizontal lines and random colors. The store I bought it from wasn't willing to do refunds, but did replace the card - that's the only reason I kept a Gainward in my system. I've also discovered that Gainward's website and tech support are terrible. And now, about 9 months after buying the card, the fan dies - I'm not sure how long those fans are expected to last, but I've never had a fan die that quickly before, so either I've been really lucky or Gainward did something wrong. Either way, I've had nothing but problems with them, and I'm not going to buy their products anymore.

Back to my question. How quiet are those Arctic Cooling fans? I'm liking that six year warranty, but I'm trying to keep my PC relatively quiet.

Actually, I was also toying with the idea of going completely solid-state for the replacement - maybe one of those huge Zalman heatsinks or something. Any recommendations or warnings there?

 

[cubby1223]

I've seen failed fans and/or insufficient heatsinks on a wide range of cards that needed replacements, from ATi, Sapphire, Jaton, MSI, Chaintech, to PowerCooler. Be lucky you got so much use out of the current fan. The MSI & PowerCooler cards I mentioned had insufficient heatsinks straight out of the box that needed to be replaced.

I wouldn't go for a fanless solution, especially not with an FX series card. The Arctic Silencers or Zalman VF700 will do so much better of a job than the fanless Zalman model.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Fans "die" real often Usually it is a lack of lubrication. A quick temporary fix is to find the side of the hub that obviously has a depression under the center of the label, Punch a hole, put a very small drop of light oil in the hole and stick something over the hole. This is sometimes a permanent fix, but will always keep you going until you can find a new fan. This can also sometimes fix a noisy fan. Luck, Jim

 

[wisdomtooth]

Originally posted by: DubbaEwwTeeEff
Back to my question. How quiet are those Arctic Cooling fans? I'm liking that six year warranty, but I'm trying to keep my PC relatively quiet.

Very quiet. I have an Arctic Cooling ATI Silencer on my 9800Pro and the thing is nearly inaudible next to my CPU fan and case exhaust fans.

The Arctic Silencer also ducts heat directly out of the case so the vid card does not add to the CPU and PSU's thermal burden.

With vid cards getting so hot these days, IMHO direct-exhaust vid card heatsinks are fast becoming a necessity.

HTH.