Hoping for ASUS to release a "fixed" (ie: quieter fans) BIOS is probably hoping in vain. I borrowed an ASUS HD 3xxx X2 series card from a friend to try out in my PC, it also has two fans (inside an aluminium shroud), and they make a TERRIBLE racket. It's hairdryers two times over. :s
ASUS supposedly offers software to overclock and regulate fanspeed, but this software needs a very careful installation procedure to make it work:
* First graphics driver, followed by a reboot.
* Then an ASUS proprietary videocapture utility, and another reboot.
* Last, the proprietary GPU tweaker, along with - you guessed it - a third reboot.
This by the way, after the third reboot, is when you discover that the ASUS utilities
don't work with standard ATi Catalyst drivers! And the newest ASUS-certified driver is some six months old... So you're stuck with fans that screech like hairdryers unless you're willing to gimp yourself by first uninstalling everything you just installed (except the uninstallers for the ASUS utilities failed to work for me, only giving cryptic error messages), then download an ancient driver version and go through the whole rebooting circus all over again and hope things work out better this time (and that your games work with this pre-historic driver...)
So that is why you don't buy ASUS video cards with proprietary crappy buggy (ugly-looking) software.
The whole design of the cooler on this card is a total mutant by the way, the fans have blades designed to blow downwards, but there's an awful lot of fins right below, plus the PCB itself creating huge backpressure and turbulence. This causes the fan to revv up and just sit there and slosh air around much like a blender, rather than actually"fanning" it... Obviously a poorly thought-out and implemented design, only intended to act as eye candy to pull in and ensnare geeky types. ...Probably with its siren-like wailing fans.
The radial fan of the original cooler is a much better and more efficient concept in comparison, it could have used a bigger diameter blower though.