How to adjust VGA fan speed?

Rasbelin · Post by **Rasbelin** » Mon Dec 26, 2005 12:12 pm

I know this may sound like the worst newbie question ever, but I simply can't come up with the solution for the following problem. Right now my PC is pretty silent, except for the Arctic Cooling nVidia Silencer 5 which is cooling my GeForce 6800 GT accelerator. My issue is that I want to lower the voltage for the fan of the Silencer to decrease its fan speed (thus its noise level), but still maintaining sufficient cooling.

How can I best go about adjusting the voltage of the fan plug of the GeForce? I can't find easily any software solution, but there might be one? What about fan voltage regulators? Also what is the easiest way to measure the core temp of the GPU/VPU?

Thanks a lot for helping!

maverickvns · Post by **maverickvns** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 2:24 am

have you tried using a zalman fanmate?

Locklear · Post by **Locklear** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:30 am

rivatuner can do that with my 7800GT.
Don't know if the same applies to the 6800GT.

Got 3 settings. 2d, low power 3d, and 3d, and you can define a fanspeed for each of them down to 25% of max rpm.

Locklear · Post by **Locklear** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:31 am

Fat_bloater_dave · Post by **Fat_bloater_dave** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:37 am

rivatuner Defenetly its a verry clever program, you can change the fan speed with that.

jermaink · Post by **jermaink** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 3:55 am

Fat_bloater_dave wrote:rivatuner Defenetly its a verry clever program, you can change the fan speed with that.

I find it to be inferior compared to ATI Tray Tools. There's no ability to ramp fan speed according to temperature. ATI Tray Tools had the ability for you to peg like 10 fan speeds to certain temperatures. Ensured silent running at idle, but allowed for faster fan speeds when temperatures got higher (when you'd probably be gaming and noise would be less of a concern).

I'm still looking for another nVidia graphics card tweaker for my 7800GT. If my AC Silencer NV5.3 was as loud as my ATI5.2 one, I'd be a bit annoyed. But this one seems quieter.

Fat_bloater_dave · Post by **Fat_bloater_dave** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 4:10 am

jermaink wrote:
Fat_bloater_dave wrote:I find it to be inferior compared to ATI Tray Tools. There's no ability to ramp fan speed according to temperature.

Basicly your wrong, you can. Im doing it at the moment. Mine VGA fan runs at 25% untill it gets to 70C then goes to 100% untill it goes below 60C then ramps back down to 25%.

Locklear · Post by **Locklear** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 4:12 am

last i checked ati tray tools was ati cards only? has that changed recently ?

brickout1 · Post by **brickout1** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 11:58 am

The latest version supports most nVidia cards now.

jermaink · Post by **jermaink** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 8:00 pm

Fat_bloater_dave wrote:
jermaink wrote:
Fat_bloater_dave wrote:I find it to be inferior compared to ATI Tray Tools. There's no ability to ramp fan speed according to temperature.
Basicly your wrong, you can. Im doing it at the moment. Mine VGA fan runs at 25% untill it gets to 70C then goes to 100% untill it goes below 60C then ramps back down to 25%.

2 options. Wow...

I had like 12 or so with ATI Tray Tools, which made the ramping much more efficient and gradual.

And unfortunately ATI Tray Tools is only for ATI cards (I think). I recently went from an X800XL to a 7800GT.

Tzeb · Post by **Tzeb** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 12:53 am

jermaink, please read this - http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=163220
Direct link to guide
It doesn't take more than 3-4 minutes to set up like 10 thresholds or more. You just have to read the faq or browse a few minutes the official forum of the program if you are new to it.
I recently got a x800gto after a long nvidia period, so Rivatuner has little secrets unknown to me

I don't even use atitool to control the fan speed because of the awful PWM clicks Ati silencer 5 rev. 2 makes, so i have it connected to the analog fan controller.
Off topic : Very disappointed with the silencer fan. I don't know how they test them but they CLICK like mad. PWM is disaster at anything but 0 and 100%. It clicks a bit less when connected to the Akasa fan control pro but still..... Clicks go away at about 5V when the fan just barely moves and idle gpu temp is 48-50C. Certainly this product is not a "silencer"

DubbaEwwTeeEff · Post by **DubbaEwwTeeEff** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:42 pm

maverickvns wrote:have you tried using a zalman fanmate?

How? Wouldn't you need adapters or a wire mod? (I looked for adapters online and could only find one of the two you'd need... and the wire mod I don't really want to do, in case I have to sell the card to someone later.

I don't suppose anyone knows of a solution similar to a fanmate but designed for video card fan plugs instead?

Also: I bought a Gigabyte GV-NX78T256D-ZK, which is a GeForce 7800 GT, and yet the previously mentioned RivaTuner hack has no effect on my fan's speeds. Supposedly some cards have this problem because of their particular BIOS... anyone know of a different one I could flash onto it? (Is it safe to flash a generic one, or one from a different manufacturer?)

iatacs19 · Post by **iatacs19** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:57 pm

you can also edit this in the BIOS with nbitor.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 12:13 am

To the original poster Rasbelin:

Your 6800GT fan can be controlled by RivaTuner, no doubt about that. I'm doing it with my eVGA model coupled with the NV Silencer 5rev3.

Just something for you guys to note about RivaTuner's fan rate controlling abilities: it is a driver-level controller rather than a response to temperature. Because of this, one can define fan behavior with RivaTuner (using one of the handy guides posted above) to mimick the effect of fan speed adjustment according to temperature.

But if you want fast, easy, yet effective, just use the tab for fan control and do as mentioned above: choose a setting for 2d, low level 3d, and regular 3d. I have fan speed set to 25% for all three of them and this greatly reduces the Silencer's noise. Of course, one has to abide by the rule of having a case with great airflow, else you may get undesirable results.

At these low fan settings I have had no problem. I've played FEAR for 2hrs+ without issue (man what a truly impressive game). My temp gets up to 66-67°. Not bad in my opinion, especially when you consider that I got 80-84° under load with the stock cooler. GPUs are made to be more tolerant of such high temps (as if you guys didn't already know this).

jermaink · Post by **jermaink** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 4:54 pm

Tzeb wrote:jermaink, please read this -
Off topic : Very disappointed with the silencer fan. I don't know how they test them but they CLICK like mad. PWM is disaster at anything but 0 and 100%... Certainly this product is not a "silencer"

I've found the NV 5.3 to be a lot better in this regard. I haven't had any clicking yet, and it's 100% speed also seems a fair bit quieter than my ATI 5.2's fan which was audible from 50+%.

It did click for me as well, but that noise was fairly hard to hear when I shut my case (P180).

I'm want to know if the buzzing I'm hearing from my Seasonic S12 600W is happening only because I'm currently running 2x Prime 95 at 2.5 ghz. (haven't done a 'noise audit' yet).