I've just bought a 2600XT AGP and whilst the idle fan noise isn't too bad at 16%, as soon as I play a video and the temp goes over 51c (idle 49c), it jumps up to 25% and then keep changing, which is very annoying.
I think I've understood the fan profile settings in RBE, setting tMin 55c, tMax 80c and Duty Cycle to 15% but I'm lost when it comes to the Hysteresis, Spin up and PWM settings, so I'd appreciate some advice on what they should be set to.
Also, what's the safest way to flash the BIOS once I'm done? I'm a bit nervous, 'cos I went to the Acquire/Flash page and showed it where Winflash was and then it said Acquiring and completely locked up my PC!
Adjusting fan settings with RBE
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Hysteresis - the actual definition is some kind of "lag in effect". What it means in this instance is that when your card determines that the fan speed needs to be changed, it will ramp it up/down gradually, instead of instantaneously. This helps a lot when you are at a threshold temperature and the fan constantly spins up and down. With hysteresis, it will gradually change the fan speed and hopefully not be as annoying.
PWM - It's been a while since I've used it, but I believe there are settings like "high" and "low". This determines at what frequency the pulse width modulation is sent to the fan. All else being equal, the higher the modulation, the smoother the fan action (kind of analagous to the difference between an inline-2 engine and a V8 at idle. The V8, usually, idles much smoother).
Not sure about spinup setting. I did a quick search and it seems to be a fix for a certain fan bug on Radeon 4-series cards.
So in short, it's nice to set Hysteresis on something other than 0, as this will let the fan speed change gradually and not abruptly. I believe on my old Geforce 8800GTS 512, I had the Hysteresis set at around 2 seconds. May have been longer, however...
PWM should be set on high.
Also, I would highly advise against flashing your BIOS while in Windows. I tried doing it a few months ago and it corrupted my Video BIOS. Video card wouldn't allow the computer to POST, and I had to get a replacement card. TechPowerUp has an excellent article detailing how to flash your BIOS. The easiest way I found to do it is to use a bootable floppy, but if you don't have a floppy then they give instructions on how to use an HP utility to make a bootable USB disk. I would highly recommend giving the article a read.
And if you have any questions, it's always best to ask before doing. BIOS flashing is not very forgiving...
PWM - It's been a while since I've used it, but I believe there are settings like "high" and "low". This determines at what frequency the pulse width modulation is sent to the fan. All else being equal, the higher the modulation, the smoother the fan action (kind of analagous to the difference between an inline-2 engine and a V8 at idle. The V8, usually, idles much smoother).
Not sure about spinup setting. I did a quick search and it seems to be a fix for a certain fan bug on Radeon 4-series cards.
So in short, it's nice to set Hysteresis on something other than 0, as this will let the fan speed change gradually and not abruptly. I believe on my old Geforce 8800GTS 512, I had the Hysteresis set at around 2 seconds. May have been longer, however...
PWM should be set on high.
Also, I would highly advise against flashing your BIOS while in Windows. I tried doing it a few months ago and it corrupted my Video BIOS. Video card wouldn't allow the computer to POST, and I had to get a replacement card. TechPowerUp has an excellent article detailing how to flash your BIOS. The easiest way I found to do it is to use a bootable floppy, but if you don't have a floppy then they give instructions on how to use an HP utility to make a bootable USB disk. I would highly recommend giving the article a read.
And if you have any questions, it's always best to ask before doing. BIOS flashing is not very forgiving...
Thanks for the explanations and the link to the BIOS flashing tutorial. I'll definitely do it in DOS rather than Windows.
The PWM ramp settings are on/off and ramp%, while the spinup settings are Spin up Cycle% and Spin up time (internal time units). I don't know if those mean anything to you? Maybe I should just use the Set Recommend Values button for those
The PWM ramp settings are on/off and ramp%, while the spinup settings are Spin up Cycle% and Spin up time (internal time units). I don't know if those mean anything to you? Maybe I should just use the Set Recommend Values button for those
Well I was about to flash it in DOS but when I checked the adapters with ATIFlash, it showed the following:
adapter bn dn dID,,,,, asic,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, flash,,,,,,,,,,, romsize,, test,,, bios p/n
===== == == ====, ========= ========= ====== ==== ============
0,,,,,,,,,, 01, 00, 9586,, Rialto,,,,,,,,,,, M25P05/C,, 10000,,,, pass,, 113-3E4402-032
1,,,,,,,,,, 01, 00, 9586,, RV630/M76,, PM25LV512 10000,,,, pass,, 113-3E4402-032
Now I expected to see two adapters as it's a dual-head card, but I'm a bit worried that they show different details.
adapter bn dn dID,,,,, asic,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, flash,,,,,,,,,,, romsize,, test,,, bios p/n
===== == == ====, ========= ========= ====== ==== ============
0,,,,,,,,,, 01, 00, 9586,, Rialto,,,,,,,,,,, M25P05/C,, 10000,,,, pass,, 113-3E4402-032
1,,,,,,,,,, 01, 00, 9586,, RV630/M76,, PM25LV512 10000,,,, pass,, 113-3E4402-032
Now I expected to see two adapters as it's a dual-head card, but I'm a bit worried that they show different details.