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Grinding Noise from Powercolor 5870 Fan (out of Warranty)

dms

dms

dms

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17 Oct 2004
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151
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Ok so on cold boot or when the fan speeds up I get a massive grinding noise from my Powercolor 5870. I've looked it up and it seems a very common issue which people tend to put up with (there is at least 1 youtube video of someone just hitting his case hard to make the noise to away).

Sometimes speeding up the fan and slowly stepping it down fixes it, but if the fan speeds up again the grinding returns.

Unfortunately it's driving me mad, has anyone got any idea what I can do about it or where to get a new fan? I'm after a nice simple solution as I'm not up to taking the card completely apart...

I'm absolutely loathed to get a new card because the 5870 is a great card which runs everything I play (and the BF3 beta) absolutely fine.

The other threads I found on this here just RMA'd the card but it's too late for me.

Although this started with 1 week of the 2 year warranty left, but Powercolor have simply ignored all my e-mails, maybe I should have gone to Overclockers but the warranty is up now.
 
I'd still try getting it to RMA as a goodwill. Eg if you bought a car and it died the day after the warranty ran out, you'd probably be able to get it fixed in goodwill.
 
Well I've put a webnote to Overclockers today, I would have had the highground if I'd done it the same time I contacted Powercolor, I won't make that mistake again (buying Powercolor that is).
 
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If you can't get it covered by warranty then you could try to oil it. If it's a traditional fan it should be fairly easy, if it's a blower fan(probably is) then it might be more difficult. Should be guides available for both.

After that you could look at getting a replacement cooler....
 
Owenb said:
After that you could look at getting a replacement cooler....
Click to expand...

Sure, but any idea where I can get a like-for-like replacement? I haven't been able to find one and I don't fancy swapping the entire enclosure, although I gather I'll have to remove the entire thing to get at the fan.. sighs!
 
I had the same problem and I ended up replacing the cooler with a Zalman VF3000-A, which you can get for around £30.

Dramatically improves temps, the only slightly annoying thing is the large fan controller you have to find a place for, but even at highest settings it is much quieter than the stock blower.

The installation can be a bit of a biznitch - you have to make sure the ram chips are clean before applying the new thermal pads and the bracket on the back of the GPU is a tight fit, but it's worth it if you're thinking of keeping the card for another 6 months or more.
 
Bobisuruncle54 said:
I had the same problem and I ended up replacing the cooler with a Zalman VF3000-A, which you can get for around £30.

Dramatically improves temps, the only slightly annoying thing is the large fan controller you have to find a place for, but even at highest settings it is much quieter than the stock blower.

The installation can be a bit of a biznitch - you have to make sure the ram chips are clean before applying the new thermal pads and the bracket on the back of the GPU is a tight fit, but it's worth it if you're thinking of keeping the card for another 6 months or more.
Click to expand...

I was looking at what Overclockers have and this one is out of stock. It looks ugly as hell, but if it does the job. I'm also not that confident in disassembling my gfx card (bit odd given I build all my own machines and others for friends/clients).

The one they have in stock I noticed someone else here fitted (Thermalright Shaman Graphics Card Cooler ), and that is just far too large for my liking!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18259344

Unfortunately the ATI 6970 just doesn't tempt me, when it's faster than the 5870 it's 10% faster and often it's the same or even slower than the 5870! So yes I'm hoping to keep it 6 months or a year.
 
dms said:
I was looking at what Overclockers have and this one is out of stock. It looks ugly as hell, but if it does the job. I'm also not that confident in disassembling my gfx card (bit odd given I build all my own machines and others for friends/clients).

The one they have in stock I noticed someone else here fitted (Thermalright Shaman Graphics Card Cooler ), and that is just far too large for my liking!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18259344

Unfortunately the ATI 6970 just doesn't tempt me, when it's faster than the 5870 it's 10% faster and often it's the same or even slower than the 5870! So yes I'm hoping to keep it 6 months or a year.
Click to expand...

It does do the job pretty well; I never saw temps above 50 degrees at load.

You can find the cooler for £30 in the rainforest. ;)

As for changing the cooler I wouldn't worry about it, I was in exactly the same boat as you when I changed mine. Just be careful and you'll be fine. My tips: make sure you clean the RAM and VRM chips thoroughly with surgical spirit or an equivalent, and make sure the new heatsinks are attached firmly before attaching the gpu cooler. When screwing in the cooler, put the screws into the bracket in a crisscross formation. That's all you really have to bear in mind. :)
 
I ending up buying a Accelero TWIN TURBO II (http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/vga/375/accelero-twin-turbo-ii.html?c=2182) from someone that had it in stock.

Nice bit of kit, but with several buts.

First off instructions are the usual sort composed by drunken monkeys and nothing specific to my 5870. Whenever I googled for vids/guides the people had put it on differently.

Second the thermal compound/glue mix was pathetic. After 5 hours nothing was stuck firmly. In desperation I used superglue mixed with thermal compound on the edges on the vram. That was firm within a minute or two as you'd expect.

Thirdly, it's actually louder than the stock 5870 fan on 20% load ;-( however the temps I'm getting are at least 10-15ºC cooler on full load with fan speed still at 20%.

So it's better than the grinding, but I do wish Powercolor (the scum) had honoured the warranty.
 
I'm wondering if the speed of those fans is being controlled properly. At 20% idle you'd expect them to be near silent. How have you attached the fans on the cooler?

I don't have an Arctic as I'm the guy with the Shaman but I do use the graphics card PWM to control it's fan.
 
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Onto the power connector of the 5870 card. There was also an option to connect it direct to a molex at 2 different rates. To be fair it's not "noisy", but the machine just seems a little louder than it was before.
 
According to some specs I just saw it says the fans go from 1000 to 2000. Considering they are two 92mm fans you'd expect them to reasonably quiet at 1000. Any indication on the graphics driver what speed they are going along at?

You did connect the four pin connector to the four pin connector on your 5870 I assume.

Your 5870 does have a 4 pin fan header doesn't it? Some of the Powercolor 5870s seem to have a 3 pin.
 
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Tealc said:
According to some specs I just saw it says the fans go from 1000 to 2000. Considering they are two 92mm fans you'd expect them to reasonably quiet at 1000. Any indication on the graphics driver what speed they are going along at?

You did connect the four pin connector to the four pin connector on your 5870 I assume.

Your 5870 does have a 4 pin fan header doesn't it? Some of the Powercolor 5870s seem to have a 3 pin.
Click to expand...

Yes it has a 4pin. It definately is "reasonably quiet", perhaps my subjective measurement is just off. I haven't put my ear to the fans since I put them in the case! I'm certainly not unhappy with it either.

I can't see a measure of fan rpm btw, ati tray tools is giving nonsense values.
 
I wonder if you'd notice the difference using the resistor cables and the PSU connection though. From what I've read the fans should be very quiet at idle.

It probably doesn't matter if you are happy with the noise but it's needless in my opinion to have the fans running overfast at idle.
 
I had this problem with one of my 5850's.

I went and bought a zalman vf3000, however I discovered it was probably a wasted purchase.

The cheaper option, would have been dismantle the shroud, but leave the heatsink in place, and then attach a random case-fan using cable-ties.

I'd never dismantled one of these "blower" style cards, so I didn't really know what to expect..... but it's very easy to get it to a stage where the shroud and fan are gone, but the heatsink is still attached and ready to have a new fan ghetto-mounted to it.
 
jimbob27 said:
The cheaper option, would have been dismantle the shroud, but leave the heatsink in place, and then attach a random case-fan using cable-ties.

I'd never dismantled one of these "blower" style cards, so I didn't really know what to expect..... but it's very easy to get it to a stage where the shroud and fan are gone, but the heatsink is still attached and ready to have a new fan ghetto-mounted to it.
Click to expand...


The trouble with that idea is that some of the blower fan heatsinks tend to be designed to have air blasted through in line with the card, whereas a ghetto fan mod would be airflow perpendicular to the card and wouldn't be as effective.
 
The shrouds these days are usually attached via screws that are accessed under the heatsink, meaning you still have to remove the heatsink to remove the fan/shroud, also since the 4890 they have set up the heatsink so the fins are bent over at the top, which prevents airflow being pushed in from above. On all my 4870's of various types, single x2 shroud off and 120mm ziptied on, massively better temps, overclocking and much quieter. However 4890 onwards the heatsinks haven't allowed you to do this. To be fair I haven't checked my 6950 but I assume its still the same design.

No idea why the change, but its ruddy irritating as it used to be a £5 silent 120mm fan would improve the cooling on any card :(
 
Tealc said:
The trouble with that idea is that blower fan heatsinks tend to be designed to have air blasted through in line with the card, whereas a ghetto fan mod would be airflow perpendicular to the card and wouldn't be as effective.
Click to expand...

yes and no, as with my previous post, the heatsink fins are bent over making blowing down from the top impossible. but this was the same as back on 4870/4870x2's.

Cooling is VASTLY improved with a proper fan blowing onto the heatsink. Blower fans, are crap, exhausting coolers, are crap(because of the fan). Cooling is incredibly simple, to improve cooling improve airflow or heatsink surface area. Blower fans have horrific airflow, you're talking about 4-5cfm, vs a bog standard £5 120mm fan wit 30-40cfm while silent and 100cfm if you want top end blower noise.

Heatsinks aren't designed differently for blower fans, they don't lose heat better with a exhausting design, and these days, well for the past 10 years now the only cases which don't have enough airflow turnover so that putting the gpu heat inside the case becomes a problem, are things like Shuttles and tiny stupid idiotic cases. Any bog standard 120mm intake 120mm extraction with psu extracting air aswell is more than enough to cope with the heat. Any improvement just lessens the almost negligible effect.

As for warranty, the OP should keep up trying to contact powercolor. its not about when they reply to you. If you contacted them within the warranty period and they failed to get back to you in time, that doesn't matter basically. Keep trying to contact them and save any e-mails you've sent as proof, even better if they send you a ticket saying your request has been noted or something.

You could ask OCUK to get them to respond, but time wise, with the card itself working personally I'd just stick on another heatsink.
 
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