3090 FE thermals and fan noise

[xPETEZx]

I get ya. I have a pair of noise cancelling Sony in ear headphones and just tried putting my head next to the machine and couldn't hear anything - especially over the in game audio. To be honest mine is barely audible with the panel on - even with my head right next to the machine. Can definitely hear it with the panel off though. Here's a video;

https://youtu.be/veR8S7QSAKM

Its always hard to capture on video. I find mine sounds much worse in real, compared to a video I made of it.
Yours doesn't sound so bad in that video at least.

I had a 2080Ti FE which was a pretty enclosed design like the 30 series. Coil whine was there but it wasnt crazy, audible but not too bad. Fitted waterblock and it was like a coffee grinder because the chokes were far more exposed.

Most of the AIB cards were pretty bad also, worse than the FE anyway. Must have gone through 10 cards hoping for a silent one but it just isnt possible and i accepted it in the end. Undervolting did help a tonne but in the end just moved my pc away. Was driving me crazy to the point of buying a console crazy. Now pure silence what ever the situation. Best decision ever.

Its crazy how coil whine is such a lottery...
In all the GPUs I have owned till the 30 cards, I have never had it bad. Just at really high FPS in a game menu.
But seems that its far more common now. I was planning to keep hunting and trying for an AIB card to hope to get past the whine... but it seems that might be a futile effort. Esp in the current climate where you cant just buy the card you want....

 

[Dave2150]

Just a word of warning. Modding the card to replace the thermal pads is all well and good, though please know that you're invalidating your 3 year warranty by doing so.

Numerous examples over on reddit where Nvidia just send back your broken GPU, should something else fail on the card (even if it's not a result of the mod).

For a cheap card, I'd have no problems with this. for a £1400 card, I highly recommend you keep your 3 year warranty. If it's too noisy in games, RMA, you may get one back with better applied thermal pads on the memory etc.

It seems it's mostly miners that are doing this mod, as mining ether causes the VRAM to reach 110 DC very quickly, causing reduced hashrate from the thermal throttling. Most of these miners will have no qualms selling on a modded 3090 (with no warranty) to unsuspecting buyer. Ebay is only money back guarantee for 30 days now too...

 

[xPETEZx]

Just a word of warning. Modding the card to replace the thermal pads is all well and good, though please know that you're invalidating your 3 year warranty by doing so.

Numerous examples over on reddit where Nvidia just send back your broken GPU, should something else fail on the card (even if it's not a result of the mod).

For a cheap card, I'd have no problems with this. for a £1400 card, I highly recommend you keep your 3 year warranty. If it's too noisy in games, RMA, you may get one back with better applied thermal pads on the memory etc.

It seems it's mostly miners that are doing this mod, as mining ether causes the VRAM to reach 110 DC very quickly, causing reduced hashrate from the thermal throttling. Most of these miners will have no qualms selling on a modded 3090 (with no warranty) to unsuspecting buyer. Ebay is only money back guarantee for 30 days now too...

Would you care to link to any of these stories where people had the broken GPU sent back?

As evidenced by a user on this forum, it is possible to RMA a card thats been opened. He was going to change pads on his 3080 and found a damaged part, then started an RMA, nVidia still replaced his card.

So its not cut and dry like your making out. Without re-treading ground... Id be surprised if nVidia routinely disassemble cards just to check for changed pads. If it looks undamaged, and fails in the bench, Id expect they just issue the replacement. Why waste time taking a card apart (esp the FEs) just on the slim chance the pads are different.
Further...even if they did so, I think requesting they prove this to be the reason for failure of the card, and perhaps followed up with a letter to the legal department threatening small-claims court would grease the wheels.

As said, up-top. Genuinely interested to see posts from people that had failed cards returned to them. (esp if its cause they changed the pads)

From what I have seen on forums/reddit, when people have had RMA declined its usually because they mentioned changing pads, or removing the cooler in the RMA request.

 

[Ravenger]

I personally would be very wary about modding a £1400 card, just in case I either broke it (with my skillz, quite likely!) or I had a warranty issue and they wouldn't honour it. I'll just undervolt and keep the card unmodded in case I ever need to do a warranty return.

 

[tyler_jrb]

Its crazy how coil whine is such a lottery...
In all the GPUs I have owned till the 30 cards, I have never had it bad. Just at really high FPS in a game menu.
But seems that its far more common now. I was planning to keep hunting and trying for an AIB card to hope to get past the whine... but it seems that might be a futile effort. Esp in the current climate where you cant just buy the card you want....

Personally i wouldnt bother i thought the same when it was REALLY bothering me and 10+ cards later it was more of just a side trade, never cured. In many cases ending up with a card with worse whine. They all pretty much whine to the same degree. What pushing a few hundred Amps through coils does i suppose .

Certain things can help a lot such as having a good sealed case without too much excessive ventilation. Cases with too much ventilation can let out too much noise. Especially when usually the case is within a metre of your ears its hard to get away from. Undervolting to minimum voltage helped masses on my 2080Ti when i had it near me, halving the power consumption for around 7-10% performance loss from max OC.

I went through lots of messing around multiple cards, multiple PSU's, even multiple motherboards and a power conditioner . Even to the point of wanting to build a pc desk, then to go under the bed. Then deciding to build one like DIYperks video. Then in the end just moved it several meters away in my wall cupboard. Silent and doesnt really get much hotter either. Talking 55c GPU max vs 45c all watercooled. For the sake of pure silence ill take that.

 

[xPETEZx]

Personally i wouldnt bother i thought the same when it was REALLY bothering me and 10+ cards later it was more of just a side trade, never cured. In many cases ending up with a card with worse whine. They all pretty much whine to the same degree. Certain things can help a lot such as having a good sealed case without too much excessive ventilation. Cases with too much ventilation can let out too much noise. Especially when usually the case is within a metre of your ears its hard to get away from. Undervolting to minimum voltage helped masses on my 2080Ti when i had it near me, halving the power consumption for around 7-10% performance loss from max OC.

I went through lots of messing around multiple cards, multiple PSU's, even multiple motherboards and a power conditioner . Even to the point of wanting to build a pc desk, then to go under the bed. Then deciding to build one like DIYperks video. Then in the end just moved it several meters away in my wall cupboard. Silent and doesnt really get much hotter either. Talking 55c GPU max vs 45c all watercooled. For the sake of pure silence ill take that.

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you went on a lengthy journey in pursuit of no-whine.
My ideal would be putting the PC further away / in another room. But as renting currently, cant go drilling big holes to get cables through!

 

[tyler_jrb]

Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you went on a lengthy journey in pursuit of no-whine.
My ideal would be putting the PC further away / in another room. But as renting currently, cant go drilling big holes to get cables through!

Yeah that’s the big pain. Really I would have done the same but I couldn’t either as in the same situation. The wall cupboard is there anyway so just routed cables from pc desk next to and on top of skirting boards and into the cupboard where the pc now lives.

If the wall cupboard wasn’t there then I’d have likely custom built a case to go under the bed or a pc desk which I was originally planning to do. The ones DIYperks does on his YT channel are pretty much what I was aiming for.

Spoiler: Video

 

[newuser]

Certain things can help a lot such as having a good sealed case without too much excessive ventilation. Cases with too much ventilation can let out too much noise. Especially when usually the case is within a metre of your ears its hard to get away from. Undervolting to minimum voltage helped masses on my 2080Ti when i had it near me, halving the power consumption for around 7-10% performance loss from max OC.

Swings and roundabouts with the ventilation. I've found after more playing about than I really wanted to do that the less restrictive case was much quieter overall with the 3090FE on account of the lower fan speeds. Never had an issue cooling the 2080ti in the same case even when it was pulling 330 watts.

Just out of interest, undervolting the 3090FE and synthetic benches-

1830/850 ran cooler, didn't check the performance.
1950/900 got me about 3% over stock with slightly less heat and noise than stock.
The auto overclock was boosting into the low 2000s and getting about 5% over stock. Much more power use and the extra fan speed needed wasn't worth the trade off.
1950/900 runs everything I've tried except Metro Exodus enhanced so I tend to leave it at that.

 

[WolfHauser]

Yep it's totally up to you if you want to risk the warranty by opening it up. I did it as nVidia wouldn't accept there was anything wrong with my card. They just kept saying it's normal. I've had a lot of bad customer service this year from numerous companies because well, everyone's miserable and we're living through a **** time and I'm pretty exhausted by it so in the end I thought the card being noisy is really pretty low down on the list of things that need to be fixed in the world.

I did the pad mod because my card was red hot and 2000rpm+ in gaming let alone rendering (I don't mine) making me not want to use my computer and I'm glad I did because it runs like a dream now. But like you guys have pointed out - it's totally at your risk if you want to do it. If it breaks within 3 years then I'll deal with it then.

 

[HangTime]

I played Control on a 3090, max settings fuil RTX etc. One of the few games I wasn't CPU limited in, I could hear the fan ramp up a bit but it wasn't really what I would call proper loud compared to say cranking up the fan speed on my 1070ti.

 

[Dave2150]

Yep it's totally up to you if you want to risk the warranty by opening it up. I did it as nVidia wouldn't accept there was anything wrong with my card. They just kept saying it's normal. I've had a lot of bad customer service this year from numerous companies because well, everyone's miserable and we're living through a **** time and I'm pretty exhausted by it so in the end I thought the card being noisy is really pretty low down on the list of things that need to be fixed in the world.

I did the pad mod because my card was red hot and 2000rpm+ in gaming let alone rendering (I don't mine) making me not want to use my computer and I'm glad I did because it runs like a dream now. But like you guys have pointed out - it's totally at your risk if you want to do it. If it breaks within 3 years then I'll deal with it then.

You'd probably get away with just opening the card, as long as you did no damage, threaded no screws etc. Though actually replacing the thermal pads - even a child can spot they've been changed, plus the original 'pads' are effectively impossible to reapply without it being obvious.

Glad your happy with your card and of course it's up to each individual to make their own decision. It's just silly of some people to pretend they still have a warranty after modding their cards. Just hope that when selling the card, they own up to the warranty being void, as that'll take a pretty big chunk off resale value down the line.

 

[xPETEZx]

You'd probably get away with just opening the card, as long as you did no damage, threaded no screws etc. Though actually replacing the thermal pads - even a child can spot they've been changed, plus the original 'pads' are effectively impossible to reapply without it being obvious.

Glad your happy with your card and of course it's up to each individual to make their own decision. It's just silly of some people to pretend they still have a warranty after modding their cards. Just hope that when selling the card, they own up to the warranty being void, as that'll take a pretty big chunk off resale value down the line.

Why do you keep peddling this?
Of course they can still try and claim on there warranty. ITs up to the vendor to prove not only that the card was modified, but that the modification led to the failure.
You claimed in another thread to have various posts of people having RMA's rejected and faulty cards sent back, yet never provided any links to these posts.

Yes its a risk opening the cards. But just because you changed the pads does not instantly 100% guarantee your claim will be rejected. You still have rights as a consumer. You can still fight those, in small claims court if you have to.

Now if you dont want to take that risk, thats totally fine. No need to scare-monger like you have been.

Further.... if selling the card, the warranty does not transfer anyway. You can give the person you sell to your invoice, and they can try and claim with that. But that is far more likely to lead to a rejected claim than changing the pads and not mentioning it is.
I think only EVGA explicitly state the warranty transfers to a third party.

 

[WolfHauser]

Why do you keep peddling this?
Of course they can still try and claim on there warranty. ITs up to the vendor to prove not only that the card was modified, but that the modification led to the failure.
You claimed in another thread to have various posts of people having RMA's rejected and faulty cards sent back, yet never provided any links to these posts.

Yes its a risk opening the cards. But just because you changed the pads does not instantly 100% guarantee your claim will be rejected. You still have rights as a consumer. You can still fight those, in small claims court if you have to.

Now if you dont want to take that risk, thats totally fine. No need to scare-monger like you have been.

Further.... if selling the card, the warranty does not transfer anyway. You can give the person you sell to your invoice, and they can try and claim with that. But that is far more likely to lead to a rejected claim than changing the pads and not mentioning it is.
I think only EVGA explicitly state the warranty transfers to a third party.

Was just about to write that Nvidia clearly states the warranty is non-transferable so modding it doesn't matter in that regard.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/support/warranty/

Yeah totally - I get the feeling a lot of this stuff is at companies discretion anyway. MSI were super nice when I bought a secondhand laptop with a missing key - they sent me a replacement key for nothing!

I feel like if I was honest with them and said what I did they might help me out and if they don't well I knew the risks. Anyway this is all hypothetical - hopefully I don't have to use the warranty. I mean I feel like the card is now running better than it was out of the box with much better temps so as someone mentioned - hopefully that will stop it potentially failing just outside of warranty.

If and when I do sell I'd state I modded the card but more out of politeness because as mentioned the warranty doesn't transfer anyway.

 

[Dave2150]

Was just about to write that Nvidia clearly states the warranty is non-transferable so modding it doesn't matter in that regard.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-gb/support/warranty/

Yeah totally - I get the feeling a lot of this stuff is at companies discretion anyway. MSI were super nice when I bought a secondhand laptop with a missing key - they sent me a replacement key for nothing!

I feel like if I was honest with them and said what I did they might help me out and if they don't well I knew the risks. Anyway this is all hypothetical - hopefully I don't have to use the warranty. I mean I feel like the card is now running better than it was out of the box with much better temps so as someone mentioned - hopefully that will stop it potentially failing just outside of warranty.

If and when I do sell I'd state I modded the card but more out of politeness because as mentioned the warranty doesn't transfer anyway.

It's very common for a seller of a GPU to help out with warranty requests, should the card die after it's sold. Vast majority of sold cards on the MM here (and elsewhere) state this. It's been done for decades on these very forums and is nothing new. Though I appreciate this may be unknown to newer members.

 

[david_129]

Sorry to resurrect this thread and perpahs no one remembers or is following it anumore, but i just did my underclock based on the advice here. I managed 1860 @ 850, is this ok or should i be pushing for more clock speed at this mvoltage? i left the memory clock alone but again, wondering if i should do any work in this area. (3090 FE)

Thanks if anyone sees this