Hot idle GPU

[Nitefly]

Hi there - just hoping someone could give a steer whether anything in particular is awry with these voltages + temps etc.

My 3090 is noisy so I'd ideally like to set the fans to off when browsing the web etc. Even when at 'nil load' it'll creepy on up to 80+ degrees and then the fans will come on full blast to protect it.... not ideal, because my fans therefore have to be kept on to stop heat escalation.

I'm planning to re-paste / replace fans anyway, but any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[Aretak]

I'd recommend setting a custom fan curve in Afterburner. Have the fans come on at the minimum possible speed at 60 degrees, with a gentle ramp towards 70 and combined with a relatively high hysteresis value (ten degrees maybe) so that they'll stay on until they've cooled the GPU down a bit. That does mean you're going to have your fans turning on an off on a regular basis, but it will avoid the fans turning on full blast when the GPU is getting to the point of overheating. Really the only other thing you can do is look at your case airflow and try to improve that. Some decent case fans might be quieter than the fans on the card itself.

Even a little airflow goes a long way. '0dB' modes are hit and miss depending on the model in my experience. Some coolers simply can't maintain that state when placed in a warm case and will have to kick the fans on every now and then. I've had such cards in the past, and tasked with cooling GPUs a lot less large and hot than a 3090.

 

[Nitefly]

Thanks @Aretak - yes, I'm using fan control for that purpose, which FYI is better than MSI afterburner because it allows you to set fan curves for case, CPU and GPU fans based on combined CPU and GPU temps (i.e. you can mix fan profiles together). There's a good vid showing how to do this here if you're interested; I've tried to link to the correct time:

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Yeah a repaste is probably a good idea
might be all it needs

Would have thought at no load
The gpu heatsink would be sufficient if case has
Decent airflow
Though not had an aircooled gpu in a very long time
But my 3080ti is only around 30 watts or so
On no load I think

 

[Alt0153]

i hate to break it to you but 114w is not an idle gpu, mine uses 8w

 

[Nitefly]

i hate to break it to you but 114w is not an idle gpu, mine uses 8w

Thanks. I'm hooked up to a 4k monitor and the wattage reduces dramatically when changing the resolution to, say, 1080p (down to around 20-30 watts). Edit: ditto, reducing the refresh rate from 160hz to 60hz also gave a massive drop to 20-30 watts.

I did a clean driver install and no improvements.

I also updated the GPU bios... no improvement.

I'm assuming that it's simply working hard to do 160hz at 4k.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Didn't see the wattage amount earlier
Tiny phone screen
And old eyes don't work very well together lol

I don't think 4k should make it draw that much at idle
Could be a background software

Or check in nvidia control panel/nvidia app
In the section that has profiles
Something like optimal/adaptive/max performance
Make sure its not set to max performance

Or uninstall nvidia drivers again
And try nvidia studio drivers instead of game ready drivers

Edit
Your power limit is at 105%
Whether that's relevant not sure
Since should apply to under load
But worth a look anyway

 

[Nitefly]

Just to update: I’m reasonably pretty happy with the card pulling 20-30w at idle with 60hz. When I swap out the pads and fans on the GPU I can see whether this helps me keep the card cooler! New fans arrived today.

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

as some sort of comparison
heres my 3080ti just doing desktop stuff
like browsing this forum
not a 3090 i know but at least relatively close
at 3440 x 1440p and 175hz
approx 30 watts

 

[hornetstinger]

Is updating GPU BIOS a thing? Offical or through unoffical channels? How do you go about getting new BIOS?

 

[Mcnumpty2323]

Is updating GPU BIOS a thing? Offical or through unoffical channels? How do you go about getting new BIOS?

yes you can update gpu bios/firmware
first thing is see if the manufacturer website has one
techpowerup i think hosts a load of them too

while its not 100% necessary its the bios for
your exact model gpu
crossflashing adds risk to it

i use nvflash or atiflash
this is something you should be very careful about
if you brick it you will need an alternative gpu
to try reflashing it
should be a good reason you want to do it
overclocking/flashing a higher power limit etc