Loud fan on 5870

[Luci]

Hi,

I have a Sapphire Vapor X 5870, and for ages now it's really loud when playing some games, namely BF3 at the moment.

It's not happening in all games, and certainly not all the latest ones - it doesn't do it in Rage for instance, but The Sims 3 causes it - which is hardly what I would call a taxing game!

I have given the case a good clean out, and the card too but this seemed to make little to no difference. The case wasn't that dusty any way.

Drivers are the latest for BF3: 11.10 preview 3
Card is not overclocked so it's 875/1250.

Any ideas?

 

[Orcvader]

Make a custom fan profile with MSI AfterBurner? How hot does the card get?

 

[Hotwired]

Have you checked the temp while you're gaming?

 

[Luci]

Ok, I played through a round of BF3.

Temp stayed at 82/83c / 65% fan / ~2500RPM for the entire round, measured using MSI Afterburner.

 

[mojojojo1972]

Is your fan speed progressive,starting off low then going to 65% speed..If so you could try and make a fan profile to suit the temps better

I have 5870 in c/f and have my fan profile set to 50% as soon as I start gaming which keeps my temps around the 75 mark.

65% fan speed is dam loud on my 5870 so I am guessing you would really like it lower lol

 

[Luci]

Temp starts off at 70c then goes up to the 82c over the course of a few minutes, the fan speed obviously increasing along with this.

How do you set a fan profile to do as you suggested? I've not really used MSI all that much.

 

[Orcvader]

Hang on, your idle temp is 70c? That seems a bit too high for idle temps. What is the airflow like within the case? Repaste the cooler perhaps?

 

[RichardH754]

Force V/Sync on the Sims 3 see if that helps!

 

[Luci]

Hang on, your idle temp is 70c? That seems a bit too high for idle temps. What is the airflow like within the case? Repaste the cooler perhaps?

Sorry, no idle temp is 42. It's 70c once i'm in BF3 then up to 82.

 

[ToejaM]

I had a similar issue. The fan could get quite loud quite quickly.. I did a bit of research and copied someone then tweaked it to what I needed. I often play with headphones on but the sound isnt that loud. I found the biggest problem is letting the fan jump up in speed too quickly.. a more gradual process keeps temps steady making for a steady rise in speed so less noticeable.

Settings button, fan tab.

Thats mine having been on probably since 12 now and playing loads of BF3.

 

[Purgatory]

I think BF3 uses shader warming techniques like black ops did after a patch. I think that is why you are seeing them temps when you start the game, also the idle temp on my old reference Asus 5870 was 35-36c after the system had been on for many hours in a well cooled case and would go up to a max of 73c when playing very demanding games at max settings. So I think the case you have is not well cooled, what case and case fans do you have and is the cable management well done ? The Vapor X should run cooler then the reference design but they do throw warm air in the case and if your case cooling is not getting rid of the warm air build up that could be your problem. Also the other thing I noticed before I sold my Asus 5870 was new games were starting to make the card run warmer, could be just the games or even the latest drivers causing this heat issue, maybe the drivers now are trying to squeeze out every bit of performance out of the cards and making them work harder then before ? I don't know I sold it as I said for an Asus GTX 580 CUii when I went sandybridge and this card idles at 30c-ish and max I have seen it hit is 52-53c ish in the same case as what the 5870 was in. Also this Asus gtx 580 CUii I have now throws warm air into the case not like the 5870 did by blowing all the heat it produced outside of the case, so really says to me the 5870's are starting to show their weaknesses as drivers and games have changed over its life. I would check your case cooling if you made sure the card was clean of dust.