Nvidia minimum fan speed - why does this keep happening?

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Welcome to my ranting thread about unacceptable minimum (30%) fan speed on Nvidia cards.
You are especially welcomed if you are similarly noise-conscious about selecting PC components as am I.

So: I just got Inno3D RTX 5080 and was quite annoyed / almost shocked when I noticed that it has minimum fan speed of 1400rpm. Just to clarify - it of course supports fanstop,
where during idle the fans have 0 rpm. However the problem is, that when you are running 4K @ 120Hz (not to say 240Hz) and doing light GPU work (playing video etc.),
or just simply running the desktop apps (when working), it's enough to have the fans occasionally spin up even during this so called "idle" to cool the GPU back down.
(And this is already happening during winter - just wait for the summer!)

And of course it can not be done with some reasonable rpm like around 600, which would be more than adequate for the mild GPU load.
No, it has to be either 0% rpm or sudden 1400 rpm spikes. Which is miles above noise floor of any semi-decently noise tuned PC in idle and it grabs unwanted attention to its self.
Thus the real "idle" rpm for this particular card is not 0 but the superposition of 0 and 1400 rpm.

More generally: as far as I know all Nvidia GPUs for some time now have their minimum rpm set to 30% of the max rpm.
Therefore all modern Nvidia GPUs have this problem - it has actually reminded me why I replaced stock cooling solution on my previous RTX 3080 SUPRIM
with two Noctua NF-A12 fans attached to the heatsink. And AFAIK there is no good software workaround for this. At least I didn't find it in case of my RTX 3080.
(i.e. seems to me, that when certain conditions are met, firmware on the card will spin the fans and overrule any fan profile you might have set in Afterburner or FanControl etc.)

Now you might think that the higher end models don't suffer with this, however if you look at the techpowerup reviews of RTX 5080 / 5090 (section "Temperature & Fan noise")
you will see that with the exception of Astral models all the others have minimum fan rpm at ~1100 or higher. Which is completely suboptimal tradeoff of noise vs. cooling in idle.
Also with "higher-end" models you will typically run in more problems with coil whine, therefore if you want card with acoustically acceptable profile it's very difficult to find one.

To illustrate how absurd this is: if you look here https://www.techpowerup.com/review/msi-geforce-rtx-5090-suprim/39.html
the first (quiet) tested BIOS shows that the card is so efficient at cooling that it only requires maximum rpm of 1093 under load.
However the same card has its 30% rpm equal to around 1000 rpm. Which means during idle it will behave as a superposition of silent and also almost equally as loud as during full load.
On which planet is this considered a good design choice?

Now I would be interested if there are more people who are similarly annoyed with this, especially since it's going on for so long and nothing seems to be changing.
Does it mean everyone is "OK" with it? I definitely found some other forums where people were complaining about it, but maybe it's not part of public awareness
enough for a change to be implemented. Which sux.

Then maybe what are the software workarounds for it? I.e. I remember flashing BIOS to my old GTX 580 which lowered this stupid minimum rpm limit which together with Arctic freezer triple fan aftermarket cooler provided very good noise profile. Is there some lower than 30% bios that can be flashed to the Inno3D card? I assume I will lose warranty doing so?

Now I will definitely try attaching Noctua fan to the exposed heatsink part of the card and see if it helps.
However it's very stupid that generation after generation you just can not grab an Nvidia card knowing it will not produce annoying noise spikes during idle. (not to mention coil whine during load)
And have to come up with DIY solutions for this completely unnecessary problem, while most of the DYI solutions will void the warranty.
Maybe someone can explain to me why was 30% selected for minimum fan speed (which on most cards mean >= 1100rpm) Why not for example 20% or 15%
Why is it 30% on cards where it means 1400rpm as well as on cards where 30% means 600rpm (Astral)

Why does Jensen insists on screwing up our "10K gaming centers" with this low quality stupid nonsensical design?

 

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Have you tried FanControl to force the fan speed?

Yes I have tried FanControl for the 3080 and 5080 and in both cases it seemed to be unable to override the firmware enforced behavior. With 5080 I didn't spend much time on software workarounds yet, so it's possible that something might work, just based on previous experience I doubt it will. And even if it did: in more broader sense I am interested why this default / out of the box experience - which I personally find unacceptable - persisted for so long in the industry. How can this be acceptable? Why should be user expected to tune anything when there is simply no good reason (AFAIK) for things to be this way?

 

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I am operating the card in an open case, so basically no airflow, however also no heat accumulation inside the case. But even if it was in a closed case with zero airflow there is no reason the card should behave like it does.

Also as planned I have placed Noctua 120mm fan over the backplate venting area (a square cut out from the backplate with exposed heatsink) and running that fan on inaudible levels has completely eliminated the problem of GPU fans ramping up during "idle". However there is still problem of running old or esports games with light GPU load (i.e. around 100W) which will still trigger GPU fans spinning at 1400 rpm despite the GPU chilling at around 40C. Once the fans start spinning there is no chance of them stopping until card reaches around 33C, so no luck in light load scenario.
It's quite annoying during map loading moments, or waiting for matches where there is no in game sounds.

Unsurprisingly I have found that just by adding this one 120mm fan at the backplate (without necessity to mod the card) this dramatically improves the overall temperatures and / or noise vs. temperature balance. Now the card is able to run Cyberpunk with path-tracing while chilling at around 60C - 65C and while having the GPU fans at 1400rpm as well (while the Noctua fan still being close to inaudible). The built in GPU fans now actually have headroom for lower rpm even at full load. Therefore yet again I would much prefer for the card's fans running at lower rpm and having temps at around 75C instead thus yet again this stupid 30% fan speed limit is holding back the noise performance of the card even at full load. It's just so stupid. There are definitely games which have quiet passages in them where again this 1400rpm BS is breaking the immersion.

 

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Isn't this just normal fan limitations.

DC fans can't go too low because they stall.
PWM fans can't go too low because the power switching starts being audible.

If the % that a mode can drop to is still too fast/noisy then the maximum speed of the fan has to be lower which may create a different problem of not being able to cool enough in hot conditions.

And magically all fans from all vendors can't go below 30% The hell they can't. Would be such an extreme coincidence if all of the various fans on the market were manufactured to the same physical limit of 30% Not to mention there is plenty of examples of fans that can go lower - like for example basically all the CPU fans. And even my specific experience of old GTX 580 when I replaced the stock cooler with Arctic accelero aftermarket tripple fan cooler, there the fans originally couldn't go below 30% But after I flashed the modifies BIOS to the card (which was still possible in the old days) they suddenly could go much lower. Like 600rpm or so if I remember correctly. And "incredibly" the card didn't break and actually worked flawlessly and quietly for a long time. This 30% is total BS which has 0 basis even if you are trying to take into consideration criteria like card longevity, physical limits of the fans or optimal noise vs. cooling performance.

 

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It's frustating how stupid this 'problem' is, I think it's 100% on the AIBs.

They might not be in control of NVIDIA drivers or firmware or whatever else is forcing this '30%' minimum fan speed, but they are in control of how much power goes into the bloody fan itself. Pure laziness on behalf of the AIBs, they just don't care/couldn't be arsed.

Except there are Nvidia Founders Edition cards that suffer with the same problem i.e. of loud 1200 minimum rpm and have people complaining about it.
Also I believe this 30% minimum rpm is total overkill, completely wrong and unjustified from any point of angle.

While I agree that what various AIBs do with this 30% limitation is very far off from what should be possible with optimal designs, from AIBs perspective it of course makes sense to use components which are as cheap as possible and the money saved is understandably more important for them than the unreasonable minimum rpms of their designs. Especially when there is not a critical mass of people complaining about it. Yet if the Nvidia had lifted this stupid limit I am pretty sure that AIBs could come up with much quieter cooling solution at the lower ends of GPU utilization while using the same cheap low quality fans.

 

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I never said can't and I never said 30% and I never said break.

But seeing you type 30% four times in reply to me saying it never, maybe the PWM fan spec will un-coincidence matters: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/intel-nuc/intel-4wire-pwm-fans-specs.pdf

Well "Isn't this just normal fan limitations." in the context of this thread heavily implied to me, that you meant the 30% limit is justified by physical limits of the fans. Which it isn't and I considered it important to point out. Then along the way I got carried away to include other hypothetical reasons why one could assume 30% limit to be justified and provided counter arguments to them as well. They were clearly not addressed to you but to Nvidia.

Thank you for providing the PWM specs. The relevant part should be that any PWM spec compliant fan at standstill must be able to start spinning when 30% PWM signal is applied. This is useful and I was not aware of this. It should finally explain where did the 30% number come from.
Since CPU fans don't suffer by the 30% limit there are clearly workarounds for it which are not being utilized by Nvidia GPUs:

1.) Quality fans can typically start consistently lower than 30% So when Nvidia is enforcing 30% limit this discourages any vendor from investing into more premium fans and tuning the starting percentage according to the exact specs of the fan. Higher quality GPUs could most likely go safely below 30% and still start from standstill.

2.) Once the fan is spinning, much lower PWM signal is needed to maintain the rotation, I think it's a safe bet that most of the GPU fans including the cheap ones would be able to sustain rotation at 20% PWM signal and some would be able to go even lower. But this is again not possible because Nvidia has chosen simplicity of their fan controller logic over user comfort (flat 30% means it's guaranteed the fan will spin, thus "problem solved", despite it leading to cases when the fan is at 1400 rpm as its minimum, which is quite insane.)

I just checked CPU coolers for highest difference between min and max rpm and I found one that is rated to go from 300 to 3300 rpm. So clearly there is a lot of headroom to go lower than 30%.

 

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What RPM do the other fans in your system idle at, out of interest?

Since I am running open case I only have CPU cooler (two NF-A12 fans) at 22% or about 500rpm and then PSU which is 0 rpm at idle. So at idle my system is practically inaudible. And when I was still running the modded RTX 3080 (also with two NF-A12 fans), the system was usually almost quiet even during typical gaming scenarios (much quieter than the minimum rpm at this Inno3D 5080)

 

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hwinfo is saying 1295 on fan one, 1340ish fan two, 1350ish fan3.

That really sux for such an expensive card. If you want to get rid of the fans ramping up during "idle" I recommend to try what I did. Just place one 120mm fan (or basically any fan) above the venting area at the backplate and this should should get rid of the problem completely and will also help to reduce rpm /temps during heavy load. Luckily it seems nowadays all 50 series cards have this venting area so it's a cheap workaround as long as you don't mind how it looks.

 

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Isn't open case counter productive if you value low noise?

It depends. If I were sitting right next to the side which is opened than possibly yes. But since HDDs (the most invasive disruptor of quietness in a PC) can nowadays be avoided, open case is not an issue during idle. And during load the ambient temps in an open case should be always better than temps in a closed case even in a one with good airflow, so the fans need to work little less. With my 3080 which was modded to be quiet, noise was never an issue. That is party because I sit opposite to the opened side of the PC and also some distance from it, so it works for my specific case.