Problem Fans on Video Cards?

MobyDisk asks: "Both myself and my roommate have experienced problems with unreliable fans on video cards, leading to fried video chips. Most cards don't have full-size 12V fans, even though they put out a lot of heat. I've resorted to replacing the fans with cheap upgrades. A search for '"video card fan' on Google reveals lots examples of this problem as well as fan upgrade kits. I want to know how common this problem is. Have other readers experienced problems with video card fans? Should video card manufacturers start using better fans for reliability? Or do they just want us to upgrade next year when the fan dies?"

Comments

Hey!

[floydigus]

I'm a fan of video cards and I'm very reliable, thank you.

Considering how fast new chipsets come out

[questionlp]

Taking a look at the video chipset development cycle... new chips (be it a brand new architecture or an extension to an existing high-end chip) come out every 8-12 months (although nVidia used to be a lot more aggressive with a 6-8 month cycle). With such a fast dev cycle, they think that gamers that like to hot-rod their machines and have the latest and greatest will always upgrade soon after the temporary king of the hill is released. Now, it's the ATI 9700 Pro... in a couple of months, it will be the nVidia NV30, etc.

With that... they probably don't really care of the fans fail after a year since they probably want you to upgrade by then anyway.

But for those without a budget to upgrade every 8-12 months... we may be out of luck since new cards usually mean different cooling solutions (due to die size, heat production, the heatsink mount hole positions, etc.) and some of the aftermarket stuff don't quite cut it.

One solution might be to get one of those large coolers that attach to where the PCI/AGP cards screw holes are and blow right at the video card (and other cards). That way, even if the fan dies, there is still some airflow getting through the heatsink. It's not a pretty solution, but it's more like a cast than a band-aid :)

nVidia 4600

[Zelet]

My roomie had a fan's bearings get noisy after only a month of use. I am assuming that the fan will fail within the year.

Maybe a new cooling solution for computers needs to be implemented. Having a fan for the power supply, processor, GPU, hard drives, southbridge, and basic system fans can get very noisy. Especially if two (or more) of the fans resonate. I think it is time for a standard cooling system. Maybe each piece of hardware that needs cooling should come with a universal bracket that hooks to industry standard water cooling solutions or something.

Just random thoughts.

Re:nVidia 4600

[Kevin Stevens]

This is where watercooling can reap benefits, and could also save money. With a watercooling system the only moving part would be a waterpump. This pump would be the only mechanical point of failure. This would lead to quieter, cooler systems. Waterpumps do not need to spin at high rpm's in high heat environments which also make them more reliable. Instead of adding more fans, all you need to add are more waterblocks over your system. If Oem's or large manufacturers started to develop products based on watercooling, I bet waterblock and radiator prices would drop to the point where they are only marginally more expensive than fan systems, especially as components such as disk drives, north and south bridge chips, graphics cards, and power supplies are requiring more cooling power. When you also consider that most watercooling solutions on the market today are designed for hardcore overclocking, and you could use much smaller (and cheaper) radiators and pumps, watercooling could become integrated into mainstream PC's. I think most of the resistance stems from a vision of water leaks ruining all of your hardware. But a properly sealed system should have a much smaller rate of failure than a five fan system whirring at 4,000 rpm's each whose noise drives you crazy... I guess that giant circular copper finned heatsink with the fan on top does look like something out of a sci-fi movie, but I would much rather have piece of mind(somewhat) and glow in the dark cooling tubes running through my system...

Re:nVidia 4600

[delus10n0]

If the wterpump dies in a water-cooled setup - Everything Dies.

That's only if you're a moron and don't have some sort of auto shutdown present on your system. Either through software, such as motherboard monitor, or through hardware.. though I haven't seen too many hardware devices for this task. I just rely on Motherboard Monitor. If my CPU or GPU gets too hot, it just shuts down immediately.

Also, if you're extremely paranoid, no one's stopping you from running two smaller watercooling pumps. I've seen a professional watercooling kit sold that had two pumps inside of a tank, and one would take over should the other fail. Pretty slick.

Re:nVidia 4600

[delus10n0]

That's why you use DISTILLED WATER, which is a poor conductor of electricity, especially compared to regular water.

And why would your tubing get a hole? Are you mixing acid in with your water? Sheesh.

If a watercooling system is built/designed well, it will last a long while without maintenance of any kind.

Re:nVidia 4600

[leuk_he]

use DISTILLED WATER

pure distilled water would be good. But the moment it touches you pc components its gets contermintated with all the dust that collected in your pc. It becomes a conductor.

Bye bye electronics. ... you could use special oil....

Although i heard some stories of people dropping a soda (accidentally) in their pc. After cleanup they lived happely ever after.

Re:nVidia 4600

[AvitarX]

My sister was using the running computer as a coffe table and spilled a glass of milk down the back. It bugged out and reset, but after draining the case into the sink it worked fine. Of course that is different then spraying the entire inside with water.

Fan burned out....

[jsimon12]

Yeah I had the fan on my video card start making clunking sounds and burn out after about 3-4 months. So I just wired and mounted a nice 12 volt high speed fan, works great, no noise and I know my vid card is safe.

how about no fans?

[nocent]

For your next video card, how about considering getting one without fans that is built to function with the heatsink only. Unless you plan to overclock it, you won't need a fan which reduces the overall noise level of your box and eliminates a potential point of failure. There are definitely some Geforce 2 MXs and Geforce 4s(not sure if they are MX) out there that come fanless.

Re:how about no fans?

[psavo]

my GF2MX PCI is not only fanless, it's also sinkless ;)
It's not a great gaming card, but it runs some HW acceleration, and frankly, my processor speed is the one which lags behind. The card is clocked something like 175Mhz for core and 143 for memory. I've pushed memory to 160, but it starts to show lots of glitches (no hangs however). Ventilation is nonexistant, and I haven't touched it ;)

False dichotomy

[Evro]

Should video card manufacturers start using better fans for reliability? Or do they just want us to upgrade next year when the fan dies?

Yes, and yes.

Last Christmas I purchased a GeForce 3 Ti500 for my girlfriend. about 3 months ago, the fan basically stopped spinning -- actually it spins about 10 rpm, so slow that I can watch it turn, which is as good as stopped in thie case. I am glad that VisionTek is dying; this is the second card of theirs that I have (the first Ti500 was DOA; this was the replacement) and it is by far the worst experience I have ever had with any manufacturer. From now on I will stick with someone like Abit or Asus, who actually have experience making components like these -- though I recently bought a Gainward GeForce 4 4200 128 meg ViVo that, so far, has been pretty flawless. Anyhow, I guess it's just a crapshoot.

quietpc

[God_Retired]

I've had pretty good luck with this place. Quiet and effective. I'm not affiliated with them.

Hercules offers Free Replacment Fans

[Phosphor3k]

About a year and a half after I got my Hercules GF2 GTS, the fan on it started spinning slow and making noise. Went to Hurcules's webpage, filled out a form (needs the serial number from the card), and 2 weeks later, I had a new HSF at my door, no cost to me. Link is here.

Hercules Kyro II

[cybermace5]

I have a Hercules 3D Prophet 4500 TV/out (yeah it's old, but hey I need to eat).

After a couple months, there was a loud rattling noise, a loud squeaking noise, and then silence. Upon investigation, the fan had seized up. The Kyro II heatsink on this card is round, with a special fan embedded down in it to fit between the AGP and the first PCI slot. I had an old fan from an external SCSI enclosure, which I glued onto the skeleton of the old fan. At the same time, I noticed my chipset fan wouldn't turn. I replaced it with another small fan, strapped on with magnet wire. The Kyro II fan died in a few weeks, so I grabbed a Socket 7 fan and wired it on. Still runs, I contacted Hercules and they said they could send me a new fan, but honestly I trust the CPU fan more. It covers a PCI slot, but it's not a problem...yet.

Agreed, Zalman heatsinks seem pretty good

[smcv]

My current cooling (from quietpc's UK site and overclockers.co.uk) is:

- Athlon 1.4: Zalman flower, 92mm fan @ approx 5V, 80mm case fan (right next to the CPU) designed for 12V but connected to the PSU's 5V line
- Geforce 2 Pro: huge Zalman heatsink (occupies the top PCI slot!), spare 80mm case fan mounted in the general vicinity (again, designed for 12V and running on 5V)
- Northbridge: Zalman heatsink
- PSU: the silent 300W one from quietpc

The whole system seems stable (although it gets rather warm with the case-fans running that slowly), and the noisiest components are the hard disks :-)

Two dead Dell/nVidia GeForce 2 cards

[no_such_user]

I have two dead cards, both Dell nVidia GeForce 2, which were fried because the fans stopped working. One card has no video at all, while another developed a problem where there are massive vertical lines throughout the display.

Since I didn't need performace on one of the machines, I replaced one card with a low-end card with no fan.

Just oil 'em

[klui]

What perfect timing. I installed a Radeon w/ fan no less than 3-4 months ago and just a week or so ago, the fan started making a moaning/groaning noise cycling several minutes apart.

I read on Usenet a while back that groaning fan problems can sometimes be solved by removing its backing sticker and oiling the access hole. I performed this procedure for my Radeon's fan and the groaning noise is gone.

GeForce fan groaning until I restart, any idea?

[jaydho]

I have a Inno3D GeForce 2MX and last year the fan on it started making a weird noise. The first time I started the computer each mornign the fan would groan. If I rebooted the noise would quit. Then it started taking two or three reboots.
Eventually the fan gave out so I rigged up a radio shack fan, now the same thing is happening. Anybody have any ideas what is up with my fan?

"Unless you're a moron"

[terpia]

Yeah, why don't you read the comment?

The parent was advocating/implying that watercooling is ready for the masses. However I highly doubt that Mom and Pop are able to configure MoboMon, or even leave it alone if it came preconfigured. Water cooling is not yet ready for integration by OEMs. That's the point. And I didn't even have to call you a name. Kinda like the fact that Linux really isn't ready for the consumer desktop, but it's good for those who *can* use it.

Re:"Unless you're a moron"

[delus10n0]

However I highly doubt that Mom and Pop are able to configure MoboMon, or even leave it alone if it came preconfigured.

This would be where a hardware solution would work perfectly. Someone just needs to come up with one (if there isn't one already; I just don't know of any off-hand.)

Also, the things you point out about water cooling could just as easily apply to air cooling. Does mom and pop know that they should be cleaning out their PC's case after xxx hours of usage? Or how to replace a defective fan?

If someone put together a well-built, well-designed watercooling system (perhaps already pre-installed in a case?) along with proper maintenance instructions, it would be ready for OEM use.

The only setup I've seen so far like this would be the Koolance cases. They come with all the equipment/tubing/etc. run for you. Just has a waterblock taped to the side of the case. You fill the system, install your hardware, attach the waterblock (same as a regular heatsink), and off you go. I believe the Koolance even has overheat protection built in (which will kill power to the system if it reaches a certain temp.)

Big fan, low speed...

[Gordonjcp]

I've taken out all the pishy wee 1.5" and 2" fans in my machine (removable drive bays, chipset, CPU and graphics card heatsink), and replaced them *all* with a couple of 4" or 5" fans. They're designed for 12v but I run them off the 5v rail. They're almost silent in operation, and blast a lot of air around the inside of the case. Everything runs nice and cool, and it's blissfully quiet...

Re:Big fan, low speed...

[Gordonjcp]

Ducting is good too... If you plan it out and duct air from the fans to case hotspots then you can get a nice quiet case *and* cool running.

Fan Alarms

[Detritus]

On one system that I helped develop, all of the fans had Hall effect sensors. These produce one pulse per revolution of the fan. These were wired into parallel I/O ports. The system software measured the RPM of all of the fans and generated a visual and audible alarm if any fan was dead or out of specified limits. All fans, even high-quality fans, eventually fail.