One Graphics Card fan not working.

[kokabel]

Soooo. I went to get my PC on today and it made a dreadful noise. I quickly turned it back off and went investigating internally. Gave it a good dust out, made sure no wires were touching anything they shouldn't be. Anyway, I turned it on with the side off to see if it would make the noise again - it did, but very briefly, and before I could get my ear in there to have a good listen to where it was coming from.

However, as soon as I went and looked, I noticed that one of the three fans on my GTX680 (Palit edition) was not spinning. The other two (middle and right side fan) are spinning fine. They've always been spinning any other time I have looked so I'm pretty sure it not anything to do with the fan being 'off' due to it just not being required by the machine. I think, sadly, it's just buggered.

Here's the silly part, I'd been hearing a weird noise on and off for a while, the kind of noise that makes you think... hmm, there's a bad bearing somewhere in there. I thought I had identified that noise as being one of the case fans, and figured I'd fix it when it I got around to it (and never did). Well, it's certainly no longer making that noise... so I'm thinking that my sound-location skills just sucked and it was the card fan all along.

That said, it's sitting at a decent temperature anyway, even with one fan down. I haven't tried to game or put it through it's paces, will try a bit of light gaming later to see what it does.

So, I don't quite know what to do. I'm not even 100% it is anything to do with the fan bearing but that is a distinct possibility. Ideas anyone?

 

[mantadog]

All those fans should be spinning, if it aint it's not working properly... Switching the fan on a GPU is made almost impossible by virtue of the fact it's impossible to get a replacement. Also its a pain taking the thing apart, just on the whole not a good thing to be doing.

My advice. Test it out in a few games, check the temps and consider getting software that sounds an alarm if it goes over a pre defined limit. What you could do, if you want to keep using it but the temps are a little high, is underlcock it. yes to get any real reductions you will loose significant performance, but it will leave you with a usable card.

How old is the card? Might it still me covered by a manufacturers warranty?

 

[kokabel]

I got it May 2012, so I think that's possibly out of warranty by now?

I already have alarm software for the card temp, I've never had it go off and I set it very conservative too. I'm just currently tooling around on games seeing what happens, and while it's running a little hotter than it might on not overly intensive games, it's still reasonable I think (running at about 65c atm). I'll keep an eye on it anyhow!

 

[mantadog]

I'd be happy letting it run into the 70's no problem at all, 65 is still really nice. Just keep an eye on it, if needed you can underclock it to see if that helps any.
I guess the warranty will have expired by now, unless you got an extended one for whatever reason then id say that avenue is out.

 

[kokabel]

Made the noise on power up again today, it's a horrible noise, haha! It sounds as if the left-most fan of the card is trying desperately to work. It carries on for a few mins, the PC powers up just fine, and then the noise goes. Of course trying to witness this in action with the side off, only meant that the fan didn't do it that time.

Other than that, towards later in the evening as ambient temp dropped, I was running games at around 55-60c which is pretty damn decent considering one fan is down. Worse comes to worse, I guess I can use the PCS upgrade service for a new, decently priced card.