Spin down fans completely on VGA coolers

[lKashl]

So with alot of video cards these days coming with bulked heatsinks and standard 2d modes and power phases, i was wondering whether its possible to completely deactivate a graphics cards fans for a certain temperature range (ie. 0-40 degrees celcius).

I've tried setting a custom fan profile in MSI afterburner, however despite AB indicating that the fans are spinning at 0% there is still a tachometer reading (confirmed to be correct after i took the side panel off to verify it).

Sooo does anyone have any ideas? I'm thinking its a protection measure in the video card bios to prevent operation under a fan failure so overriding the bios as a hardware level is the only solution, but im hoping someone has a less intrusive alternative :D

[ilya]

Most cards on the market have a BIOS minimum of 30/40%, no way to change it without a custom BIOS. Afterburner should indicate 30/40% fan speed after you attempt to set it to 0%.

[LarkStarr]

I'm wondering why you'd want to do this in the first place? at like 30% the fan isn't making any noticeable noise.

[lKashl]

Originally Posted by LarkStarr

I'm wondering why you'd want to do this in the first place? at like 30% the fan isn't making any noticeable noise.

Its not so much noise as the fact that one of my fans is located directly above my powersupply with about 1cm clearance between, so they counter each other and theoretically reduce the fans life span. Considering that the card close to the PSU is only used when I have crossfire activated (which is a rarity these days) its pretty much pointless having them counterspinning against each other unnecessarily.

[Soultribunal]

Originally Posted by lKashl

Its not so much noise as the fact that one of my fans is located directly above my powersupply with about 1cm clearance between, so they counter each other and theoretically reduce the fans life span. Considering that the card close to the PSU is only used when I have crossfire activated (which is a rarity these days) its pretty much pointless having them counterspinning against each other unnecessarily.

For the amount of life it would theoretically reduce, I wouldn't worry about it.

Regards,
ST

[_dangtx_]

you need to work at the bios fan profile levels. as long as you play it safe you should be fine.

[LarkStarr]

how do they counter each other? the video card would be blowing out the back, the psu should also be blowing out the back, either sucking from the bottom, or from inside the case.

So I'm assuming you're drawing in air into both products from the same general location -> That's perfectly fine, you're going going to have significantly reduced air pressure in that one section or anything. So I wouldn't honestly worry about it. You'd likely kill your video card faster from the idle heat it generates.

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by LarkStarr

how do they counter each other? the video card would be blowing out the back, the psu should also be blowing out the back, either sucking from the bottom, or from inside the case.

So I'm assuming you're drawing in air into both products from the same general location -> That's perfectly fine, you're going going to have significantly reduced air pressure in that one section or anything. So I wouldn't honestly worry about it. You'd likely kill your video card faster from the idle heat it generates.

Most gpus these days are blowing out from EVERYWHERE not just the back and if you look at the fan design on some of the dual fan gpus you'll notice one fan has a slightly different fan pitch than the other.

[LarkStarr]

True, I assumed it was one of those blow out the back units with the heat sink enclosure, not a frozr type device.

but still that's just more reason to keep the fans running, to dissipate the heat created from just a small space

[joquio]

Flip the PSU then?
Otherwise as others have said, it won't reduce the life of the fans....since PSU fan is intake and GPU is exhaust