Better GPU Performance with Fan Speed Set to Manual?

[PockyMaster]

Helloo,

To me, it seems like an odd phenomena, but my GPU performs better with my fans set to a manual fan speed. It did not stutter as much when the card is manually set to any fixed speed percentage.

I have noticed the fan tachometer readings to be completely unreliable under 40% though. It reads 0 RPM.

I have had this one incident where one of my case fan wires was caught in the GPU fan blades and made my card shoot up to 130c before the drivers crashed. Do you guys think that might have damaged something?

[Soultribunal]

I know when some GPU cores are dying or on there way out that you need to keep them cooler to work. You might have a dying GPU that is why you are getting what you are getting.

Not 100% though,

ST

[PockyMaster]

Living on borrowed time, pretty chill, pretty poetic.

I guess It's only a matter of time... Until i pick up a 6950.

[Soultribunal]

Yeah give it a whirl. Not much you can do if the GPU is on its way out. Least that is how it sounds to me.

-ST

[PockyMaster]

Thanks for the heads up. I've prepared myself for the new card. I purchased an Antec Truepower New 650w power supply for my next video card purchase. I bet it'll be tons better than that thermaltake 430watt one I purchased earlier.

[Arinoth]

Your card will always run cooler if you take it off the default crappy fan profile and set it to a higher fan speed (either 1 speed or using a custom fan profile). Check out the thread in my signature for an easy how-to

[Soultribunal]

Originally Posted by PockyMaster

Thanks for the heads up. I've prepared myself for the new card. I purchased an Antec Truepower New 650w power supply for my next video card purchase. I bet it'll be tons better than that thermaltake 430watt one I purchased earlier.

And that could be one of the reasons your card is dying. Being fed bad voltage from day one kills hardware.

Good choice on your new PSU, much better than that 430.

ST

[PockyMaster]

Thanks for the heads up soultribunal. Yeah I knew that power supply was really cutting it close for the 6850, but I took the gamble, and I may have lost on that bet. I was trying to be real cautious with my power requirements by undervolting the CPU and removing the storage hard drive and DVD drive from the power supply until I needed it. I bet that was the least of my worries with that power supply.

Also thanks for the tip arinoth. It does keeps the temperatures at bay while gaming and keep the noise down when I'm not.

[Supergrover]

Originally Posted by PockyMaster

Thanks for the heads up soultribunal. Yeah I knew that power supply was really cutting it close for the 6850, but I took the gamble, and I may have lost on that bet. I was trying to be real cautious with my power requirements by undervolting the CPU and removing the storage hard drive and DVD drive from the power supply until I needed it. I bet that was the least of my worries with that power supply.

Also thanks for the tip arinoth. It does keeps the temperatures at bay while gaming and keep the noise down when I'm not.

I believe ST comment was on the quality of power being supplied by that unit rather than being run at its maximum.
PSU's are the one place that nobody should be scrimping on, shitty psu's do kill components either by blowing up and taking something with them or by ripple.
Also what were your temps hitting with the default profiles? could just be that the card was getting to hot and throttling causing stutter as the clocks fluctuate.

[Soultribunal]

Originally Posted by Supergrover

I believe ST comment was on the quality of power being supplied by that unit rather than being run at its maximum.
PSU's are the one place that nobody should be scrimping on, shitty psu's do kill components either by blowing up and taking something with them or by ripple.
Also what were your temps hitting with the default profiles? could just be that the card was getting to hot and throttling causing stutter as the clocks fluctuate.

SG's got it bang on.
PSU's should be able to run at their rated power no matter what. Its the fact the power was 'dirty' and out of spec more than likely that killed it.

Those 430's were nightmare PSU's.

But I don't need to worry, because you chose a good was as its replacement.

ST