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EVGA 1080ti SC2 fan not working and strange noise

2K views 9 replies 3 participants last post by  McKay420 
#1 ·
The fan on my hybrid cooled GPU is not working. I have installed the proper drivers and tried 3 different hardware monitor apps plus the UEFI hardware monitor. The water pump seems to be working perfectly. It is running stable at almost 2 ghz, which is about 400mhz or so above its base clock rating.

I have run many different benchmarks on it and even under heavy load (DirectX12, 3440x1440resolution, etc.) for periods of up to 5 minutes, the temp gets no higher than 40 degrees Celsius. Benchmark scores are through the roof, as they should be. GTA V runs very smoothly at max settings minus frame scaling. If temps are so low with just liquid cooling and a dead fan, why does it need a fan at all? (the one on the GPU, not the radiator fan). Is this fan cooling some area of the GPU that for some reason needs to be air cooled, rather than liquid? Is it possible that something is over heating that isn't represented by a thermal sensor?

I guess I should mention that during tests such as "compute", like on PassMark Performance Test where it's an undulating fractal image, the GPU makes a noise that I could only describe as a very high-pitched, but fairly noticeable squeal. At first I thought it could be some capacitors or coils on the MB, which I guess it very well could be, as they supply a very large amount of power to the GPU. Especially since it is a 1080 ti. The reason I think it may be the GPU is that the sound seems to have a "rhythm" that almost exactly matches the movements on the screen. The weirdest thing is that when this started happening, I noticed an immediate improvement in benchmark scores. About 5-7% improvement. Sometimes it makes a shorter, but louder squeal when the computer is idling. I will try to make a video and upload it shortly. Should've had that ready, but give me 20 mins.
 
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#2 ·
Here are the videos. The sound is VERY hard to hear, so turn your speakers or (preferably) headphones pretty much all the way up. I promise I didn't make any startling noises. It's just hard to hear over the fans especially if you don't know what to listen for. I included one regular and one slow motion video with the phone right next to the GPU and focused on the graphics on the screen. The slow motion one is even harder to hear, but it shows how the sound syncs up with the movement of the graphics.

Before doing the test, I confirmed that the sound was coming from the GPU as far as I could tell. However it is a high-frequency sound, so it may just be an auditory illusion of sorts. Hopefully the forum allows me to upload them at their already diminished quality so that you can hear it for sure. Please follow up with responses. This issue really intrigues me.

Oh and the sound was most noticeable at the 800x600 resolution setting and became nearly non-existent by 1280x960. The graphics tend to move more slowly at higher resolutions. So does that mean it is using more power at 800x600? That makes no sense. Unless the voltage regulators somewhere are making the noise because they have to block more current from coming in? I don't know much about that stuff so that's a total assumption. I hope I get the links on these videos right. Never had to embed a video before.
https://sabercathost.com/9k6k/Regular.MOVhttps://sabercathost.com/9k6l/SlowMo.MOV
 
#3 ·
The fan mostly just runs when it needs to cool the power section, if you download EVGA XOC you can get a readout of all 9 sensors on the board if you want to be sure.

The sound you're getting is coil whine which is common when you reach very high framerates. This happens in certain synthetic loads, some old games run at low resolution and a few game menus. If it happens often in normal use and is an annoyance you can RMA it but otherwise it's really not an issue.
 
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#4 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by McKay420 View Post

If temps are so low with just liquid cooling and a dead fan, why does it need a fan at all? (the one on the GPU, not the radiator fan). Is this fan cooling some area of the GPU that for some reason needs to be air cooled, rather than liquid? Is it possible that something is over heating that isn't represented by a thermal sensor?
The Hybrid models work by having only the GPU chip cooled by the radiator, while the VRMs and inductors and such are just aircooled, hence the name hybrid. This is different to the Hydrocopper version of your card where they use a full cover copper block that makes contact with VRMs and inductors along with the GPU die itself.

It's very possible that there is enough residual airflow from case fans that the fan on your card does not need to spin up. With its 9 temp sensors, which is a lot more than more GPUs, you'd trust the card to know when VRMs are getting too hot
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#5 ·
I guess I haven't actually LOOKED at that fan under high loads, but I do have 11 fans in my case, so the residual airflow might be why. I have 8 fans blowing out and only 3 in (I refuse to believe that the radiator fans should blow IN to the case, rather than out like the instructions say). I also think having so this much negative pressure will just draw air through every other hole in the case, especially near the pci slots, so unless your case is sealed perfectly for some reason, positive and negative pressure shouldn't matter. Actually I bet if someone actually put a barometer inside a computer case, the reading would be nearly identical to the outside pressure.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by McKay420 View Post

I refuse to believe that the radiator fans should blow IN to the case, rather than out like the instructions say
When using watercooling, you must imagine in your mind's eye that the GPU chip is where the radiator is. On an outside wall of the case.

Would you then blow cool air from the room on it?

Or would you blow warm air from inside the case on it?
It's actually more complicated than that, because the GPU itself is generating heat inside the case, from convection and radiation. So to blow case air from inside onto the radiator makes a feedback loop from the residual GPU heat, into the radiator which carries back to the GPU. So for the best temp on the GPU chip, it always prefers fresh air.

Sure there is some feedback the other way as well, but a radiator fan blowing in is blowing air which is by definition less hot than the GPU itself. So the convection from that fan will also remove heat from the GPU.

Many people find it difficult to conceive that radiator fans should blow in. I think it comes from the idea that since the radiator is removing 30 degrees of heat from the GPU, the fans must be blowing really hot air that is equivalent to the heat removed. So you wouldn't want that to blow into the case because it'll make everything as hot as the GPU would have been if you weren't watercooling it. But of course that's not true. The energy contained in 30 degrees in the thumbnail size of a GPU becomes only a couple of degrees when spread over the 144cm2 of a radiator, and almost entirely lost in the whole volume of the case.

Cases get warm largely through radiation of all the components together, and get cool largely through any kind of convection from inside to outside or vice-versa. So the important thing about airflow in a case is not about negative or positive pressure, but about how much air goes from inside to out, and whether that air is running past the components that need air movement.

The counter example is CPU AIO with the rad on top of the case, where the GPU is air-cooled. This is quite a common set up. Generally in this case, the AIO rad should be set to blow out, not for the sake of the CPU, but for the sake of the GPU which would otherwise just be making a vortex with itself since an AIO blowing in and down would make an air buffer above the GPU card.

Anyway, if you are getting 40 degrees on your GPU while gaming, it's all fine and doesn't really matter which way you set your fans
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#7 ·
So you're saying I should flip every one of my fans? Here is my setup and maybe you will understand my dilemma. I am getting good temps on both my CPU and GPU even under very heavy loads. Why would you want to blow the warm air from the radiator back at the components you are cooling AND over all the smaller components inside. If I flipped every fan, I would have only 3 fans to suck out the warm air that the other 8 fans are blowing in.

 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by McKay420 View Post

So you're saying I should flip every one of my fans? Here is my setup and maybe you will understand my dilemma. I am getting good temps on both my CPU and GPU even under very heavy loads. Why would you want to blow the warm air from the radiator back at the components you are cooling AND over all the smaller components inside. If I flipped every fan, I would have only 3 fans to suck out the warm air that the other 8 fans are blowing in.
As I said in the spoiler bit, if you are happy with temps it doesn't matter
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But I posted because you said "I refuse to believe", and I took that as a challenge to explain why the manufacturers put this recommendation in the instructions.

I guessed that you have the idea, like many people do, that fans "suck out the warm air". It's a common idea that fans somehow extract the warmth and leave cold behind. Clearly not. It's more about the movement of fresh air from outside the case, into the case. Whether blowing it in directly, or blowing out case air which results in fresh air being sucked in. As you said yourself "negative pressure will just draw air through every other hole in the case". So the net effect of 8 fans results in the same volume of replenished air to the inside of the case whether they suck or blow. With 8 fans the whole volume of air in the case is probably refreshed many times per second.

And given that, you want the rads to have the coldest input, as that will give the best temps to CPU and GPU. And if those are cooler, they radiate less, and the rest of the components inside of the case will be less hot overall.

It is maybe counterintuitive. I learned this from using an H60 blowing into an SG05 and using the PSU as extractor fan. There the effect is very clearly observable, because the case is tiny and energy generated by air-cooled GPU and miscellaneous components such as chipset, VRMs, inductors becomes so concentrated. I learned the counterexample in an NCase M1 where the GPU is almost partitioned and cannot remove it's own hot air unless the fans above are pulling.
 
#9 ·
I wonder if having a full glass or plastic side vs metal or would have higher temps inside. Glass and plastic, if I'm not mistaken are very good insulators, while metal, such as aluminum (I think that's what most cases are made of anyway) is definitely more on the conductive side.

Earlier I stated that negative pressure will cause fresh air to flow in to every hole...these holes are very nicely spread out among the case, so fresh air coming in, especially around the back side of the motherboard, is probably a very good thing. When you have positive pressure and radiators it may be especially important, I believe, to disobey the strangely questionable recommendations from the manufacturer. If you have 8 fans blowing warm air from radiators in, and only 3 out, the small holes in the case become irrelevant. The holes may still let air out, but a fan does a far better job at this. I hope my ramblings make sense. I have problems formulating sentences when I'm stoned
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(It took me literally 20 mins to type this paragraph.)
 
#10 ·
I just had the idea to take out my multi-meter and temperature probe in order to see the temperature inside my case (I'll post a pic of my case again). I did this without removing the glass and took 2 measurements inside the case. For the first temp, I stuck the probe through a hole by the PCI area underneath my GPU and got the probe far enough in to reach the middle of the case. That temperature maxed out at 21.1 degrees Celsius. When I say maxed out, I mean I moved the probe around in order to find the hottest reading in the general area.

For the second reading, I found a hole above the 140mm fan on the back and the highest reading I could get in the whole area above the GPU was 20.5 degrees C. I guess I should mention that the air temperature in this room is 20.2 degrees C and that I took readings about 1 cm in front of the intake side of the radiator fans and got 20.3 degrees, nearly matching room temp. I can say for sure that when I'm gaming my room gets hotter and I'm glad that heat isn't inside the case.
 
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