Fan Bearings wearing out in 10 series GPU fans as expected life time elapses. A GPUpocalypse?

[Uttamattamakin]

Thinking over the GPU shortage and it's effects on the industry last night on a visit to Micro Center it occurred to me that there is a critical issue no one is talking about.   Many of us who game or who just use a computer with a good graphics card from the 10 series have had them running 16-24 hours per day for up to 5-6 years now.  Some of them bought used after crypto mining. 

 

The electronics on the cards are solid state non moving parts.  Whiley the can wear out due to thermal stresses, repeated power cycles etc a solid state device will more or less function as long as it has power and avoids physical destruction. 

 

The bearings in the GPU fans are another matter.  Like all mechanical systems they wear out over time.  They have a certain design lifetime, and a certain design usage of so many hours before failure their  "Mean Time Between failures".  This is a spec people who computed when hard drives were all over the place will remember.  

 

There is some pretty formal research on this issue in general. 

How to evaluate fan life | Electronics Cooling (electronics-cooling.com) by Sung J. Kim and Alan Claassen IBM storage systems division. 

 

Video Card Failure Rates by Generation (pugetsystems.com)  Matt bach of Puget systems

 

Then FWIW there is this old thread from the before time 2018

How long will a GTX 1080 last? - Graphics Cards - Linus Tech Tips  Where the opinion is given that it should last 6-7 years. 

 

From what I can tell the Mean time between failures for a GPU fan or similar device of around 50,000 hours is considered acceptable.  That works out to 5.7 years and matches the general consensus from the above. 

 

This may we will be reaching that 6 year mark for when one can expect their GPU fan failing or starting to show signs of failure, more noise, less efficiency even when cleaned well, or even being a total loss.   Which is even worse now since many are not running computers with some form of on board IGP, or APU, and have no fall back position. 

 

Given the situation we are in right now with replacement GPU's rarer than hens teeth and all manufacturing slowed down are we all on borrowed time?   Are just feeling the start of a sort of GPU apocalypse? Can't buy one and the used ones are all mechanically ready to fail.  If so what should be done about it? 

 

[Kanna]

You don’t post often but when you do damn is it educational and well written 

[Applefreak]

3 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Thinking over the GPU shortage and it's effects on the industry last night on a visit to Micro Center it occurred to me that there is a critical issue no one is talking about.   Many of us who game or who just use a computer with a good graphics card from the 10 series have had them running 16-24 hours per day for up to 5-6 years now.  Some of them bought used after crypto mining. 

 

The electronics on the cards are solid state non moving parts.  Whiley the can wear out due to thermal stresses, repeated power cycles etc a solid state device will more or less function as long as it has power and avoids physical destruction. 

 

The bearings in the GPU fans are another matter.  Like all mechanical systems they wear out over time.  They have a certain design lifetime, and a certain design usage of so many hours before failure their  "Mean Time Between failures".  This is a spec people who computed when hard drives were all over the place will remember.  

 

There is some pretty formal research on this issue in general. 

How to evaluate fan life | Electronics Cooling (electronics-cooling.com) by Sung J. Kim and Alan Claassen IBM storage systems division. 

 

Video Card Failure Rates by Generation (pugetsystems.com)  Matt bach of Puget systems

 

Then FWIW there is this old thread from the before time 2018

How long will a GTX 1080 last? - Graphics Cards - Linus Tech Tips  Where the opinion is given that it should last 6-7 years. 

 

From what I can tell the Mean time between failures for a GPU fan or similar device of around 50,000 hours is considered acceptable.  That works out to 5.7 years and matches the general consensus from the above. 

 

This may we will be reaching that 6 year mark for when one can expect their GPU fan failing or starting to show signs of failure, more noise, less efficiency even when cleaned well, or even being a total loss.   Which is even worse now since many are not running computers with some form of on board IGP, or APU, and have no fall back position. 

 

Given the situation we are in right now with replacement GPU's rarer than hens teeth and all manufacturing slowed down are we all on borrowed time?   Are just feeling the start of a sort of GPU apocalypse? Can't buy one and the used ones are all mechanically ready to fail.  If so what should be done about it? 

 

First of, you can get replacement coolers, entire units with the coldplate if you like. Second, replacing fans is not that hard on most cards. If that is not an option or you cannot find a replacement, strapping a couple of case fans on with some cable ties does net better results than the oem fans anyways.

[Gorou92]

aren't gpu fans something easy to replace ?

[RollinLower]

maybe the first legitimate reason to watercool your GPU then? 

21 minutes ago, Gorou92 said:

aren't gpu fans something easy to replace ?

sometimes, yes. on lower priced/more obscure models it can be pretty challenging. especially for non tech savvy people.

 

anyway, most products exceed their mean time between failures, so i guess most people running Pascal cards are probably fine.

[Uttamattamakin]

42 minutes ago, Applefreak said:

First of, you can get replacement coolers, entire units with the coldplate if you like. Second, replacing fans is not that hard on most cards. If that is not an option or you cannot find a replacement, strapping a couple of case fans on with some cable ties does net better results than the oem fans anyways.

We can now because a wave of failures of these cards has not occurred yet.  While the cooling hardware is easier to produce than the cards. Something tells me that there exist a tiny production line of people producing new coolers for video cards that are 5-6 years old.   The stock of replacements we have now would be all there is.   With the usual course of action for a broken 6 years old GPU being to simply buy a new one.  ... which is not likely to be possible. 

 

45 minutes ago, Gorou92 said:

aren't gpu fans something easy to replace ?

IF you can find them.  You can now because a shortage hasn't hit yet.  In May, just a couple of months from now the Mean Time Between failures for the fans of GTX 10 series cards will come up.  This does not mean they will all fail at the stroke of midnight.  However, as card fans failing becomes more common and new cards stay rare (and also consume the manufacturing capacity of new coolers... that could change. 

 

30 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

maybe the first legitimate reason to watercool your GPU then? 

sometimes, yes. on lower priced/more obscure models it can be pretty challenging. especially for non tech savvy people.

 

anyway, most products exceed their mean time between failures, so i guess most people running Pascal cards are probably fine.

Hope can be a dangerous thing.   If one is just gaming on their computer or doing non essential task this is not a big deal.  
If one needs their computer for work and will be totally broke without it this is as critical of a thought as ones car needing new bearings for it's various parts. 

 

Simple humble ball bearings that have existed since the age of steam (if not longer) could bring down the most advanced technology as they are key to the cooling fans. 

[whm1974]

I wonder if this would require some sort of Moonshot to develop ways to dramatically reduce waste heat with decreasing performance...

 

You know, do away with fans all together? Well aside from the Case Fans, but those are the easiest to replace.

[Monkey Dust]

For heavy gaming use, averaging  5 hours a day, 50000 hours life will give you just over 27 years. Not unreasonable for a consumer grade product. Typical usage probably averages less than that, so I doubt we are going to see a 10 series apocalypse. According to the steam hardware survey there are plenty of 900 series cards still out there working.   

 

For running 24/7, there is a reason why server grade stuff costs so much. And also a reason you shouldn't touch an ex-mining card unless it is super cheap.

[Blue4130]

3 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

IF you can find them.  You can now because a shortage hasn't hit yet.  In May, just a couple of months from now the Mean Time Between failures for the fans of GTX 10 series cards will come up.  This does not mean they will all fail at the stroke of midnight.  However, as card fans failing becomes more common and new cards stay rare (and also consume the manufacturing capacity of new coolers... that could change.

It's not hard to mod a standard 92 or 120mm fan onto a gpu. There are always options.

[AlwaysFSX]

GPUs use mass produced fans with a company sticker slapped on them, replacements are a couple bucks and very easily replaced. There's no crisis with their fans failing.

[WhitetailAni]

4 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Thinking over the GPU shortage and it's effects on the industry last night on a visit to Micro Center it occurred to me that there is a critical issue no one is talking about.   Many of us who game or who just use a computer with a good graphics card from the 10 series have had them running 16-24 hours per day for up to 5-6 years now.  Some of them bought used after crypto mining. 

 

The electronics on the cards are solid state non moving parts.  Whiley the can wear out due to thermal stresses, repeated power cycles etc a solid state device will more or less function as long as it has power and avoids physical destruction. 

 

The bearings in the GPU fans are another matter.  Like all mechanical systems they wear out over time.  They have a certain design lifetime, and a certain design usage of so many hours before failure their  "Mean Time Between failures".  This is a spec people who computed when hard drives were all over the place will remember.  

 

There is some pretty formal research on this issue in general. 

How to evaluate fan life | Electronics Cooling (electronics-cooling.com) by Sung J. Kim and Alan Claassen IBM storage systems division. 

 

Video Card Failure Rates by Generation (pugetsystems.com)  Matt bach of Puget systems

 

Then FWIW there is this old thread from the before time 2018

How long will a GTX 1080 last? - Graphics Cards - Linus Tech Tips  Where the opinion is given that it should last 6-7 years. 

 

From what I can tell the Mean time between failures for a GPU fan or similar device of around 50,000 hours is considered acceptable.  That works out to 5.7 years and matches the general consensus from the above. 

 

This may we will be reaching that 6 year mark for when one can expect their GPU fan failing or starting to show signs of failure, more noise, less efficiency even when cleaned well, or even being a total loss.   Which is even worse now since many are not running computers with some form of on board IGP, or APU, and have no fall back position. 

 

Given the situation we are in right now with replacement GPU's rarer than hens teeth and all manufacturing slowed down are we all on borrowed time?   Are just feeling the start of a sort of GPU apocalypse? Can't buy one and the used ones are all mechanically ready to fail.  If so what should be done about it? 

 

I'm running 2 7-year-old cards.

They've been running nonstop since their purchase date.

Fans have been going up and down depending on how I set the fan curve, I frequently shut my PC off to tinker with it, etc.

And want to know how these cards are doing?
Fine!
Couldn't be running better!
Just because they should be doesn't mean they will.

Heck, I have a fan from 1992.

Runs perfectly fine - no noise, moves a decent amount of air for its size (it's 80mm but with pretty small blades).

Pentium III Slot 1 cooler (integrated on to the CPU card, very difficult to replace)? Runs fine. 40C at idle. No noise, vibration, screeching. And this is a 22-year-old fan.

This just seems silly to me.

[Uttamattamakin]

2 hours ago, whm1974 said:

I wonder if this would require some sort of Moonshot to develop ways to dramatically reduce waste heat with decreasing performance...

 

You know, do away with fans all together? Well aside from the Case Fans, but those are the easiest to replace.

At least to the point where the cards can be passively cooled.   Consider the following. 

 

About 20 years ago and really until 2005 or so  it was necessary to have a separate sound card in order to have any audio beyond the PC speaker.  Then up to about 2010 one needed a sound card to get 5.1 sound or 7.1 sound.  Now that is often built into motherboards and is just fine for most people.  Sound got to the point where the difference between the best and the midrange was too small for ordinary uses.  

 

The day will come when IGP's and APU's are good enough that having a separate graphics card is not needed.  At that point GPU's will likely still exist.   They'll look like the GT1030 or GT710 do now.  Tiny passively cooled.  Maybe so you can have more video outputs or maybe to offload some of the computing from the CPU.  GPU's that are high end and cooled will exist but almost no one will need them.    Quadro tier cards.  LTT will still want to game on them... but for most people they will eventually be superfluous. 

 

35 minutes ago, Monkey Dust said:

For heavy gaming use, averaging  5 hours a day, 50000 hours life will give you just over 27 years. Not unreasonable for a consumer grade product. Typical usage probably averages less than that, so I doubt we are going to see a 10 series apocalypse. According to the steam hardware survey there are plenty of 900 series cards still out there working.   

 

For running 24/7, there is a reason why server grade stuff costs so much. And also a reason you shouldn't touch an ex-mining card unless it is super cheap.

You are right about a lot here.  If people game and otherwise use their computer for five days and then completely shut down or put to sleep their desktop computer this is true. 

 

The thing is quite a few people do not do that.  Quite a few people are AFK for long periods in many online games.  Furthermore many people just don't turn their computer off.  I've noticed that GPU's tend to have their fans spinning even when they aren't doing much of anything.  

 

25 minutes ago, AlwaysFSX said:

GPUs use mass produced fans with a company sticker slapped on them, replacements are a couple bucks and very easily replaced. There's no crisis with their fans failing.

Perhaps.  On many of the AIB cards this is the case and that is a good thing about them.  That is hardly universal though.  Consider the fans on a 1080 Founders eddition. 

 

 

There aren't a ton of fans like that one on Amazon 

 

What some have suggested is to "just put a water block on it"  for people whose fans failed years ago. 

Which leads me into. 

23 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

I'm running 2 7-year-old cards.

They've been running nonstop since their purchase date.

Fans have been going up and down depending on how I set the fan curve, I frequently shut my PC off to tinker with it, etc.

And want to know how these cards are doing?
Fine!
Couldn't be running better!
Just because they should be doesn't mean they will.

Heck, I have a fan from 1992.

Runs perfectly fine - no noise, moves a decent amount of air for its size (it's 80mm but with pretty small blades).

Pentium III Slot 1 cooler (integrated on to the CPU card, very difficult to replace)? Runs fine. 40C at idle. No noise, vibration, screeching. And this is a 22-year-old fan.

This just seems silly to me.

As have I the "mean time between failure" isn't a point at which when the clock strikes midnight the carriage turns into a pumpkin.  

However, it is the point at which an average fan, or motor or other device will be more likely to fail than not.   

 

The issue isn't us here on the LTT forum who will take care of things and maintain them.  The issue is the much MUCH larger group of people who will just run their technology right into the ground.   Ask the average person you know who is not into computers about the fans inside their computer.  Some may have no idea about them at all. 

 

For example.  I had to tell a student this semester that the reason their computer was overheating and shutting down wasn't because the homework is hard.  It is because they have their laptop sitting on a fluffy warm pillow and it's blocking the airflow.    Think of all the GTX1080's being run in cases that have no airflow.  Fans spinning like mad this whole time just to operate. 

[WhitetailAni]

4 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The day will come when IGP's and APU's are good enough that having a separate graphics card is not needed.

Not unless we make a big breakthrough on efficiency on hardware or software side.

The power required to do something in software has always grown almost the same with the power required to make that happen with the hardware.

4 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

At that point GPU's will likely still exist.   They'll look like the GT1030 or GT710 do now.  Tiny passively cooled.

Again, no this won't. There will always be a demand for higher-power chips, unless we figure out how to make them produce a fraction of the heat they do.

4 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

Perhaps.  On many of the AIB cards this is the case and that is a good thing about them.  That is hardly universal though.  Consider the fans on a 1080 Founders eddition. 

 

 

There aren't a ton of fans like that one on Amazon 

Even so, you can find them.

Took me 10 seconds to find one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Graphics-Card-Fan-Replacement-for-GIGABYTE-N970-GTX1080-1080ti-Turbo-RTX-2080TI/264871095953?hash=item3dab8c2e91:g:8KsAAOSwV6VfZplN

 

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's family dinner time.

[whm1974]

3 minutes ago, Uttamattamakin said:

At least to the point where the cards can be passively cooled.   Consider the following. 

 

About 20 years ago and really until 2005 or so  it was necessary to have a separate sound card in order to have any audio beyond the PC speaker.  Then up to about 2010 one needed a sound card to get 5.1 sound or 7.1 sound.  Now that is often built into motherboards and is just fine for most people.  Sound got to the point where the difference between the best and the midrange was too small for ordinary uses.  

 

The day will come when IGP's and APU's are good enough that having a separate graphics card is not needed.  At that point GPU's will likely still exist.   They'll look like the GT1030 or GT710 do now.  Tiny passively cooled.  Maybe so you can have more video outputs or maybe to offload some of the computing from the CPU.  GPU's that are high end and cooled will exist but almost no one will need them.    Quadro tier cards.  LTT will still want to game on them... but for most people they will eventually be superfluous.

That take a long while before dGPUs are not needed for most games. I doubt We will get even close to that. One big advantage dGPUs have, is they have their own pool of fast Memory. High Bandwidth reserved to the dGUP itself.

[RejZoR]

Modern cards run passive when not under full load under normal conditions, meaning 3/4 of time they'll not even spin. With crypto mining, it means fan will run at all times. It's not a difficult math to do...

[jimm_eh]

30 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

That take a long while before dGPUs are not needed for most games. I doubt We will get even close to that. One big advantage dGPUs have, is they have their own pool of fast Memory. High Bandwidth reserved to the dGUP itself.

Indeed.  Discrete audio cards disappeared because audio applications hit a "ceiling of perfection" where more bits/samples give no perceptible improvement.

GPU's in their various applications are a long way off from hitting any such ceiling.

 

[whm1974]

16 minutes ago, jimm_eh said:

Indeed.  Discrete audio cards disappeared because audio applications hit a "ceiling of perfection" where more bits/samples give no perceptible improvement.

GPU's in their various applications are a long way off from hitting any such ceiling.

 

I'm thinking of some kind of Chiplet. Instead of being a I/O Die, it would Separate Memory instead for the iGPU. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 hour ago, Uttamattamakin said:

The day will come when IGP's and APU's are good enough that having a separate graphics card is not needed. 

Omg, not this shit again.

 

 

A separate gpu will always be a better value for $/perf. It's purpose built. And compair ddr4 to gddr6x. Compaired to 6x, Ddr4 is like how one would view sdr ram now.

[Zodiark1593]

2 hours ago, Uttamattamakin said:

 

 

The day will come when IGP's and APU's are good enough that having a separate graphics card is not needed.  At that point GPU's will likely still exist.   They'll look like the GT1030 or GT710 do now.  Tiny passively cooled.  Maybe so you can have more video outputs or maybe to offload some of the computing from the CPU.  GPU's that are high end and cooled will exist but almost no one will need them.    Quadro tier cards.  LTT will still want to game on them... but for most people they will eventually be superfluous. 

 

 

I’d been hearing this a nearly decade ago (when the Ilano APUs were first coming out), and has yet to occur. If size differences on modern fabrication isn’t enough to dissuade this opinion, consider both the memory bus widths and memory itself common on high end cards. Wide memory buses are expensive, and GDDR memory is power hungry in return for what is effectively highly clocked Quad Data Rate RAM. Integrating GDDR memory onto a motherboard would heavily increase complexity. 
 

Consider that we’ve just barely reached the point where real-time ray tracing is merely feasible, not even mentioning the fact that a true, unbiased renderer is very far away from running real-time, and game developers are rather ambitious people willing to push the bounds of what’s available, I find this to be unlikely for the foreseeable future, barring some potential circumstances...

 

Real-time graphics is currently following the trajectory of offline techniques from the late 2000s, utilizing a mix of rasterization and ray trace techniques. If offline techniques stop advancing altogether, then the finish line for real-time will probably be a decade or so out from that, especially factoring in 120+ framerates that is demanded. Assuming technological advance keeps pace, which if not, is all the more reason for offboard GPUs to still be used (if anything, this would probably force multi-GPU to be adopted). 
 

 The other circumstance would be a technological stunting, brought on by customers having so little availability of GPU components that developers are literally forced to target iGPUs (and quite possibly last gen consoles) for their recommended spec. This would only be temporary until supplies improve however. 
 

The apocalyptic situation would be for AMD and Nvidia to simply stop catering to gamers, and reserve their performant lineups (outside basic display adaptors) for their professional lineups, forcing gamers and developers to stuff it. Probably only realistic if GPU mining is to be a permanent factor or vendors are forced into lesser quantities of silicon (by government intervention perhaps?), as the professional market alone isn’t large enough to move a lot of chips and sustain Amd/Nvidia. 

[Arika]

depends on the AIB, not every manufacturer is going to be using the same supplier for fans.

 

Something tells me you just hate dGPUs because you can't purchase a new one and want everything to be made for APUs and iGPUs.

 

[Dabombinable]

Just buy new fans. The ones on my Inno3D x2 (one of if not the cheapest non-blower GTX 1070) are questionable when they and the card start getting hot, so I'm on the lookout for replacements.

The fans on some cards after all use sleeve bearings, and in the worst possible orientation for them. It's the way things have been for over 20 years with dGPU/video cards

[TetraSky]

You can typically find generic fans on ebay easily. Either through the part number of the fan (once your dismantle it) or by the card's model.
 

If all else fail... You can do what I did and strap Noctua fans to your old GPU. It will be quieter than it ever was.

[whm1974]

3 hours ago, TetraSky said:

You can typically find generic fans on ebay easily. Either through the part number of the fan (once your dismantle it) or by the card's model.
 

If all else fail... You can do what I did and strap Noctua fans to your old GPU. It will be quieter than it ever was.

Thanks for mentioning this. I just so happen to two fan mounts on the side my Corsair 300R Case.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Graphics Cards

[Mick Naughty]

Plenty of fan replacements available for the models I would buy. But my cooling has no moving parts with difficult parts availability. 
Well past the cards life span, so if it’s an issue just upgrade to something new.