Sapphire Pulse AMD RX 5700XT - 1st fan runs extremely loud while the other is stopped; puting in a load (Heaven, Kombustor) quiets the fans down

[191x7]

I have a weird issue. Upon booting my system, the first fan of the GPU spins like crazy and is extremely loud. The second one doesn't even spin. Both fans are supposed to be stopped (zero fan till 60°C).

 

That fast spinning fan startled rattling a couple months ago (because of the spinning!) and I replaced both with new fans a couple weeks ago. The same issue persists with the new fans.

 

The thing is, in most cases, when I pot a load on the GPU, for example Unigine heaven, MSI Kombustor, Furmark, a game or even the AMD short stress test from Adrenalin, after a minute or two the card goes silent.

 

The same happens with both bioses, and I've even played arround with MorePowerTool (MPT), overclocking, undervolting, different drivers.

 

I am the first and sole owner of the card, it's in my system since November 2019 and I plan a replacement in a couple months (waiting for the RX 7700XT) and the card never mined.

Most of it's heavy use was Battlefield, CyberPunk and PUBG. My full system is in the signature.

 

Have you experienced something like this, maybe know of a solution? My next step will probably be dismantling the card and checking the fan controller, replacing the paste and the pads. Have vacation middle January.

 

TL;DR - 1 loud fan out of 2, often quiets down under load, replaced fans, cold GPU in idle lukewarm under load. Drivers, bioses, MorePowerTool etc - nothing solved the issue.

[Kid.Lazer]

Sounds like it setting the fan to 100% instead of 0%, and when you put a load on it, it pulls up(down?) to a normal speed. Can you try disabling the Zero-fan feature as a temporary workaround?

 

I have a 5700 myself, but it's a reference blower model that doesn't support zero-RPM. I don't know what kind of driver options are available for you.

[191x7]

1 minute ago, Kid.Lazer said:

Sounds like it setting the fan to 100% instead of 0%, and when you put a load on it, it pulls up(down?) to a normal speed. Can you try disabling the Zero-fan feature as a temporary workaround?

I did that in multiple ways, the same issue happens. MorePowerTool, custom bios, ...

Online research finds people with a similar issue, supposedly AMD drivers force the zero fan modes and fan speeds of the reference cards, but even MSI afterburner fan curves do not help.

Btw, the fan doesn't spin 100%, maybe 80% since it can go faster; maybe the fan throttling speed.

Feels like the card doesn't sense the second fan and forces the primary as a safety measure.

Not sure.

[191x7]

Also, forgot to mention, let's say I play a game and exit it, in a minute or two after that the card enters the "loud state".

Also, waking the PC from standby (not sleep or hibernation) causes the "loud state" to start.

Let's just say - the card is loud under idle, silent under medium load, louder under high load but not as loud as in idle.

[191x7]

@Kid.LazerI might have found "a solution" and a wild theory explanation.

 

 

The PWM minimum is on 15% by deafult.

 

Now, hear me out, it seems the 15% was not enough for the old fans and the new ones (maybe the PWM controller weakened), the card detected an fan issue and ramped the first fan to spin (loud).

 

Edit: And, the loud fan is back

Edit2: Loud for a short time and then quiets down. Hm, I have to investigate this by monitoring the temperatures and changing the settings.

edit3: The Start Temperature seems to be the temperature at which the fans start and the fans stop when the stop temperature has been reached. 

[Kid.Lazer]

They would obviously be different fans than mine, but my blower fan also defaulted to a minimum 15%, but had a horrible acoustic profile at that speed. I reduced it to 10% which sounds much better, BUT every now and again it will ramp for a split second, then drop back down immediately. I wonder if mine is exhibiting the same issue, but recovers out of it much faster than yours.

 

I'll go look at my MPT settings to see what, if anything, is different.

[Kid.Lazer]

Here's my fan settings. The minimum percentage is the only thing I changed from default.

[191x7]

11 minutes ago, Kid.Lazer said:

Here's my fan settings. The minimum percentage is the only thing I changed from default.

 

Does your card have the 0-rpm fan option? Looking at your MPT screenshot, it doesn't seem to.

[Kid.Lazer]

No, it's a blower card, and as far as I'm aware, they do not offer zero-RPM.

[191x7]

On 12/25/2022 at 1:09 AM, Kid.Lazer said:

No, it's a blower card, and as far as I'm aware, they do not offer zero-RPM.

 

Ok, what I did today is - opened the card, repasted it (the old paste was almost like new) and replaced the thermal pads (the old pads were pretty-much dried up, so I switched them out with the pads of the same thickness, but i only had those low quality ones). Now, on the first boot after that and after reboot - the PC IS SILENT.

The temperatures are about the same, some better some a bit worse, but the fan issue seems to be gone (knock on wood). 

[Kid.Lazer]

That doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm glad you sorted it out. Hopefully it stays that way.

[191x7]

2 minutes ago, Kid.Lazer said:

That doesn't make any sense to me, but I'm glad you sorted it out. Hopefully it stays that way.

To me too.

 

Maybe the 4-pin fan header had a bad connection or something, I had disconnected and reconnected every connection on the GPU and checked all the parts for damage - the card looks new.

[191x7]

The issue seems to be solved (at least 4 now).