MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G Fan "Problem"

[Vacras]

Hey guys,

I've recently got my new GPU from MSI and I am loving it! The cooling solution on this card is awesome, when idle the card sits at around 40 degrees with its fans off and under load the temperature never exceedes 65 degrees with 30% fan speed which is not audible in my case.

The only thing I've noticed and that I am worried about is this:

When I am playing games like World of Tanks or other games which aren't too demanding for my GPU the temperatures of my GPU core rises slowly up to 60 degrees. At that point the fans of the card will turn on and cool everything back down to around 50 degrees and than turn back off.

This process repeats itself over and over again in 5 minute intervals whilst I am playing and I'm wondering if it's healthy for the fans to turn on and off so many times.

Do you think there will be any reduction in lifetime on those fans because of the constant on/off or will there be no impact at all?

Thanks in advance

[Senzelian]

Hey guys,

I've recently got my new GPU from MSI and I am loving it! The cooling solution on this card is awesome, when idle the card sits at around 40 degrees with its fans off and under load the temperature never exceedes 65 degrees with 30% fan speed which is not audible in my case.

The only thing I've noticed and that I am worried about is this:

When I am playing games like World of Tanks or other games which aren't too demanding for my GPU the temperatures of my GPU core rises slowly up to 60 degrees. At that point the fans of the card will turn on and cool everything back down to around 50 degrees and than turn back off.

This process repeats itself over and over again in 5 minute intervals whilst I am playing and I'm wondering if it's healthy for the fans to turn on and off so many times.

Do you think there will be any reduction in lifetime on those fans because of the constant on/off or will there be no impact at all?

Thanks in advance

I'm pretty sure it doesn't reduce their life time.

And even if it would it doesn't really matter. You're not going to use your graphics card for such a long time.

[manikyath]

thye designed the fans to do that i guess.

 

if you're worried about it, get a case fan and aim it at your gpu, it shows the cycle down A LOT.

[Majestic]

That's a very good question, one i've asked myself aswell. I think however the temperaturegap isn't large enough to cause any noticeable expansion/crimp of the board that would lead to fissures in the connections. Like with the G92 chips back in the days.

 

The fans however, stopping/starting/stopping/starting can take a hit in lifetime. Depends on the hysteresis MSI chose to use. On the 960 it was abysmal. On some games it was just edging the 58 degrees and they started/stopped every second. Had to make my own profile and add 5deg. hysteresis.

 

So, if you're worried, make your own profile you feel comfortable with. Just make sure to take in account that not only the GPU needs cooling. That's the danger of making custom graphs, the GPU itself also turns on fans when the VRM's run too hot. Which you can't monitor externally with nvidia cards.

[Tedster]

Running the fans constantly should reduce the lifetime more than turning them off and on, I think. Don't quote me on this.

But yeah, make your own fan profile.

[Vacras]

Well it's not like the fans turn on and off within a few seconds. They just turn on for half a minute, cool down the card by around 10 degrees and then turn off for the next few minutes.

The problem with making a own profile is (already did so) that the same problem happens but on different intervals and at other temperatures. It seems like I can't set the fans to something like 20% speed (I guess that's a too low voltage for them to start in the first place) and so the lowest setting I can set is around 30% and at this speed the card will get cooled down so much that the fans will turn off again sooner or later and I can't prevent that.

[xToFxREAPER]

they are designed to do that, my gtx 970 100 million editions with the same cooler do it to, if your concerned by it though you could create a custom fan curve via msi afterburner

[Vacras]

I guess that's just what you get. It's not a super bad problem, but I was just curious to know how this will impact my card.