Fan speed inconsistant

[babybear]

My rig currently runs a 3 year old radeon hd 7850 ghost and recently I tried my hand at overclocking so I downloaded MSI afterburner and have had success with it but in watching the temperature on my card, I've noticed that the fan doesn't kick on until my manually set fan curve hits about 85%. I thought this might be a feature of the card where it keeps it off until the card really needs it to reduce on sound but I haven't found anything like that online for my card. I don't need my card to be as quiet as it is, I'd rather it have a long and prosperous life. The card idles right now at around 70 degrees which is too hot for my liking and can hit up to the mid 80s under load which really surprised me because my case is pretty open and has good air flow. One of the first things I tried was to reapply the thermal paste which seemed to help the temperature a bit but didn't solve the fan problem. But that also means I would prefer to fix it myself since I voided the warranty by unscrewing those cooler screws (which I probably shouldn't have done but here we are). I also recently cleaned out the dust in my rig so I don't think its dust related unless it's in the fan's ball bearings. Does anyone have any ideas on whats going on / how to fix the problem?

 

Thanks!

[Daniel Z.]

im pretty sure all modern cards turn the fans off when not needed. My 960 windforce g1 gaming is silent almost all the time

[babybear]

is there a way to get it to not do that?

[xDylanio]

Just now, babybear said:

is there a way to get it to not do that?

I mean why would you want it to be at 100% all times. I was like you too. but now I don't care. What you can do is to go to the software of your card and change it there, or maybe afterburner has an option for it

[babybear]

You know what, I think I just figured out my problem, I was thinking that the fan could run at any speed between its max and zero but its not like that is it? Like it's either full power or off

[babybear]

That doesn't really make sense though, why have a slider or fan power curve at all then.

[ministrsinister]

Afterburner should have an option for you to set your fan to 25%, 50%, etc. and will have a checkbox for if you want to apply setting upon boot. 70C is really high for idle temps. Do you have a reference style blower?

[babybear]

1 minute ago, ministrsinister said:

Afterburner should have an option for you to set your fan to 25%, 50%, etc. and will have a checkbox for if you want to apply setting upon boot. 70C is really high for idle temps. Do you have a reference style blower?

I tried it at various %'s and found that the fan runs on 0rpm until 89%. I think it's blower but I'm not sure what that is lol

[babybear]

after 89% it scales like you would expect ie 3600 rpm at 89%, 3800 at 94%, 4200 at 100%

[babybear]

forgive my MSpaint job but the fan is only on where the red lines are