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Background:
I recently acquired a second hand MSI (NVidia) GTX 980 (it was for a very low price, could not resist).
The previous owner had used it for bitcoin mining. The fan cable appears to have been cut halfway for some purpose and soldered back together before selling it.
The cut separated the fan connector (with a bit of cable left) connecting to the board and the fan set (with a large portion of cable left). Note: The GTX 980 Card has a 6 pin connector to the board.
What did I do?
- Re-soldered the cables together following a schematic found online.
- Disassembled the board, cleaned the dust, etc.
- Applied thermal paste to the GPU.
- Put everything back together again as required.
Problem:
- The physical temperature of the card constantly increases while the temperature measured by the computer reports 41°C (first 5min from start) - 52°C (after +/- 15min from start).
- Having the latest Geforce drivers and MSI afterburner running, I am unable to change the fan speed.
Note: I was unwilling to left the card run after +/- 15min as the physical temperature of the card (close to the GPU chip) got far to hot it would possibly injure you if you had to touch it.
Having read up on expected GPU temperatures, it is said that the fans will kick in after (about) 60°C is reached. I doubt the temperature sensor(s) works correctly on the card.
Additional Notes
While resoldering the fans to the cable connector, I tested both fans to ensure they do infact work. I tested both with 12v DC straight from the PSU as the fan spec expects. Both fans work as expected.
Installing the card, and switching on the PC, the card has an odd behavior. When the power switch is flicked, the fans will spin up and slow speed. This continues for 5s-15s then the fans switch off, and do not turn on again.
MSI afterburner is used to set the fan speed curve at varying temperatures. See below for my default fan curve setting.
Please note again that within the first couple of minutes, the fans should have started spinning, which does not happen. The only time the fans switch on is when switching on the PC. After that, the fans do not spin up at all.
Cybex
Posted 2018-10-14T14:54:22.900
Reputation: 825
1Ask the person if they made any modifications to the board. There are tweaks that involve removing resistors, that Nvidia has used, to limit overclocking capabilities in some case. My suggestion is to get a refund on the card. There is likely a reason, other then no longer be useful for cryptocurrency mining, that the card was sold. – Ramhound – 2018-10-14T14:59:19.520
I'm not sure if you can expect the card to need cooling at 40-50 degrees. But how about running MSI Kombustor to force the GPU to get hot and then see if that triggers the need for cooling? – reben – 2018-10-14T22:46:24.423