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My nVidia GeForce 8800GT had a serious problem with its stock cooling fan: it started to make strange noises and I later discovered that it was hitting the heat sink, because of an abnormal rotation that was causing the blades to go up and down. I couldn't find any way to fix it.
I bought a replacement cooling set (fan and heat sink) which I managed to mount on the card with no hassle at all. But I suddenly discovered that the power supply plug of the fan had two pins whereas the connector on the card had four pins. The fan plugs on the motherboard, instead, have 3 pins! I felt discouraged and started complaining about myself... :(
Fortunately (or not?) I discovered that on the MB there was an unused male plug to install an IEEE 1394 connector. It had 9 pins, and two of them were coupled and marked +12V and GND respectively. I distorted the pins in order to force the fan female plug to make contact with these two pins.
I started the system, and the fan worked. The GPU temperature is fine.
I'm not here advertising my bravery, but merely asking: how much is my machine at risk? Is this tricky workaround dangerous, or not?
I'm wondering if the driver is keeping the card clocked down as it can't detect and control the actual GPU fan that is supposed to be connected to the card. Wouldn't surprise me if the driver is in a constant alarm state if it can't find the fan. – ewanm89 – 2015-09-10T15:33:13.657