3870 fan speeds

[50bmg]

i had a 3870 last winter. I have recently bought another. The fan's speed-up still seems to be slow. It just doesnt speed up early enough to keep the temps down when OCing. I tried rivatuner on my last 3870 and it didnt help. i could only use fixed fan speeds.

Has anyone found a fix or work around?

I have a Visiontek ATI Radeon HD 3870 512M OC version: 800/2340
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8762234&type=product&id=1203815034383
WOW, i got it for $179. $249 is overpriced.

If anyone is using rivatuner or another third party application to auto adjust please post info, link, specs.

thanks

 

[godless]

i just have my 3870 fan speed fixed at 42%. it's pretty quiet plus it adequetly cools the card. 34c idle, 65c load.

 

[50bmg]

is yours OC'd any? I would like to get a little more from [strike]ATI autotune[/strike] CCC. I will need more cooling.

Another thing specifically about the fan guard. It has a second slot fan. Bu the cover stops about a 1/4inch short from the back of the case. Most of the air blows back into the case. Can i use some nice metal tape to close that so the exhaust will get "exhausted"?

 

[godless]

i used ccc to overclock my card to 800mhz. not a lot. i don't play that many games so i prefer to keep my card cooler. good thing about the ccc is that it downclocks the gpu to 300mhz in 2d mode, unlike ati tool where it's always runnnig to what you set it.

not sure about the tape, i don't actually have this problem with my diamon hd 3870

 

[Onus]

I had this same problem with a Diamond 3870 last year. I found out that apparently it is a common problem (found stuff on guru3d about it). Rivatuner would not reliably adjust the settings. I tried it again a month or two ago since there was a new version of Rivatuner; no luck. I couldn't even choose Diamond from the partner dropdown on ATI's site when I tried to get support there, and my experience with Diamond's tech support was so sorry that Diamond has earned a spot on my personal "do not buy" list.

 

[Onus]

Hmmm, I wonder if godless has a different model. I forgot to mention, when I tried to use atitool, I got the error that no ATI card was installed. There are too many other choices out there for me to ever again consider Diamond.

 

[godless]

different model? hmm. how would i check that? i got this card the first day that it came out on newegg, if this helps.

 

[godless]

and btw i use ati tool version 0.27 and rivatuner v2.09

 

[godless]

here is a screenshot of gpuz

 

[50bmg]

Sapphire is on my Sh!t list. I my last 3870 had some issues. I submitted 4 email tickets over 5 weeks. I never had a single reply from sapphire. I contacted newegg. I told them their vendor was not supporting the product that newegg sold me, so newegg gave me a refund. Newegg rocks. Sapphire.............. well, you get the idea.

I may just bump up my fixed fan speed on rivatuner to +-50% and see how my temps go. I dont want to flash the bios or switch fans on a new card and viod my warranty. That will have to do.

Thanks

 

[godless]

what temps do you have at which speeds?

 

[firebird]

I had the same problem with my fan speed on my 3870x2. I was using Rivatuner with the fan set at about 45% during heavy gaming to keep the card from overheating. Man was that loud! I was using a mild OC of 25 mhz. I could not find a program to auto adjust the fan speed.

I replaced my cooling with ZEROtherm fans and now it does the fan speed adjusting for me. No more worries and even at 878 core and 955 mem (highest Overdrive will let me go) I don't break 74 degrees.

I'm using a Sapphire btw.

 

[50bmg]

@ godless - 800/2340 OC'd by visiontek - 72c after running 3dmark. 50'ish at idle. Stock fan speeds. This vid card is factory.

@ Firebird - I hope you have better luck with sapphire than i. I am glad it is working for you. I like your results with the zerotherm. Once i give this card a few week and get past my newegg return policy 30-day period, i will probably go with a new fan. I think that is safer than flashing the bios.

 

[godless]

those tems were close to what i had when my cooling fan was on stock speed. it was 45 idle and i forgot the load. but once i increased the speed fan to 40%, i have zero issues with my temps. 50% was alittle too loud for me, so i did some exerimenting and saw that 40percent is just fine for the card.

 

[50bmg]

Using Rivatuner, I ran my 3870 fan at 70% fixed during 3dmark and it got as high as 71c. I thought it would be lower, but that is 5c lower than stock settings.

 

[50bmg]

I tried ATItool to auto control the fan speed. After i set the auto speeds with ATItool, my temps started to climb. they wouldnt come down. I shut down and rebooted. The gpu temps kept climbing. I uninstalled ATItool and restarted. The temps still were climbing. I uninstalled CCC 8.5 and reinstalled it and the temps settled back to normal. All at no load, windows only, no game.

I guess ATItool and my card or drivers dont like each other.

temps never exceeded 71c. If i had been testing the temps with a game or 3dmark, it would have fried my card.