HELP!! Not sure if this is bad...

I'm not sure if this is bad or not...

Card is: Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 512MB GDDR4 RAM PCI-Express 2.0

Rig is: Asus M2N-E
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5400+ EE (2.8GHZ, 65nm, 65W)
2GB (2x1GB) Crucial DDR2 - 667MHZ RAM
Corsair HX 520W Modular PSU
Seagate SATA2 160GB HDD
LG 20X SATA2 DVD Burner
Codegen Standard ATX Gaming Case
Windows XP SP3 w/all available updates
Catalyst Driver 8.10 (Full Download)

Problem is: I put this rig together 2 days ago and it's worked perfectly for those 2 days, all fans coming on, temps good and no problems with first boot at all, drivers installed correctly, and has been operating nice and smooth. However, tonight I turn the rig on and I noticed that the video card fan isn't coming on when it boots up.. so I open the Catalyst Control Center and the fan comes on.. it stays on for about 1 1/2 minute then shuts off again.. I turned the rig off. Is this normal with these cards??? Does it just not need the fan to be on unless it's doing something that raises the temps? please help...

thanks in advance
-jagnet

If the fan is left on auto or default settings, CCC will turn it off until the heat ramps up and then crank the fan. When the temps go down it will turn the fan back off. Pretty crappy fan management if you ask me...would rather it be a t a constant 30% to avoid the yo-yo temps. BUT...the fan does usually blast when you first fire up your computer. That is what my 4870 does on boot anyway.

What are your GPU temps? Have you let them go up to where the fan should be turning on? Can't tell if you have a fan issue or if you haven't had an ATI card before with the up and down fan speeds. You can always DL RivaTuner and control the fan that way. See if it works for you. It should allow you to hold a set fan speed.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/RivaTu [...] d-163.html

You could also give the Gainward Expertool a shot too. Might be easier to use than rivatuner if you are new to it all.

http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/1163/.html

NP. Sounds like it was just dynamic fan control at it's best

Thanks to both of you for the help! I downloaded rivatuner and now the fan is on all the time rather then the "trusty" dynamic fan control.. hehe My worries have been put to rest on this matter! THANKS!! (Just a side note, the last ATI card I had was an ATI RADEON 9800 PRO 128MB AGP... so yeah, it's been a while since I've dealt with ATI cards..)

-Jagnet