EMERGENCY!! GPU fan not working!

[frazik]

I have an Nvidia 9600gt low profile by Galaxy;
currently fitted to a Dell 531s
only other change i made to it was to add 2 gb extra RAM

the total power draw is less than 250W
I have had the computer for 3. almost 4 years now;

Recently i have purchased and installed this Galaxy 9600GT low power low profile card

Its been excellent for 8~9 months; even played crysis warhead with a mixture of settings mid and high at what i considered playable;

but for the end of that ninth month and all of this Jan (10 months owned this card so far) the fan has been cracking up

The fan spins in a sort of AC voltage style; like it goes zip then stops then zip another cycle and stops again; this happens until the computer is fully booted; After this, the fan is perfectly (seemingly) normal; and i get the temp readings at 57 degrees C idle with low fan (15% auto ) and 47 C at full (100% fan) when Im not using any intensive applications (aka IDLE).

the last few boot up sessions the fan stopped completely while computer (booted up) until I gave a gentle boost with my finger;Once this didn't work so i just shut down the computer manually to prevent overheating.

after the computer is fully booted though, the fan seems to work properly.

I have no idea what is going on and how this is going to affect my GPU

I have experienced a sudden performance drop when playing League of Legends once (last week from the date i posted this message) from 45-50 fps to 10/11 fps... which was strange; not sure if the GPU took a hit (got heated up)

im running vista 32-bit ultimate.

(ps by boot up i mean start up.)

help would be greatly appreciated; don't know how much time i have left.

luckily there is a 2 year warranty --- but im not sure what the best course of action is.

 

[plznote]

Have you tried cleaning the card?
Drivers?

 

[nforce4max]

If it is not electrical then it is the fan bearing. WD40 on the fan bearing will easily solve that problem.

 

[adampcman]

Best advice is don't experiment and complicate things, just RETURN THE CARD for new, simple as that!

And yes frame drop means that gpu overheats. If ignored, you will end up with one dead 9600 GT card...

 

[frazik]

i tried to clean it but it is extremely difficult even with a high power blow machine
driver is latest one out; same problem happened before installing that though.

but i wud try that WD 40; if only i could find one in Sri Lanka/ if not a relative of mine living abroad may be able to get it; though one question on that= do u just spray the part under the fan ?

also i am not entirely sure if this is not an electrical problem. If you know ways to eliminate possible causes i would appreciate it;

thanks for help so far/

 

[frazik]

ok; adampcman; i just got ur message after posting my previous one;

sounds like its not much choice then,

 

[frazik]

update;

I tested out League of Legends again and got around 40/50 fps again; does this still mean my card is heated in some parts?
....... The startup FAN problem still persists

starting to think might be a grease issue but let me know if theres another possibility.

 

[adampcman]

Believe me, if you mess with it and you're unable to fix it, you can say goodbye to your warranty! So, my advice is don't experiment because you have warranty!!!

Why risking when you can play safe?

 

[frazik]

(the problem with the warranty is that its available only in the US so i have to wait for my relative to come back to sri lanka and then take it back there for the warranty.)

but ok i think i might leave it alone for now. thanks for the help though.

 

[frazik]

Best answer selected by frazik.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey