Graphics card fan starts and stops

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pridewar12

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Hello everyone i have a radeon 4870 graphics card that up untill last night was working really well for me. last night i noticed that my fan on my graphics card wasnt spinning. so i took it out cleaned it out real good and then put it back in. now the thing will spin, but not continuously. it starts and stops like clockwork. can anyone tell me please what they think the problem is? thank you
 
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pridewar12

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I should also add that last night it was working fine for about 30 min (after it started messing up) and then today twice already after it has been starting and stopping, it has worked properly. the first time for about 20 min, and right now it has been spinning for about 30 min with no stoppage. I just want to figure out why it is stopping, and what i can do to prevent it from stopping again. thank you guys
 
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borisof007

borisof007

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2 things come to mind immediately:

1. The bearings on the fan are jacked up and it's preventing the fan from spinning properly

2. Your PSU is failing and isn't supplying the proper power to the video card in order to keep the fan going.

You can test this by putting your current video card into another computer to see if it has the same issue. If the fan still doesn't spin up, then it could be a bad card or a bad fan. If the fan works just fine, then it's probably a bad PSU.
 
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pridewar12

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Its definitely not the psu. 600w is more than enough. And it has run fine over the past year, just recently it started doing this. Weird thing is, is that after I posted this, my fan has been continuously spinning for over 2 hours now with no problems so I reaally don't understand
 
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borisof007

borisof007

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PSU's have multiple 12v rails (most of them), if one rail is, say, browning out (underpowering) your card's fan could not be getting the power it needs as a whole, while the rest of your PC could be just fine.

You're right in that it might not be your PSU, but it's called troubleshooting, a process of elimination to find out what the problem is.

Most likely, it's either a bad fan or a bad card altogether and you'll need to replace it.
 
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pridewar12

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I'm not trying to diss what ur saying at all I just want there to be something wrong with the fan that is fixable cuz I don't have any money to buy a new psu or gpu. Ill try ur suggestions tho for sure and thanks for the reply
 
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AstroTC

AstroTC

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I have a 4800 series card as well, my case has excellent airflow. what i realized with my GPU is that when it is idle the fan does not spin but when it is under load it comes back on...maybe that could be a reason why.
 
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pridewar12

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My cards fan will spin without any problems if the speed is at 75% or lower. Anything higher than that and it will start and stop. Also when I put it under a huge load (world of warcraft 99% load) is when the fan fails. I bought an aftermarket cooler (zalman vf1000) online, so ill have to wait till it comes in before I can see if it works. I was just going to replace the fan but one of my buddies said that wouldn't work. But he didn't say why it wouldn't work
 
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