Shoud a graphics card fan be on all the time?

[Mag]

May sound like a bit of a dumb question but i just noticed my Gainward Gefore 3 ti500's fan isn't on...

it should be on always should it not?

 

[phsstpok]

It should be on.

Time to get a replacement fan or HSF.

<b>56K, slow and steady does not win the race on internet!</b>

 

[Mag]

yeah.. funnily enough.... i think its been like this for ages

would explain the steadily increasing spotty static i get playing max payne and age of mythology on occasion...

Though i mostly use it for 3d modelling and i never notice any problems there.. i guess what im doing isn't complicated enough to push it just having one model on the screen...
still. would have thought it should have melted ages ago

 

[tombance]

If it runs just about ok with a small passive heatsink (not designed to be passive, but running that way) you may be able to replace it with a larger passive chipset cooler and forget about the fan altogether. Zalman makes a large chipset cooler that would probably do fine.

<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6752830" target="_new">Yay, I Finally broke the 12k barrier!!</A>

 

[JP5]

At least it's quiet!

 

[Cloaked]

yes, a ti500 will fry soon without active cooling, or better passive.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

Definately get a replacement card or heatsink and soon!

You can damage the GPU core that way.
Easiest thing is to pop off the heatsink and replace it with something else... even use arctic silver epoxy resin to glue on something larger.
If its big enough you can run without a fan!
(my old geforce2pro had a monster socket370 cooler that could run fanless)

Only problem was it took up 2 PCI slots LOL

<b>My Car comes with Hyper Threading enabled:
1970 General Motors Holden HT Kingswood Wagon
Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>