GPU fan replacing

Feronix

New member
Heya guys,

So as some of you may know I've got an EVGA GTX 760 SC, which is a lovely card, but it has a what I thought was vbios locked to a minimum of 40% fanspeed. Yesterday I took the plunge to mod the vbios though, as EVGA had told me this was the only solution.

Well, apparently they were wrong as even a new vbios with 31% minimum fanspeed instead of 43% still didn't help. Apparently it is hardware locked somewhere. Now I did think about soldering in a resistor but if the fan needs a minimum start up voltage of 5v (40%) it wouldn't start.

That could mean two scenarios:
1 - The fan will never spin up at all. Do not want.
2 - The fan will not spin at all in idle, but once there is load on the card it might reach the 7v start up point and then spin up. Could live with that but I'm not sure passive idle cooling would work on a reference card with a shroud and a mod like this is pretty difficult to reverse.

So I thought it'd be a lot easier to just replace the entire fan altogether. I realized this was possible when I disassembled the card for spray painting. The fan comes off like this

EBY7ffo.jpg


Then on the back of that the middle three screw (in the circle pattern) can be used to take the fan off and by the looks of it allow for replacement.

LSY6Tdr.jpg



Now the original fan has a 4pin PWM connector like the one you can see, just to the right of the card's power connectors:

FoHHYQB.jpg


BJ018lk.jpg



Here comes the maths bit.

Open HWMonitor tells me that in idle, thus 40% fanspeed it spins at 1590/1620 RPM. Which means that at a 100% it would be a ~4000 RPM fan.

I figured if I can find a ~3000 RPM PWM fan like that, it will do ~1200 RPM instead of 1600, pretty much the equivalent of 30% fanspeed on the original fan. So that should be a fair bit quieter.

I noticed the vbios on the card lets the fan spin at a maximum of 80%, but I've never seen it go above 60% even when benchmarking. Meaning that I have the margin to put on a slower spinning fan while still achieving similar cooling at roughly the same maximum noise output.

Max RPM:
Current fan 4000 / 100 * 60 = 2400 RPM
Replacement 3000 / 100 * 80 = 2400 RPM


Now the questions arises. Where would I be able to find a fan like that? :lol:

Any help would be massively appreciated guys. I had a quick hunt on the bay for 'GPU fans' but it only came up with the flat laptop ones. Tried 'blower fan' as well but they were all for cars and cost £100+

Thanks in advance!
 
I don't think you will find a quiet centrifugal cooler. I have a nice red AMD one though :D

Why dismiss the resistor approach without trying it? Most fans are extremely conservative with the start up voltage, take it down to ~7-9v and then just set a fan profile which lets it actually start.

JR
 
I don't think you will find a quiet centrifugal cooler. I have a nice red AMD one though :D

Why dismiss the resistor approach without trying it? Most fans are extremely conservative with the start up voltage, take it down to ~7-9v and then just set a fan profile which lets it actually start.

JR

Yeah, it's worth a shot though I reckon! We'll see and hey, at least it makes for more interesting build log posts :p
Black white an red card? I smell Orca ideas!

Thing is that with a complete fan replacement it's a matter of one fan plug and three screws, whereas with the resistor approach I'd need to find the right resistor, still need to take the thing apart all the same, cut the cables, strip them solder in the resistor, etc. Just seems a lot more effort and if it doesn't work I need to reverse the entire process, if even still possible at that point :mellow:
 
you could go a step further and solder in a pot to control the resistance from 0ohm to maybe 100 ohms and if the fan only works with 0 ohm resistance well set it like that or throttle the fan even more than you thought
 
you could go a step further and solder in a pot to control the resistance from 0ohm to maybe 100 ohms and if the fan only works with 0 ohm resistance well set it like that or throttle the fan even more than you thought

So many parts of that sentence that I didn't even understand :lol:

But, with the help from Thelosouvlakia I have found this fan. I just couldn't find the maximum RPM anywhere, so I've started a support ticket at Cooler Master :)
 
personally i would just get a 4 pin fan extender find the 12v line and put the resistor on the fan extender the excess can be hidden and if ya balls it up no harm done.
 
personally i would just get a 4 pin fan extender find the 12v line and put the resistor on the fan extender the excess can be hidden and if ya balls it up no harm done.

Aye, I'm thinking I might buy the CM fan anyway, considering it's $8 with free shipping so a cable would cost me nearly as much and it's never wrong to have an extra fan. I can then mod the cable on the new fan and keep the original.

That is if it's a 4000 RPM fan. CM have contacted me and said they have forwarded the question about the exact specifications (mainly RPM) of the fan to the correct people. Should know before, or just after the weekend :)
 
This type of fan is usually manufactured by Delta.

They are available from Hong Kong and China so you'd have about a two week wait, usually available from Ebay.

However personally I would just stick an AIO on it, with a low RPM fan that's inaudible. You'll never hear it again.
 
This type of fan is usually manufactured by Delta.

They are available from Hong Kong and China so you'd have about a two week wait, usually available from Ebay.

However personally I would just stick an AIO on it, with a low RPM fan that's inaudible. You'll never hear it again.

As said in the post above I have found a fan, by Cooler Master, but I am now awaiting a reply from them about the fanspeeds. If that doesn't work out I'll have a look at Delta, but they're usual very high RPM (and LOUD) industrial fans.

If I had €100 lying around for a bracket and AIO cooler I'd probably just upgrade the card all-together. It'd really screw up all the work I've spent on making it look tidy anyway.

I have found 500-3000 RPM Noctua fans at 65mm but they're not the standard blower-style and I'd have to solder on the other PWM connector. Assuming the cables are pretty much the same though and the air would only really have one way to go anyway.

We'll see!
 
As said in the post above I have found a fan, by Cooler Master, but I am now awaiting a reply from them about the fanspeeds. If that doesn't work out I'll have a look at Delta, but they're usual very high RPM (and LOUD) industrial fans.

If I had €100 lying around for a bracket and AIO cooler I'd probably just upgrade the card all-together. It'd really screw up all the work I've spent on making it look tidy anyway.

I have found 500-3000 RPM Noctua fans at 65mm but they're not the standard blower-style and I'd have to solder on the other PWM connector. Assuming the cables are pretty much the same though and the air would only really have one way to go anyway.

We'll see!

Delta make about 90% of the blowers you find on GPUs dude. All blowers are loud at full pelt tbh.

Are you in the UK? You're looking at around £55 to AIO cool a GPU. £19.99 for the bracket on OCUK and £34 shipped for a refurb H55. That's what mine cost me.

In fact I've got a bracket as I bought two originally. If you want it it's yours for postage 'cause I ain't gonna use it.
 
In fact I've got a bracket as I bought two originally. If you want it it's yours for postage 'cause I ain't gonna use it.


Nice sentiment that

What are the small NZXT fans actually like? Ive only used the Corsair variety with the stock fan swap
 
you could go a step further and solder in a pot to control the resistance from 0ohm to maybe 100 ohms and if the fan only works with 0 ohm resistance well set it like that or throttle the fan even more than you thought

So many parts of that sentence that I didn't even understand :lol:

I think he meant a 100 ohm potentionmeter

eowave_potentiometer_sensor_b.jpg


In my opinion of all the above suggestions I'd go with a potentionmeter. Just go to your local electronics store and ask for a 100 ohm potentionmeter, it'll be like 2-3€. To solder it into a extender cable like remember300 said is a good idea also. If you haven't got access to soldering iron, or you are a noob :P then it is another thing. I just personally think it is the easiest option.
 
Delta make about 90% of the blowers you find on GPUs dude. All blowers are loud at full pelt tbh.

Are you in the UK? You're looking at around £55 to AIO cool a GPU. £19.99 for the bracket on OCUK and £34 shipped for a refurb H55. That's what mine cost me.

In fact I've got a bracket as I bought two originally. If you want it it's yours for postage 'cause I ain't gonna use it.

Thanks mate, I appreciate the offer! I do live in the Netherlands though, so shipping would cost nearly as much as getting a new one and then I'd still have to get an AIO cooler for which I honestly don't have the funds right now.

I'm going to try the replacement fan or resistor thing, but thank you for the offer anyway :)
 
Nice sentiment that

What are the small NZXT fans actually like? Ive only used the Corsair variety with the stock fan swap

No idea dude I just used a plain black Antec fan. Only 92mm jobber I can't hear it.

I guess if you were in pursuit of total silence though you could shove a 7v on it.

Feronix. Check Ebay mate. They're not cheap though IIRC. For some reason blowers seem to cost far more than a normal fan.

What's nuts with an AIO is the temps. I guess it's due to liquid coolers being designed to work on CPUs which are far hotter (and lidded) than GPU cores. 27c idle on a Lightning and 48c full load in Heaven lol.
 
I have a dead gtx 260 here, reference model, i could have a look if its a 4 pin fan and perhaps it might fit your card.
 
Doesnt seem to be removable, maybe if you'd warm up the base so you could lift the pcb out along with the fan itself but then it would be hard to get it stuck securely on your frame.
 
Back
Top