Variable Fan Speed for NVIDIA GPU

[Lamron]

I finally managed to convince my NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX that it should be quiet during normal desktop use, and speed up automatically when under load (gaming) to limit the max temperature. They don't make it very easy and the "rules" function simply doesn't work, but the full speed fan noise is too much to put up with all the time.

I'll write up complete instructions if there's anyone looking for this same solution.

[vinsanity]

I would love to have that info becasue no matter what I tell the NVIDIA control panel to do it always defualts to the same speed.

[Lamron]

I don't know how far along you are in getting it to work, so I'll just start at the beginning and go step by step for anyone who wants to make their fan auto-adjust.

First you need something to show your GPU temperature so can see what you're doing. There are lots of programs that can do this. I like this one because its a light weight program that only gives basic info, and it shows C/F simutanously: www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php


Then you need Ntune to expand the functionality of the NVIDIA Control panel: www.nvidia.com/object/ntune_5.05.54.00.html

Then go to the NVIDIA Control Panel and find the new Task named "Performance", select Device Settings and click on GPU. You should be seeing this:



At the bottom, you can now manually control the GPU fan speed (hit Apply after every adjustment).

Set it to 100% and let it run for a while and watch your temperature to see how cool it can get the card during normal desktop activities (opening and closing windows, browsing, etc.) For me it was about 117F. Add a few degrees to this number and that is your SWITCH TO LOW number (120F). You know your system CAN get below this number at idle, so the fan definately will have the opportunity to switch to low.

Now start turning down your fan speed until you find an acceptable noise to temperature balance. I found that at 75% speed the fan was quieter than my case fans and essentially unnoticable. That let my desktop temperature rise to about 125F. Add a few degrees to that and call it your SWITCH TO HIGH number (130F). The desktop NEVER gets this hot, so we can assume I am starting up some 3D application.

Now you just need to create two profiles, one at 100% fan and the other at 75% (or whatever you determined is quiet). Save one as LOWFAN and the other as HIGHFAN.


Select "Profile Polices" from the "Select a Task" box on the right and you will see this:




From the top box select "Load this Profile", then from the left middle box select the condition. The action and condition will be shown in the right middle box. Click the blue words to enter the values. Use Accept to move the rule to the bottom.

Here are the three rules you need:

Load this: LOWFAN when The system first starts Windows

Load this: HIGHFAN when GPU Temperature is higher than (SWITCH TO HIGH in Celsius)

Load this: LOWFAN when the GPU Temperature is lower than (SWITCH TO LOW in Celsius).

==========================================

With this set up, my desktop temperature stays about 123-127, but any 3D application immediately pushes it up past 130 and the high speed fan kicks in and stays on until the load is removed and the temperature has been brought back down to 120.


I hope that helps!

[vinsanity]

thnaks!!