WORKING solution to 7800gt fan speed problem

Discussion in 'RivaTuner Advanced Discussion forum' started by lenne, Feb 8, 2006.

  1. lenne

    lenne Guest

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    as many of the 7800gt users know quite well theres a significant problem with some cards: the fan control simply doesnt works at all, causing sounds like an old hair dryer, or only works after an significant amount of senseless resets.

    As an result neither rivatuner nor any other speed control works.

    as proposed by the author of rivatuner its a driver related problem which could only resolved by a new fixed set of drivers by nvidia, but this is definitive NOT the cause.

    The solution goes a little deeper into the hardware layout of the nvidia "referenzdesign" dunno exact translation think its "normal layout of card given by nvidia" or somwhat like that ;)
    when the card was designed there somehow was an not, or bad working "transistor" used, the q524 in some cases it doesnt switches and by that permits the fan control.

    But as i mentioned theres a solution for this problem as given by a german GIGABYTE tech ( big thanks to "JZ" ) it is possible to bypass this "transistor" by simply removing it, and close a small bridge on the card.

    Heres a picture of the card to make it easier for u to locate the transistor and the bridge: http://www.jzelectronic.de/jz2/boar...&rub=Hardware allgemein&act=Anzeige&suchwort=
    Its copletely in german so ill try to translate the most important information:

    The transistor q524 (this little black horizontal "box" ) have to be cut of (u could use a sharp knive) (sounds worse than it is actually, i even managed to keep it completely intact, for later gurantee issues, cause u will loose it if u do it by urself)
    after that u have to close the contact between the two little metallic dots right above the transistor, there a many ways to do that, i did it with "silberleitlack" which is actually an conducting liquid, dunno exact english translation.

    After these changes as soon as the driver loads up ( me uses 81.91 )
    the card becomes amazing silent :) everything works, rivatuner, the fan profiles i made for temperature depending fan speeds etc, to put it in words i love it ;)

    A drawback of this solution (which is as far as i know the only way to get the fan speed controlable )is that u loose ur waranty, but if u remove the "transistor) completely intact, one coult maybe put it back to the card at a later point to avoid any problems

    have phun :)
     
  2. Unwinder

    Unwinder Ancient Guru Staff Member

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    Thanks for extremely useful info, mate. Making the thread sticky.
     
  3. Stratrix

    Stratrix New Member

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    did anybody have any success trying this method? or have people used another solution that doesn't void the warranty?
     
  4. lenne

    lenne Guest

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    at last one replay, thought more people are intrested in this topic...

    There are many more people that tried this solution which worked for all of them, u could have found this out by carefully studiing the german forum i linked ;)

    just kiddin, i wouldn have done this if i werent shure that it works and, obviously it works (as long as u have the original board layout of the 7800)
     

  5. Stratrix

    Stratrix New Member

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    i can't read german and even babelfish doesn't seem to work properly >_<"

    i want to apply this mod, but i'm unsure of the exact procedures, did u do the mod urself?
     
  6. ilias

    ilias New Member

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    Thank you for your thread, it did definitely interest me as I have this problem with my MSI NX7800GT card. But as many of us I'm not ready to do this modification to my card. The question is, if I rma my card will I get a new card without this problem? Are the manufacterers of the these cards even aware of the problem? I have posted to the msi support but all they told me was, do a rpm check. The fan should slow down when no applications run in your OS?! :/...well I can hear that it's spinning with the same speed and it's very loud. I don't, however, know how to do a rpm check?!
    Regards
     
  7. Unwinder

    Unwinder Ancient Guru Staff Member

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    You won't be able to check RPM, reference design 7800GTs are not equipped either with 3-wire fan or with tachometer reading capable sensor.
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2006
  8. lenne

    lenne Guest

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    Yes ive done it by myself, otherwise i wouldnt have posted it here, i didnt want to post things that are messing up hardware ;)
    the mod itself is wuite easy, just as i described it, remove q524 with a knive and connect the two points right above q524 with conductive paste or something

    some manufactors (as gigabyte germany) are aware of the problem and repair (do the same as i described) ur cards, but i dunno which that are
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2006
  9. Stratrix

    Stratrix New Member

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    sweet, i will take a look at my card tonight. Not sure if it'll work because people on the XFX forum say that the q524 does not exist. Again, i'll take a look tonight. SWEET!
     
  10. ilias

    ilias New Member

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    Has anyone else tried this with success? Me myself wrote an email to the msi support in the netherlands and I got this reply

    Dear customer,

    The thread looks interesting. I didn't hear about the problem up to now. I forwarded it to our HQ to check. I will contact you when I have a reply.

    So hopefully something will happen soon!
     

  11. comrads

    comrads Member

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    luckily its not a problem for me, is this meant to have been a problem that affects all gt's or did it only affect the 1st generation? BHecause I;ve only just got mine couple of weeks ago.
     
  12. Unwinder

    Unwinder Ancient Guru Staff Member

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    I've not tried that myself as I don't have 7800GT with faulty fan control. However, I've forwared this thread to many russian techsupport forums and already got confirmations that the workaround really works.

    The workaround provided in this thread seems pretty logical for me, because AFAIK the transistor mentioned above is a part of fan control circuit and it dedicated for fan thermal bypassing (PWM fan control can be disabled by thermal alert signal, in this case fan will work at full speed regardless of programmed duty cycle).
     
  13. Lord Banshee

    Lord Banshee Master Guru

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    Couldn't you just connect each side of the transistor with a wire (ok a very small one) and not remove the transistor?

    Current travels in the path of least resistance. Personally i do not know how a transistor works (yet.. that in the Fall lol) but i would assume it has some resistance then this should work right?? any EE or tech people here can confirm this?

    Or is a transistor a memory state device and having the output connected to the input might give memory stored oscillations(sp?) effect.

    Just wondering
     
  14. clokkevi

    clokkevi Master Guru

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    If the trick was to remove the transistor, then short-cut 2 of the remaining solder points ("collector" and "emitter") then your trick might maybe have worked.
    But if you look at the picture, there are 2 other points that are to be short-cut'ed.
    This solution does "the opposite" of short-cut'ing the transistor,
    it makes no current at all go through the transistor anymore - since it is removed.
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Feb 26, 2006
  15. Pieter Segers

    Pieter Segers New Member

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    Hello,

    I have a MSI 7800GT and have exact the same problem! The fan control doesn't work at all or work sometimes a little after many restarts.

    I think I'll send the card back for warranty repair or replacement, it just too noisy and the fan speed control shoud just work. I've read on more forums that this is a common 7800GT problem.

    Pieter
     
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2006

  16. jmsandrson

    jmsandrson New Member

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    Did the mod

    I have a BFG 7800GT as well and experienced the same problems with fan noise. Sometimes the drivers would kick in and slow the fan down and sometimes it would not.

    I removed the the integrated as show in that picture and then I connected the 2 contacts above that area with conductive sliver paint and all is well now.

    Thanks for the info!!

    Now I have a similar type problem with the 7900GT. The drivers have never been able to slow the fan down with that card.
     
  17. Unwinder

    Unwinder Ancient Guru Staff Member

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    jmsandrson

    Actually I've not yet seen any 7900GTs able to adjust fan speed. So either the fan control scheme is ripped from the PCB by design (most likely) or all 7900GT I've seen are affected by the same faulty transistor issue like 7800GT (unlikely).
     
  18. Acco

    Acco New Member

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    Will Rivatuner 16 support fan control for the 7900GT cards. Since the XFX 7900GT has a pretty noisy fan, which runs at 100% all the time.
     
  19. Unwinder

    Unwinder Ancient Guru Staff Member

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    Have you tried to read the posting you've quoted?
     
  20. Acco

    Acco New Member

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    yes, i did...

    I thought maybe there still would be a way to control the fan speed and since the new rivatuner hasn't been released yet i thought there still would be a chance.

    And since I don't know if this "So either the fan control scheme is ripped from the PCB by design" means that there won't be any fan control possible at all. I thought I just might ask.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2006

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