Hi, I have a Powercolor x1950 pro AGP card. I am running Windows XP. I am using RivaTuner and am able to see the core temperature for the card. I have the fan speed monitor displayed but it always shows zero even though the fan is spinning. Is it possible to use RivaTuner to monitor the fan speed? Thank you.
That’s a bit incorrect statement, Marc. G80 is just a graphics processor and it is absolutely not related to fan speed monitoring, so it is not a key factor for GPU fan speed monitoring capability. When I was talking about hardware, I meant the combination of PCB design and cooling system design. These are the key factors affecting fan speed monitoring capability. So it would me more correct to say that reference design G80 based boards with reference design cooling system support fan speed monitoring. If either PCB or cooling system is altered, you may lose fan speed monitoring even on G80. Some ASUS 8800 models with altered cooling system lack fan speed monitoring by design. There are 3 key factors in hardware affecting fan speed monitoring capability: 1) There must be fan, equipped with built-in tachometer. Tachometer capable fans must have at least 3 wires, if you have only 2-wires in fan – say “bye” to fan speed monitoring. 2) There must be sensor IC on the PCB, which is able to digitize pulses from the fan’s tachometer output. Such sensors are used on ATI X800, 1900, 2900, NVIDIA 7800GTX, 7900GTX, 8800GTS/GTX etc. 3) Fan’s tachometer output must be physically connected to sensor’s tachometer input. Some sensors (e.g. LM63, used on ATI 9800XT and newer boards) can use the same pin as input for tachometer and output for thermal alert depending on PCB designer’s preferences. Taking 9800XT as an example, it has both tachometer capable fan and tachometer reading capable sensor, but they are not connected to each other due to PCB design specifics.