Strange problem I've been experiencing with my secondary Sapphire 6950 Dirt 3 Edition in Crossfire. The fans keep spinning up and down as if they aren't manually set (which they are). Sometimes they spin up after I've loaded a game (which would be acceptable if they were set to auto mode) and other times they will set themselves to 100% within Windows during a quiet browsing session. Catalyst itself will not report a change in fan speed, but the "Fan Tachometer" reading visible in Afterburner or GPUZ shows it spiking up to 4000 RPM+ on GPU2 at the time the problem occurs. The odd thing is that sometimes I am able to hear a change in fan speed on the secondary card when I modify it at the time the issue occurs, but to a lesser degree than the primary card, almost as if it's only changing the speed of one of the blades on the secondary card (Sapphire 6950 Dirt 3 Editions are dual fan cards). Other times there is no audible difference at all when I modify the fan speed on GPU 2. Please see the Min and Max readings on the Afterburner graph below and notice how the Fan Speed of GPU2 doesn't seem to match up with the Fan Tachometer reading. Ignore the flat graph data, I took the screenshot a couple of minutes after the problem occured.
First thing i would check is the actual fan headers, see if the cables are seated properly in the headers.
Not all fans are match perfect in rpm there are deviations. nothing looks wrong there in that image. also the bottom fan should have a lower rpm to compaired to the top as the top one will be the hottest card also i bet your monitor is plugged into the top card there for the top card is also outputting the signal to your monitor making it slightly warmer aswell.
I wouldn't worry about the Max/Min of the fan speeds via Monitor Tool, it can be quite off and inaccurate. If you put the fan at 100% and it still shifts with unreal values then you can try to check if the fans are properly spinning and what not. I have an Accelero Xtreme Plus on my card and it has 3x 92mm fans and rated to go 2k rpm. I keep mine on Auto while playing games and it will occasionally show it shifting up and down between 600 and 2600rpm via MSI Afterburner and thats @24% fan speed. If I put it at 100% I can see it stable at 1900~ rpm. Unless you disabled browser acceleration/flash acceleration then you card will shift from idle clocks 250/150 to 3D clocks so it will also produce some heat in which in this case can cause the fan to rev up and down giving you numerous values for your readings. @Auto 24% fan speed I see mine go min: 600 max: 2600 @Manual 100% fan speed I see mine stick at 1900~ There may or may not be times where (depending on the drivers) the 3D clocks can get stuck making your clocks higher and produce more heat which can cause the fans to also rev up. Do you have any other fans in your case that may be the cause of the sound revving up inside? CPU fan/intake/outake fans?
The main point is that my primary card does always stick to my fan RPM settings but the secondary card spins up to random / max and doesn't follow Afterburner, Trixxx, SpeedFan or Catalyst fan settings when it is glitching out. It DOES respond to controls when it is working as it should be but regularly fails. Resetting my computer often doesn't help, nor does turning it off and on again after draining motherboard of power for 30 seconds. I have to leave the computer off for 10 minutes or more before the fan will return to normal speeds. Did I mention the Sapphire 6950 Dirt 3 Edition is LOUD at anything over 40%? Howling LOUD! The sound is very distinctive compared with my previous graphics card and it sometimes happens when just browsing the 'net. I don't see why ANY fan should be spinning up and staying at max when just browsing. I've set my 120MM CPU fan to max before and it's not even half as loud as my graphics cards.
Didn't check it myself, but is currently checked right now so must have been set by default. I have forced the fan speed in other utilities as I've said and even in Catalyst where I can change the max fan speed for each card individually, it would not remain constant for the secondary card over the course of a day. Just take a look at the graph, it tells the whole story: GPU2 fan speed% - min 20, max 35 GPU2 fan tachometer, RPM - min 740, max 4162 And I do believe the RPM reading's correct, because I can hear the loud results!
I actually discovered what was causing this... ULPS. Apparently my secondary graphics card in crossfire defaults to a rather loud setting when it enters power saving mode. Unfortunately when I disable ULPS then powerplay refuses to work on GPU 2, thus my clocks and temps stay high. Anyone know of a way to keep ULPS disabled, but allow powerplay to work on GPU 2?
