NVIDIA GTX 1080 Founders Edition Owners Complain of Fan Revving Issues

[btarunr]

NVIDIA's decision to sell its reference-design GeForce GTX 1080 graphics card at a $100 premium over the SKU's MSRP of $599, is beginning develop cracks, with early adopters complaining of erratic default fan behavior. The GTX 1080 Founders Edition graphics card features NVIDIA's reference lateral-blower-type cooler, which didn't exactly blow us away, in our review of the card. Customers across the forumscape, including on NVIDIA's own GeForce Forums, are complaining of an issue where the fan of the cooler has a mind of its own, and revs up from 2,000 RPM to 3,000 RPM intermittently, and drops back to its idle speed. This, users complain, is particularly annoying if you're not gaming.

The users observe that these sudden and unpredictable spikes in fan-speed are not in response to rising GPU temperatures or clock speeds. Sudden variations in fan-speed are worse than gradual variations in response to legitimate triggers, as it also means sudden changes in noise, which is distracting. Users also observe that you can't even use third-party software (eg: EVGA Precision) to stabilize or override the fan-behavior, as the speed-spikes don't respect custom settings.



Just how frequently one can expect these speed-spikes is summarized by one owner's comments:

"Yeah i had this happen to me, not sure what it was, thought it was ocean waves at one point.."

We at TechPowerUp would love to revisit the GTX 1080 to try to replicate and investigate this issue, but our VGA reviewer is currently AFK for a week and reporting from Taipei on the 2016 Computex Expo. Don't forget to check out our non-stop coverage, which begins on Monday (30/05)!

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[newtekie1]

Hopefully something that can be fixed in drivers.

Though, my theory is that most people aren't going to be buying the founders edition to use the stock cooler anyway, they'll be watercooling them.

 

[Basard]

I have a similar problem with my 780.... but it's not a founders edition, or reference. Ended up wiring the fans strait up to my fan controller..... only after beating my head on a wall for a month flashing about 500 different BIOS mods to it.

Fun times. It's always nice to get the "worlds most advanced" graphics cards every couple of years, only to have the same stupid problem OVER AND OVER again.....

My friend's 8800gt (reference) just wouldn't spin up. He'd get the lovely red streaks followed by reboot every time he played any 3D games. He ended up buying an aftermarket cooler.

 

[ZoneDymo]

certainly an annoying problem that one.
lets indeed hope a driver can fix it but seeing as it does not listen to third party software and is not related to temps....I wonder what it IS related to..

Well yeah lets hope it can be fixed, otherwise a lot of cards should be returned imo

 

[qubit]

Wow, an embarrassing ballsup didn't take long, lol. I can imagine developers are getting shouted at NVIDIA to fix this now and there's lots of unpaid overtime going on.

This is either gonna be a driver or VBIOS issue, I reckon. Most likely driver.

 

[chaosmassive]

forgive me and I dont care incoming groan on my comment

same old shitty stock cooler as Nvidia use on past, and branding reference the name to Founder Edition
and added 100 premium

I know article here talking about fans/drivers problem
but, hey you added 100 for no improvement whatsoever on your stock cooler performance?

 

[RejZoR]

I knew it's going to be a turd. But people were forgiving before, but won't be this time because you rip them off for 100 bucks.

 

[Air]

CRAFTSMANSHIP

 

[truth teller]

there isnt going to be much to suppress the issue, the card boosts up then after 15 or so minutes (3 in benchmarks lol) ramps down to normals clocks due to heat, and thats with the fan going tits up. even with the thermal limit raised to 90ºc or so it will still roam around the 1700 clock.
so they will either limit the shit out of the cards clocks or users will have to leave with the noise (its not like the "gamers" that bought this card play without headphones anyway, i dont see an issue)

 

[john_]

I knew it's going to be a turd. But people were forgiving before, but won't be this time because you rip them off for 100 bucks.

No, they will be forgiving again. And they will be forgiving in the future too.

 

[vega22]

there isnt going to be much to suppress the issue, the card boosts up then after 15 or so minutes (3 in benchmarks lol) ramps down to normals clocks due to heat, and thats with the fan going tits up. even with the thermal limit raised to 90ºc or so it will still roam around the 1700 clock.
so they will either limit the shit out of the cards clocks or users will have to leave with the noise (its not like the "gamers" that bought this card play without headphones anyway, i dont see an issue)

they are talking about it doing this all the time, out the blue.

not ramping up in game then returning later.

 

[Azumay]

No, they will be forgiving again. And they will be forgiving in the future too.

Exactly.
No body forced them to spend what they spent. The "100 dollars" is irrelevant, as people have bought all the supplies out.
Bad design and testing, that's another story.

 

[RejZoR]

No, they will be forgiving again. And they will be forgiving in the future too.

Replace "forgiving" with "stupid"...

 

[matar]

Fix is coming with GTX 1070

 

[Primey_]

I knew it's going to be a turd. But people were forgiving before, but won't be this time because you rip them off for 100 bucks.

Just because of one little issue doesn't make it a turd.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Just because of one little issue doesn't make it a turd.

Each there own but I would not call this little at all.
Maybe if you put your PC away in some box and soundproof it...

Otherwise its very annoying to be hearing that constantly, also should not be great when trying a live-stream and constantly recording sound from the fan.

 

[Purge]

Hopefully something that can be fixed in drivers.

Though, my theory is that most people aren't going to be buying the founders edition to use the stock cooler anyway, they'll be watercooling them.

If you want to watercool and you buy the FE, you just threw away $100. EVGA is selling GTX 1080 with a blower style cooler as well, except it costs $609 instead of a ridiculous $700. I'm sure other board partners will be doing this as well.

 

[truth teller]

they are talking about it doing this all the time, out the blue.

not ramping up in game then returning later.

im sorry, what?
literally the first reply on the complains thread

 

[the54thvoid]

Chuckle at the predictable posts. I would see a fix coming soon enough and I imagine there are plenty without the problem.
And I'd RMA the shit out of it till it was as it should be.

Forgiven? Not a word I'd use for aberrant fan behaviour but while we're at it, did everyone with a noisy Nano or Fury X have to forgive AMD? Don't think so. Let's not dabble in double standards. I never asked for AMD to prostrate themselves so I wouldn't ask the same of Nvidia.

Its a nuisance for some that will get sorted. Simple story.

 

[ZoneDymo]

Chuckle at the predictable posts. I would see a fix coming soon enough and I imagine there are plenty without the problem.
And I'd RMA the shit out of it till it was as it should be.

Forgiven? Not a word I'd use for aberrant fan behaviour but while we're at it, did everyone with a noisy Nano or Fury X have to forgive AMD? Don't think so. Let's not dabble in double standards. I never asked for AMD to prostrate themselves so I wouldn't ask the same of Nvidia.

Its a nuisance for some that will get sorted. Simple story.

If it gets sorted, but you cannot ignore the fact that they paid 100 dollars extra for it..
AMD never promoted/offerd some premium fan edition for 100 dollars more so cannot compare really.

 

[the54thvoid]

If it gets sorted, but you cannot ignore the fact that they paid 100 dollars extra for it..
AMD never promoted/offerd some premium fan edition for 100 dollars more so cannot compare really.

Yes I can. Nano, Less stuff. premium price - some squealed like piggies.

I also won't defend (or attack) the FE edition. If people want to buy it, so be it but they should expect it to work, so I imagine it will be fixed. FTR, I wouldn't buy reference unless it was to water block it.

There are also expensive dual gpu cards (Titan Z, lol) or Radeon Pro Duo that cost so much more than what they are made of yet sometimes, due to poor scaling are no better than a single card.

If people bought into the FE crap, that's their prerogative but paying extra for 'craftsmanship' was silly. It was made for OEM's. Nvidia simply did what they could because people want the fastest. That actually hurts some people's feelings so they whine about anything they can.

Gfx cards threads are getting boring. Whine after whine after boast after gripe. People need to look deeper.

 

[RejZoR]

Just because of one little issue doesn't make it a turd.

They throttle and they have revving fans while they are charging 100 bucks more for them just because people are dumb and they can. This cooler clearly has no place on a card like this anymore. It clearly can't keep up without compromises and issues. But people defend it and want even more of this broken crap. What's next, GTX 2080 FE being charged 200 bucks more while having even more of these issues, but people would still pay for them and defend them en mass? Why? No one owns NVIDIA anything. Take a piss at them and complain over their stupid design. It's the only way to get things fixed and never repeated again. I understand sometimes saying a good word for certain products despite their shortcomings. But this just isn't one of those moments. By defending them you just assure them they can be lazy and still sell all of the stuff they churn out. Which is not cool unless you work for NVIDIA...

 

[silentbogo]

Holy f$%n $&it!

GTX 1080 just got listed at my local retailer with a whooping price tag of 24,999UAH (which is exactly $1000)!!!
Not sure if I can get half of that for my left kidney.

 

[tabascosauz]

Nvidia re-uses reference coolers that were never good to begin with? Check.

Annoying but not game-breaking issue? Check.

Issue was caused by Nvidia being lazy and behaving like usual? Check.

Issue that will probably be sorted with the latest driver release? Check.

People making a big deal over some habits of Nvidia that have been obvious for the past 6 years? Check.

Those same people don't actually own or have a particular proprietary interest in an actual GTX 1080? Check.


This is all getting very tiring, but who am I kidding? Virtually every thread with the spotlight on a specific Nvidia or AMD product is bound to devolve into a shouting match about one or more of the companies being evil and having done this all before, all preaching to the choir.

They spent 100 pounds for something that wasn't even marketed deceptively; it was out there as a clear, obvious ripoff and people bought it. You didn't personally buy it ==> you were not negatively affected ==> move along.


Caveat emptor, not that it even applies to the people in question.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Yes I can. Nano, Less stuff. premium price - some squealed like piggies.

Stop trolling. KNOWN niche product, small size, lower power. They didn't call it a FURY GAMERZ EDITIONZ and charge 100 extra. It was the same price for a smaller Fury X with less draw. Great buy? No, but it wasn't some marketing crap to make more money off low volume production (Nvidia strikes again and the dummies fell for it).