Fan Noise

In the past years users would accept everything just to get more performance. Nowadays this has changed with people being more aware of the fan noise and power consumption of their graphic cards.
In order to properly test the fan noise a card emits we are using a Bruel & Kjaer 2236 sound level meter (~$4,000) which has the measurement range and accuracy we are looking for.


The tested graphics card is installed in a system that is completely passively cooled. That is passive PSU, passive CPU cooler, passive cooling on the motherboard and Solid-State HDD.
This setup allows us to eliminate secondary noise sources and test only the video card. To be more compliant with standards like DIN 45635 (we are not claiming to be fully DIN 45635 certified) the measurement is conducted at 100 cm distance and 160 cm over the floor. The ambient background noise level in the room is well below 20 dbA for all measurements. Please note that the dbA scale is not linear, it is logarithmic. 40 dbA is not twice as loud as 20 dbA. A 3 dbA increase results in double the sound pressure. The human hearing is a bit different and it is generally accepted that a 10 dbA increase doubles the perceived sound level.

While the card is very quiet in idle, the fan will spin up the be very noisy once the temperature goes above 62°C. This is clearly a fan control bug in the BIOS.


This graph represents the settings in the BIOS. As you can see the fan is off below 60°C and then ramps up gradually to reach 100% when the temperature is 83°C.


Unfortunately the reality is different. The picture above represents the actual fan speeds during operation in Windows. Up to 62°C the fan is off, then suddenly the fan speed jumps to 50%: Noisy! As temperature increases the fan speed is increased even further in fixed steps, reaching 100% at 84°C.

I notified HIS of this issue and they will probably release a fixed BIOS soon that adresses this issue. If you don't want to wait for the fix you can adjust the fan settings in the BIOS yourself using our RBE BIOS Editor.

Update:
HIS notified me that a fixed BIOS is already available here. You can use ATIFlash or WinFlash to flash it to your card. Please note that this BIOS is only for cards with the part number 113-SBSJ2G09-00R-00.
Cards available from retailers already have the fixed BIOS.