Hello everyone. Here’s my issue, when in MSFS, the second fan on my Nvidia 2080 Super spins up to 5300-5500 RPM approximately every five seconds for a period for about five seconds. It is loud enough to make simming not enjoyable any more. It’s like someone holding a blowdryer up to your head.
I’ve posted this before in a variety of places and the two most common responses are:
“This is by design and you wouldn’t want your card to overheat” - not true and the temp is not increasing during these periods.
“Take it apart and add more thermal paste” - probably will never do that
I opened up a support ticket with Nvidia and over a period of about three weeks I collected all sorts of logs and data for them. The only proactive thing they really had me do was run a utility to remove all drivers and associated software, remove the card and clean it off (it was very clean), reseat it and start over. No love there.
Nvidia also had me update my system’s bios.
I can say that it only happens when MSFS is running. I don’t have any other games on the PC so I don’t know if the problem would happen with some other game requiring high graphic use. I can be online or write a Word doc all day long and it doesn’t happen, only with MSFS.
Nvidia’s final response was to contact Dell. The PC is a Dell Alienware Auroro R11. Apparently, the chipset on the GPU is Nvidia, but the rest of the card is manufactured by Dell.
I am going to open up a ticket with Dell but since the warranty is long since expired, I don’t have a lot of hope there.
Here’s to hoping that one or two of you out there may have the silver bullet for this problem!
A couple of things to try:
Replace your fans, they are relatively cheap
And /or in MSI afterburner you can set different fan speeds for each fan in the main interface, then create a new fan curve
Worth a try, the second option can be done without delving into your computer, or physically touching your GPU it’s all software controlled on your desktop
It’s no secret that GPU fan RPM is related to GPU temps.
What are your GPU temps when it occurs? You can check with something like HWinfo64.
If your GPU temps are high, support tickets won’t fix dried out thermal paste.
Try downloading a benchmark like 3dmark, if you want to try a different workload.
2080’s still have good resale value, so it’s worth taking the half hour to replace the thermal pace.
GPU temp during periods of high RPM fan speeds are never above 77c, the Hot Spot temps are 103-105c. Both are below the max allowable high temps as far as I can tell.
This is from a GPU sensor log that Nvidia support had me run and they seemed to have no issues with these temps.
I’m not sure what MSI Afterburner is but will check it out. I feel like it’s something in the programming that is telling the fan to speed up. I wonder if putting a new fan in will just mean the new fan will keep speeding up?
GPU-Z is a great little app for monitoring what’s going on with your GPU. Try running Dell’s Support Assist app. I checks for any missing software/bios updates and runs a bunch of hardware checks.
Let me put a little twist on all this. Even before this problem started I was contemplating whether this card is the best solution for my setup. I want to run MSFS in ultra, I have three 27” monitors and two 8” monitors and may add a third small monitor as well.
Before I put any time and money, mostly time, into this, any thoughts on an upgrade??
Reminder, it’s an Nvidia 2080 Super. I would want a signifigant improvement over what I have.
Repaste your GPU. This happened to my 2080Ti last year. It is a well known issue with 2000 series Nvidia cards, but it can happen to any GPU really.
When I repasted mine, no more fans ramping up unnecessarily. If you don’t do this, installing MSI afterburner, or anything else you do, won’t make a lick of difference. The paste dries up in these GPUs-take my word for it.
If you’re not up to the task, find a PC repair shop, or a friend to do it for you. Or get a new card.
I wouldn’t just limit the fan it’s spinning fast for a reason, unless it been changed in bios settings. I’d find out why it’s going fast before you blow your card by limiting it’s cooling ability.
Make sure you have a decent thermal paste
2.make sure you check all the screws and location
3.when all screws are out it will come apart, just be careful to unclip the fan cable
4.clear off the old paste with q tip and isopropyl alcohol off the chip and base plate, don’t leave residual paste around
5.apply new paste, not too much about a pea size, then reassemble in reverse
Attach the cable , tighten the screws in a star pattern then you are good to go
So here’s what I discovered, and this seems important…somehow my Full Screen Resolution in my MSFS settings was changed to 4080x768. At that resolution I have no issue with the fan, but the cockpit panel looks like ■■■■ on my main monitor. My pop out monitors are fine. If I switch to 7680x1440, fans start screaming at me again but the panels look as they should.