Gigabyte 470 SOC. Thermal Expansion??

[Slo Gun]

I have the following problem:

After playing games that make the card very hot it starts to become very noisy and makes a rattling noise.
This rattling noise continues at idle with the fanspeed at 40%.
This noise can be alleviated by applying slight pressure to the fan shroud using my thumb.
I'm very upset by this as I bought the card primarily on the grounds that it was a quiet solution.
I am worried that a fault like this would be extremely difficult to RMA and am not convinced that another replacement would make a difference?

Regards

Slo Gun

[Dark Mantis]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

From your description of the problem I have no hesitation in recommending that you RMA the card as the fan is obviously faulty. These cards are noisy just because of the amount of air they push to keep them cool but it shouldn't be rattly just loud.

[Slo Gun]

Hi and welcome to the Gigabyte Forum.

From your description of the problem I have no hesitation in recommending that you RMA the card as the fan is obviously faulty. These cards are noisy just because of the amount of air they push to keep them cool but it shouldn't be rattly just loud.

Hi Just wanted to let anybody who was considering buying the following:

I got a replacement card with no problems and the card is really excellent when it is working correctly, however;
I actually had 2 of these in SLI for a bit, which my friend now owns.

There is definitely an obvious fault with these cards where the cards get noisy when they are too hot. My friend has the exact same issue in his setup
and one of the fans starts to make a rattling noise which can be aleviated by  putting slight pressure on the fan shroud.

My advice if overclocking these cards, don't let them get anywhere near the Nvidia rated thermal threshold spec for gf100 (105 degrees) or you will run into noise issues.

This could also cause problems for some of you in sli as the cards dump the heat inside the case so the top card can end up a fair few degrees hotter than the bottom.

I could not live with the heat issues in my setup and am currently running a single 580 which exhausts the heat straight out of the case.

[Dark Mantis]

I understand what you are saying completely. All these nVidia cards get very hot when under stress and as you say if you have them in SLI it is an added problem. Keeping these cards cool is a nightmare especially for anyone really loading them up.

[Wulfgar]

Hmmm, I'm starting to have the same problem.

In my case it's different. When the card is in idle I don't get any rattling.

However, when I start playing a game and the card heats up I start hearing a sound similar to the spinning of a hard drive. This only happens when the fan hits 70%...

So if my card is at 85 degrees and 68% fan there's no rattling.

If I raise the fan to 80% to decrease temperatures it starts to rattle...What am I supposed to do now ? Is there a way to fix this without RMA ?

[Dark Mantis]

I think the only solution would be to replace the fan as it sounds like it is a little out of balance at speed.

[Wulfgar]

Well if I just leave the fan at 100% without stressing the card there's no rattling.

It's when the card starts heating up...

[Dark Mantis]

Possibly it's a little loose and when hot is moving around more than it should. Either way I feel the only solution is to RMA the card I'm afraid.