MSI GTX970 GAMING 4G fan issues
I noticed my computer was making an unreasonable amount of fan noise one day. I had been playing games earlier, but not any more so I wasn't sure why the fans were so noisy.
I narrowed the noise down to my newish MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING 4G graphics card. I bought this card over the competition brands due to the quiet cooling system - ironically, this was making a terrible noise.
Only the front fan of the two on the card was operating, and it was operating at full pelt. On closer inspection it the other fan (closer to the back of the case) was twitching slightly. A gentle prod and the fan spins up and the noisy one slows down to a quiet level. Of course, my next stop was Google and indeed this is a well reported issue. The only semi-official response from MSI was to return it for an exchange, but reports were that didn't resolve it and MSI couldn't reproduce the issue.
So I've just ignored it for some time in the hope a proper resolution appears. Apparently a new video BIOS was made available through the MSI Live Update application that fixed it, but for some reason the app doesn't pick up my graphics card.
Luckily, it's possible to download the vBIOS updates from their forums - although not their main website yet.
You need to know the serial number of your card to pick the correct BIOS, but this is easily seen on the sticker on the back of the card itself. Be sure to completely uninstall the Nvidia drivers before running the update.
I narrowed the noise down to my newish MSI GeForce GTX 970 GAMING 4G graphics card. I bought this card over the competition brands due to the quiet cooling system - ironically, this was making a terrible noise.
Only the front fan of the two on the card was operating, and it was operating at full pelt. On closer inspection it the other fan (closer to the back of the case) was twitching slightly. A gentle prod and the fan spins up and the noisy one slows down to a quiet level. Of course, my next stop was Google and indeed this is a well reported issue. The only semi-official response from MSI was to return it for an exchange, but reports were that didn't resolve it and MSI couldn't reproduce the issue.
So I've just ignored it for some time in the hope a proper resolution appears. Apparently a new video BIOS was made available through the MSI Live Update application that fixed it, but for some reason the app doesn't pick up my graphics card.
Luckily, it's possible to download the vBIOS updates from their forums - although not their main website yet.
You need to know the serial number of your card to pick the correct BIOS, but this is easily seen on the sticker on the back of the card itself. Be sure to completely uninstall the Nvidia drivers before running the update.