I've recently taken over my son's old Acer Nitro gaming PC for some casual gaming, mostly older titles. It's equipped with an RTX 6600 and seems decent for what I need. After having it cleaned up, a guy installed a custom fan inside the case for air intake. While I appreciate the cooling boost, the fan becomes incredibly loud, sounding like a jet engine when I play CPU-intensive games like Spider-Man Remastered. I want to keep my PC cool, but I'm wondering if this noise is normal. Is it set to monitor temperatures too aggressively? Can I adjust the fan speeds or settings? I really don't want to disturb the whole house while I'm gaming!
2 Answers
First, figure out where that fan is connected. If it’s plugged into the motherboard, you can control its speed through the BIOS or using software like FanControl. If it’s on a controller, then you probably need to use specific software for that, like Corsair's iCUE. Since you mentioned it changes speed, it’s likely not directly connected to the PSU. If it’s the GPU fan, you might need to use MSI Afterburner. If it’s a PSU fan, then it’s probably just doing its own thing based on the power supply's settings.
You might want to check the fan curve settings. If it’s too aggressive, that could be why it’s ramping up so quickly. Try setting it to a 'silent' mode to reduce noise. If temperatures are going way up, the fan's working hard to cool it down. You could easily adjust settings through the fan control software or MSI Afterburner to see if a quieter operation is possible.
The fans went crazy just installing the game, so I suspect the curve is too aggressive. How do I switch it to silent or something similar? I have both FanControl and MSI Afterburner installed, but they seem to ramp up more than necessary. The PC was quiet for 3 or 4 years without that fan, so I really just need a bit of extra cooling without the noise.
It’s clipped inside the case and just serves to pull more air in. I do have some fan control options on the PC, but I'm not quite sure how to use them. There are two fans for the CPU shown with graphs and everything.