I recently bought a used graphics card and have been testing it. It seems to work normally, but whenever I launch a game, the fans fluctuate between roughly 1,000 and 3,000 RPM for around 30 minutes. I tested this with MSI Afterburner by setting the fans to a constant 50%, but they still varied between about 1,000 and 2,000 RPM during a 30-minute test. At 100%, the speed was much steadier at around 2,800 RPM over 25 minutes. What could cause the fan speed to keep fluctuating even when it is manually fixed?
1 Answer
Since you’re using MSI Afterburner, check that its manual fan-control mode is actually enabled and that no other utility—such as the GPU manufacturer’s software or the BIOS fan controller—is overriding it. Also check the GPU temperature graph. The card may be switching between different fan-control states, or the fan speed reading may be inaccurate at lower speeds. If the temperature is stable but the RPM keeps jumping, try reinstalling the graphics driver and testing with only Afterburner running. A steady speed at 100% suggests the fan or its controller may simply be unstable at lower duty cycles.
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