Ridiculously loud GT730 - can it be helped?

[gambiting]

Hello,

I've bought an Asus GT730 GDDR5 card recently:

http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GT7301GD5BRK/

It was supposed to be for my living room media pc(hence the low profile card), but this thing is super super loud. I think the last card I had which was this loud was my old Riva TNT2 or something equally old. I also have a GTX780 in my other PC and it's super quiet, and yet this low-end card produces as much sound as a jet turbine. I have tried looking on the internet for solutions, but couldn't find anyone complaining about the same problem with the same card. I have all the latest drivers, even installed the Asus GPU Tweak utility but it doesn't let me adjust the fan speed. I've tried using MSI Afterburner,but changing the fan speed there doesn't do anything.

I rang the shop which sold it(ebuyer.co.uk) and basically they said that the card is most likely not faulty, and low end cards won't have fan speed control. I understand that,but I also find it unbelievable that in 2014(nearly 2015) you can buy a brand new graphics card which has a 12k RPM fan on it that can't be regulated. I was offered a refund if I am not happy.....but at the end of the day, I still need a card for my PC so I would much rather fix the one I already have.


I've started reading about changing the BIOS on the card to make the fan run at lower speeds,but I have no idea if this would help at all.
Could anyone tell me if there is anything I can do to keep the noise down? I've briefly checked if it could run with the fan unplugged, but the card reached 90C within a few minutes so I plugged it back it - that's not a viable option.

 

[Janus67]

What are the temps like in the programs (gpu tweak/afterburner)? It's possible that the cooler has a very poor mount on the GPU and the only way it can keep it cool is by spinning the fan up a ton. I have a GT620 [I think is the model] and it is very quiet, barely audible when it was in one of our htpcs.

 

[gambiting]

The temps are around 28-30C all the time, it's running at 100% speed from the moment you turn the PC on, even before Windows boots up. I've tried stress testing it and with the fan on, the highest temp it gets to is around 50C, but it quickly falls down to 30C after I stop running FurMark on it.

 

[Janus67]

oh wow okay, yeah that doesn't sound right at all.

 

[NiHaoMike]

The low end cards don't have variable speed fans. I don't even think the GPU has a thermal control output. It also doesn't help that cheap cards use cheap sleeve bearing fans. I suggest going for a x50 card, probably a 650 if you can find one cheap. (Note that the 5xx and older don't support 4K, in case you plan on upgrading to that.)

 

[gambiting]

Update on what happened:

I sent the card back to Ebuyer, they sent me a different model as a replacement - I've got a Zotac GT730 1GB GDDR5 card(so identical spec to the Asus card) and this card is very quiet, absolutely no problems with it. I've checked and I can manually change the speed of the fan using provided software - and that's despite the fact that Zotac's fan is connected using a 2-pin connector, which looks identical to the one Asus used - and yet here it works. I can only assume that the Asus card was defective and that it was also supposed to be quiet. Well, I am very happy with the Zotac card - it's the same spec and it's quiet. Thanks everyone.

 

[Janus67]