AMD HD7970, very loud

Bona Botse

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So I bought a Powercolor 7970 from WootWare, and my excitement was quickly shattered by its loudness. Much louder than my 4890 that it replaces.

Upon further investigation, the fan seems to be stuck at 3500rpm even when I manually adjust the fan using CCC Overdrive and MSI Afternburner.

Now I'm a sad panda, as it looks like I'll have to return it. Sigh.
 
Hi sorry bit seems lot of threads about the Powercolor graphic cards lately :0
 
My PowerColor 7870 (Myst) is also a jet plane... in perfromance and noise! :D

It's just the coolers they use, not the most efficient or effective, but it helps to bring the price down! Get an aftermarket cooler if it gets too loud for you.
 
Hi sorry bit seems lot of threads about the Powercolor graphic cards lately :0

Haven't seem them, linkys?

My PowerColor 7870 (Myst) is also a jet plane... in perfromance and noise! :D

It's just the coolers they use, not the most efficient or effective, but it helps to bring the price down! Get an aftermarket cooler if it gets too loud for you.

It just doesn't sound normal though. I'm happy with the performance but there's no way that it should sound like that even when idling.

And the fact that manual fan control isn't working leads me to believe that the fan is stuck at something close to 100%. Google agrees that 3500rpm is abnormally loud.

Does your card sound loud even when idling? Does your manual fan control work?

Also I'm not willing to fiddle with aftermarket anything after spending a small fortune on this card...
 
I once got a faulty fan like that with my Inno3d GTX460 and the manufacturer didn't want to believe me either. Luckily I had another Inno3d GTX460 that I used as a reference and so I ended up sending both back to where I bought it.
They then refunded me and I bought 2x MSI GTX460's instead.

IIRC, my fan control worked, but my 40% fan speed was like 100% fan speed of the other GTX460.

I'd say that you should return the card if you have no control over the fan speed whatsoever!
 
AMD fans are seriously ***. Had two Sapphire 7970's fans die on me. I card did not survive. As I was moving my Gigabyte 7970 replacement to another PC today i noticed 2 of the 3 Windforce fans not spinning. Arctic Cooling Accelero 7970 to the rescue but now I have to wait for a few hours for the heatsink paste to harden.
 
My PowerColor 7870 (Myst) is also a jet plane... in performance and noise! :D

It's just the coolers they use, not the most efficient or effective, but it helps to bring the price down! Get an aftermarket cooler if it gets too loud for you.

The problem is that the fans aren't changing RPM, even when manually adjusted, so there is obviously a fault.

@OP what is the temperature of the GPU BTW?
 
The problem is that the fans aren't changing RPM, even when manually adjusted, so there is obviously a fault.

@OP what is the temperature of the GPU BTW?

42 at idle, will check what it is while playing something.

Edit:
About 57 when playing games.
 
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I had to install two HD7970's both Powercolor from Wootware also and they were not loud at all, they were pretty average.
 
Just got into contact with WootWare regarding returning this, looks like I'll be all good to go, especially since I saw this today on their site:

Hassle-free RMAs. If an item breaks within 30days of delivery, we will arrange for the courier to collect it and cover shipping costs both ways.

That's awesome.
 
Replacement was received today and it's even quieter than the 4890. Happy days.
 
I'm glad you got it sorted out! Thanks for giving feedback on it.

I still need to RMA my KFA2 graphics cards that are faulty.
 
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