Arch Linux

grimvx

Member

Registered: 2020-02-25

Posts: 4

[SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

I have just recently setup Arch on a separate SSD and want to get my games library setup. The only issue is that my system doesn't appear to be detecting 2 of the 3 fans on my GPU. I have done some Googling around to find a solution, but haven't found anything that has worked so far. Maybe I am missing something, but as far as I know nothing is wrong with the fans because Windows has no issues detecting all 3 of the fans.

within nvidia-settings under Thermal Settings on my GPU it is only recognizing "Fan 0" and this fan appears to be working normally, but otherwise it is completely missing the other 2 fans.

https://i.imgur.com/5h1Tp6H.png
(Screenshot of my Thermal Settings in nvidia-settings).

Running the Linux 5.4.21-1-lts kernel.
Using the 440.59 proprietary NVIDIA driver.
"CoolBits" options 4 and 8 under Section "Screen" in my xorg.conf.
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FTW3

There is probably something I am doing wrong, but I haven't had any luck so far with google so here is hoping someone smarter can help me.
If there is any extra information you need I am more then willing to provide it. Thank you!

Last edited by grimvx (2020-02-27 23:33:17)

ThomasN

Member

Registered: 2016-02-03

Posts: 31

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

Are all three fans spinning? Any issues with temperature during gaming? Does changing the fan speed setting make all three fans physically speed up/slow down?

Ropid

Member

Registered: 2015-03-09

Posts: 1,069

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

Maybe you are confused about how your card works? Where did you get the idea that each of the fans will be reported separately? Does the manufacturer have a special software for Windows where you can see the three different fans?

I've never seen a graphics card that reported its multiple fans separately. It was always just one fan speed report and one fan speed setting. And in the actual hardware, I disassembled most of the graphics cards I had for maintenance, and there was always just one fan connector on the card for all fans. The different fans were always using a sort of Y-cable to all connect together to the one fan header of the card.

Last edited by Ropid (2020-02-26 12:04:29)

grimvx

Member

Registered: 2020-02-25

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

Are all three fans spinning? Any issues with temperature during gaming? Does changing the fan speed setting make all three fans physically speed up/slow down?

Only one fan spins up during idle and under a load. Fan 2 and 3 never spin within Linux. My temps get a lot hotter and sit at around 50 to 60 degrees Celsius during idle. I have set “fan 0” to max speed and still only the one fan on the card spins. No matter what I’ve tried I can’t get the other two fans to spin at all.

Last edited by grimvx (2020-02-27 04:03:42)

grimvx

Member

Registered: 2020-02-25

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

Maybe you are confused about how your card works? Where did you get the idea that each of the fans will be reported separately? Does the manufacturer have a special software for Windows where you can see the three different fans?

I've never seen a graphics card that reported its multiple fans separately. It was always just one fan speed report and one fan speed setting. And in the actual hardware, I disassembled most of the graphics cards I had for maintenance, and there was always just one fan connector on the card for all fans. The different fans were always using a sort of Y-cable to all connect together to the one fan header of the card.

Right, I should have made that a little more clear. I was not aware that graphics cards with multiple fans functioned as one unit and were not separately detected. I do know that mine has ICX cooling, I’m not sure it makes much of a difference, but the problem still stands. No matter what I do, I cannot get the other two fans to spin up. Not under load, and not at high temps. Within Windows the card seems to have no trouble with the other two fans though.

**CORRECTION**
I am able to change fan speed for all 3 fans independently from each other within Precision X1 in Windows.

https://i.imgur.com/v0W3s8g.png
(Screenshot of Precision X1 in Windows).

Last edited by grimvx (2020-02-27 03:51:53)

Ropid

Member

Registered: 2015-03-09

Posts: 1,069

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

You have a very interesting card there. I could find a picture of its board here:

https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/medi … eled_1.jpg

It really has three different fan headers and everything is individually controlled.

The picture is from this article: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2894 … d-pcb-info

I've never seen that kind of thing where the fans are independent from each other. I am then thinking that manually controlling or just viewing the extra fans just doesn't work with NVIDIA's drivers and needs something special from the card's manufacturer.

I would assume that the card has an automatic behavior where the second and third fans will turn on under enough stress. Maybe at idle the VRM and RAM temperatures are such that the card thinks it doesn't have to turn on those fans? If the fans really never turn on, maybe you broke something about the automatic behavior when you took manual control of the fan in the nvidia-settings tool? I'd remove the ".nvidia-settings-rc" file from your home folder and reboot and see how things behave when everything is back to default. Also maybe comment out that "coolbits" config option in your Xorg nvidia config file right now to see what happens.

For putting some stress on the card, there's "unigine-heaven" in the AUR.

grimvx

Member

Registered: 2020-02-25

Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

Thank you for the helpful information. I know more about my card then I did before. I guess it's a case of over engineering

I have now installed Manjaro and it appears that the card is working normally. Using the heaven benchmark, I was able to get all three of the fans to start spinning, unlike before. It is still running a bit hotter then I would like, but maybe there is a way to adjust the fan curve with GreenWithEnvy. The fans are definitely not ramping up as much as I would like them to be. I guess I will re-install base arch and see if I get the same results and then try to see if I can get fans 2 and 3 to adopt a more aggressive curve.

Ropid

Member

Registered: 2015-03-09

Posts: 1,069

Re: [SOLVED] Only one fan being detected on my EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3

[...] It is still running a bit hotter then I would like, but maybe there is a way to adjust the fan curve with GreenWithEnvy. The fans are definitely not ramping up as much as I would like them to be. [...]

There's a small switch at the top edge of the card. It switches between two different BIOS versions. I could find a comment online where a person said that the second profile has a more aggressive fan profile:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/c … x/dtcxuna/

That thing about the "power target" being raised, I don't know if that automatically overclocks the card. Maybe it just unlocks it for more aggressive manual overclocking? If that's the case, then you could use this second BIOS without manual overclocking just to get the more aggressive fan profile.