What would cause a GPU's fans to not turn.

[steve_v]

If you have a multimeter, test for power at the fan header. If you don't, test the fans for life the old fashioned way - Do the fans spin when powered externally? - if they do then it's the TC/PWM circuit on the GPU board.

Also, computer power supplies are switch-mode these days - 'different wirings of the same transformer' doesn't really apply since you won't find a big 'ol transformer in anything made post 1985 . It's (split rails etc.) a similar concept though.

The best indicator of a PSUs quality is it's weight, or finding a teardown on the 'net. (well, better to look inside yourself but you can't do that before you buy ).

Cheap chinese units tend to skimp on heatsinks, use cheap caps, and generally undersize everything... then rate the thing based on 'peak' load rather than continuous.

Case in point: bought a "480w with LED fan! best power supply!" a while back to replace a 300W OEM unit... the magic smoke came out at ~320W real load. Opened the sucker up to discover parts spec'd for a 250W! PSU inside.

A real PSU should be able to pull 100% rated load, 100% of the time. If it can't then some tom foolery is going on with the ratings, and the quality of the whole unit is suspect.

I tend to 'burn test' a new PSU, most good units will actually do somewhat more than the box rating... until thermal shutdown (a feature clearly omitted from the unit above).

That said, I doubt it's the PSU. Far more likely the fans or PWM controller.

Edited June 13, 2015 by steve_v

[Cyrious]

I didn't suggest he use a multi-meter for testing the voltages at the fan header simply because its not often that someone owns a multimeter or knows how to use it properly.

And as for a quality power supply, Seasonic or anything derived from Seasonic for sub 1KW is usually the best choice, if a bit expensive. Past the 1KW barrier theres a few other options, as its not easy to cheap out a >1KW PSU in terms of build quality.

[Camacha]

unsure of how much power my ram draws I have ten gigs spread over four sticks. 1 tb HDD and a Dvd drive plus two fans. My main power source is 600W

I will keep repeating what I have said so many times before: wattage says nothing. It needs to be a proper make and model, because some PSU's are woefully underpowered compared to their label and use tricks to put a huge number on the box.

See more information in an earlier post I made.

[...]

Finally, someone with sense and knowledge when it comes to power supplies

And me being the moron I am forget to register for the warranty

Where are you located? Depending on your geographic (and thus legal) location, that could either be an issue or not a problem at all.

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And as for a quality power supply, Seasonic or anything derived from Seasonic for sub 1KW is usually the best choice, if a bit expensive. Past the 1KW barrier theres a few other options, as its not easy to cheap out a >1KW PSU in terms of build quality.

Most people do not need a kilowatt anyway. Only some ultra top tier multiple high-end GPU systems could ever come close to consuming that, but with parts being quite frugal today, most people simply vastly overestimate what a computer might use at full load - not to mention that true full load is rarely ever achieved. The more the better, the general train of thought seems to be.

Most people are much better off with a quality 400 watt PSU than with a lesser 800 watt one (and everyone is better off with a quality 400 watt supply than a cheap/badly built 800 watt one).

Edited June 13, 2015 by Camacha

[Cyrious]

Most people are much better off with a quality 400 watt PSU than with a lesser 800 watt one (and everyone is better off with a quality 400 watt supply than a cheap/badly built 800 watt one).

Indeed, its why I can get away with an 8c/16t Xeon (E5-2690), an overclocked GTX 460 1GB, an overclocked GT 440 144SP, 3 HDDs, 1 SSD, and a bunch of fans on a Seasonic G550.

[steve_v]

...because its not often that someone owns a multimeter or knows how to use it properly...

Really? I've had one since I was ~12 Handy tool it is, beats guesswork or randomly replacing parts. Particularly useful as my PC case tends to contain large quantities of strip connector, and sometimes hand-etched boards (fan controller). Electricity is far more interesting when you can see what's going on , but I digress...

You don't really need a meter to test a fan:

Jam some thin wires into the fans power connector, other ends into appropriate (either 5v or 12v, usually printed on fan) pins of spare molex plug, or other random power supply of correct voltage. Be sure to observe correct polarity, though decent brushless fans are RP protected.

Apply power, trying not to short out the PSU. Good ones will survive this, cheap junk (and maybe your underwear ) not so much.

Observe rotation (or not).

One can discuss what it might be all day long, but to actually diagnose the fault means testing the thing.

Incidentally, old PC power supplies make very handy bench/lab supplies, some even expose the AVC/voltage regulation functions of the SMPS controller somewhere on the board... For (limited) variable voltage output .

[Cyrious]

Really? I've had one since I was ~12 Handy tool it is, beats guesswork or randomly replacing parts. Particularly useful as my PC case tends to contain large quantities of strip connector, and sometimes hand-etched boards (fan controller). Electricity is far more interesting when you can see what's going on , but I digress...

I got mine from my high school magnet program. They had a crapton of multi-meters that they were tossing (mainly student damage, the bulk of the students I went to that magnet program with could best be described as mongoloids), and I asked if I could tear them down for good parts and assemble a working multi-meter out of the results, I got the go-ahead and about 30 minutes later I had a multi-meter to call my own.

But seriously though, not that many people other than us geeks have their own multi-meter or the training to properly use one. Its a fine thing to be trying to diagnose a live circuit of a fault, make a mistake because you didn't know what you were doing, and short something that really shouldnt have been shorted (12v DC directly to the GPU for example.).

[steve_v]

But it's only 12v, what could possibly go wrong Shorting stuff out is bad, m'kay.

But you're fairly safe just putting power on a fan. Obviously one shouldn't connect random wires to expensive parts unless you know what you're doing. - Although my GPU does have solder pads for VRM hacking .

Best case it's the fan: Replace it or butcher something else to fit. Case fans and cable ties work surprisingly well.

Worst case it's the fan controller and you can't RMA the card: You could always buy (or build ) a PWM regulator and control the fan with a potentiometer mounted in slot cover, or a thermistor wedged in the GPU heatsink.

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On the topic of meters, I have one of these, but it needs a clean.

Rescued from a trash can years ago, and still working perfectly.

Edited June 13, 2015 by steve_v

[Cyrious]

"Replace it or butcher something else to fit. Case fans and cable ties work surprisingly well."

I have a Tesla M2050 that I had to lash a trio of 80mm fans to it so it wouldnt overheat. If i could bolt on a third party heatsink I certainly would, but the PCB, heatplate, and backplate designs kinda forbid it, and i dont have an AIO cooler or waterblock to hack onto it.

As for the multi-meter: ye olde multi-meter much? Mine is purely digital.

[steve_v]

But mine weighs 2.3kg. Bigger must be better, right?

Seriously though, I still use that beast from time to time. Digital meters are convenient and all, but they'll catch you out from time to time - mainly because the input impedance is high and the measuring currents are low, leading to stray / induced voltages interfering with readings.

A well maintained AVO model 8 was the official benchmark for calibration of (mostly digital) meters when I was an apprentice. It was also the only meter sensitive enough to be useful for demonstrating winding polarity in AC motors.

When working on analogue stuff (I like loud noises, e.g. amplifiers), an analogue meter is ideal. For everything else a digital meter can be had very cheaply these days.

On the topic of shorting things out: A co-worker once dropped the end of a serial cable onto some 3-phase/400v contactors... It blew a hole in the (laptop) motherboard beside the serial port - very dramatic, smoke, ozone, loud noises etc. Surprisingly enough the machine still ran, sans RS232 UART

Edited June 13, 2015 by steve_v

[Cyrious]

Huh, didn't know that about digital meters. My Electronics and Aviation Tech classes never really got into the really deep nitty gritty of circuit design, just the basics and how to fix em. It's also been about 5 years since I took those classes, and haven't really put them to much use. Even then, while in class unless it was specifically required for the lesson I always used a digital meter as I had issues figuring out how to read an analog meter.

[Camacha]

Indeed, its why I can get away with an 8c/16t Xeon (E5-2690), an overclocked GTX 460 1GB, an overclocked GT 440 144SP, 3 HDDs, 1 SSD, and a bunch of fans on a Seasonic G550.

Off-topic, buy hey: what do you use that critter for? I am currently looking at something with more cores than the current 4 for rendering and simulation purposes, though a $1700+ chip is currently a little above my paygrade.

A bit of a problem is that I need good single thread speed too, so getting a billion thread Xeon with low clock speeds is not an option either.

Edited June 13, 2015 by Camacha

[Cyrious]

Off-topic, buy hey: what do you use that critter for? I am currently looking at something with more cores than the current 4 for rendering and simulation purposes, though a $1700+ chip is currently a little above my paygrade.

The Xeon? I got it as a freebie from a friend who works in the industry and who saved it from the scrap bin. I use it as my daily driver, as its replacing my Q9400 rig. The Q9400 in turn was suffering a bit on single or lightly threaded programs even OCed to 3.6ghz.

The Xeon, even though the all core turbo clock gives it a 300mhz disadvantage against the Q9400, beats the crap out of it in single and multi-threaded programs. If you want I'll post a screenshot of Cinebench R15 so you can get an idea of just how much of a beast this thing is.

[steve_v]

...I got it as a freebie from a friend who works in the industry and who saved it from the scrap bin...

You lucky sod

[Camacha]

If you want I'll post a screenshot of Cinebench R15 so you can get an idea of just how much of a beast this thing is.

I am not envious quickly, but I think I reached my limit there I am pretty happy with what I have got now, but when it comes to massively intensive tasks like simulations and renders, it is never enough.

Edited June 13, 2015 by Camacha

[Cyrious]

I am not envious quickly, but I think I reached my limit there

Please note my Q9400 results much further down.

[steve_v]

And to think I upgraded my Q9400 to a mere 2x X5460s.

But hey, it's only a fileserver, I wanted the 24GB of ECC RAM more, and it's 8 cores real cheap. Making a quiet CPU cooler for it was a bit of a bear though. Length of copper bussbar & drillpress FTW.

[Cyrious]

Heh. The Xeon doesnt require much to keep it cool; the Xigmatek Gaia w/ 2x Coolermaster Blademaster 120mms on it does a wonderful job even when its sucking in heated air from the GTX 460. I had to orient the heatsink so it was venting up though, as the VRM heatsink needed some loving and there's a pair of 120mm fans for the upper exhaust.

Meanwhile my own "fileserver" is sitting on a heavily underclocked and undervolted Phenom II 940. I want to use my Pentium M box for that purpose, but the CPU was a huge bottleneck during testing for that purpose.

[steve_v]

The issue with the X5460s is the (supermicro) board layout, Socket 771 puts the CPUS too close together for fans >70mm. So of course the stock coolers feature ~7000RPM fans. It's really an "everything" server: Web, mail, SSH, MPD, files & VM images etc. on ZFS/Samba, so some more cores is nice.

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The (secondhand) board was also dirt cheap, and has some nice server features besides ECC & SMP, like BIOS serial console, hardware alarms, and onboard 8-port RAID controller... making a total of 22 SATA ports, with my PCIE card.

[Camacha]

And to think I upgraded my Q9400 to a mere 2x X5460s.

But hey, it's only a fileserver, I wanted the 24GB of ECC RAM more, and it's 8 cores real cheap. Making a quiet CPU cooler for it was a bit of a bear though. Length of copper bussbar & drillpress FTW.

Wouldn't a 5960X be a lot cheaper and more flexible? Or are we talking about years ago?

http://i.imgur.com/L798I2E.png

Please note my Q9400 results much further down.

Yes, that would be most useful for what I am trying to do. Please mail the Xeon to me, I promise to send it back when I am done with it

[Cyrious]

The issue with the X5460s is the (supermicro) board layout, Socket 771 puts the CPUS too close together for fans >70mm. So of course the stock coolers feature ~7000RPM fans. It's really an "everything" server: Web, mail, SSH, MPD, files & VM images etc. on ZFS/Samba, so some more cores is nice.

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The (secondhand) board was also dirt cheap, and has some nice server features besides ECC & SMP, like BIOS serial console, hardware alarms, and onboard 8-port RAID controller... making a total of 22 SATA ports, with my PCIE card.

Oh god, i had the misfortune of having to deal with a 1U server while in high school. 30mm fans, 9000RPM, and they kicked up at the drop of a hat.

My Phenom II box is only configured as a network storage as I needed a place to bounce things back and forth between my desktop and laptop as well as more bulk storage. I dont do anything fancy with it, even though I could theoretically install ECC Unbuffered Dram in it and get the benefits, as the board and CPU apparently support ECC.

Yes, that would be most useful for what I am trying to do. Please mail the Xeon to me, I promise to send it back when I am done with it

Uh, you touch my Xeon I'll run you over with my 400 ton super mining crawlers. If you need moar coars for rendering, hook yourself up with a 4P G34 rig and load it up with 12C Thuban based or 16C Piledriver based Opterons. The same friend who gave me the Xeon had 4x12C 3.8GHZ Opty Rig that got over 40 in Cinebench 11.5 and for about a year held the world record Cinebench Score on HWbot. It also drew >1000W at the wall, and burned itself up after a week because supermicro boards werent meant to handle 300W a socket.

[steve_v]

Wouldn't a 5960X be a lot cheaper and more flexible? Or are we talking about years ago?

I'm talking about what was dirt cheap on Ebay not so long ago, in terms of a board with moar (ECC) RAM slots & moar SATA ports for a ZFS pool. SMP is just icing really, if willing to deal with the cooler issues.

[Camacha]

I'm talking about what was dirt cheap on Ebay not so long ago, in terms of a board with moar (ECC) RAM slots & moar SATA ports for a ZFS pool. SMP is just icing really, if willing to deal with the cooler issues.

I neglected to look at second hand prices before making my remark Point taken, two chips for under $100 of off Ebay is a good proposition. There might be issues, like power consumption when run 24/7, but it definitely is a lot of bang for your buck.

[Pixel of Life]

Update the card's BIOS (if an official update is available) and make sure the cooler's connectors are clean (if not, clean them). If it's still not working, it might be a more serious software glitch or the card itself is broken. Send it back for repairs or ask them to send you a replacement.

Also, I don't know about Geforce 700 series GPUs, but on some 900 series cards the fans don't spin up at all before the temperature reaches 70 degrees C - maybe yours also has such a thing?

[Brethern]

I will keep repeating what I have said so many times before: wattage says nothing. It needs to be a proper make and model, because some PSU's are woefully underpowered compared to their label and use tricks to put a huge number on the box.

See more information in an earlier post I made.

Finally, someone with sense and knowledge when it comes to power supplies

Where are you located? Depending on your geographic (and thus legal) location, that could either be an issue or not a problem at all.

- - - Updated - - -

Most people do not need a kilowatt anyway. Only some ultra top tier multiple high-end GPU systems could ever come close to consuming that, but with parts being quite frugal today, most people simply vastly overestimate what a computer might use at full load - not to mention that true full load is rarely ever achieved. The more the better, the general train of thought seems to be.

Most people are much better off with a quality 400 watt PSU than with a lesser 800 watt one (and everyone is better off with a quality 400 watt supply than a cheap/badly built 800 watt one).

I got a lepa mx f1 power supply I bought because it had the connectors I needed, though I probably should have been tipped off about it's quality due to the paint job on the thing.

I tend to not read reviews due to a personal policy I have about them, but in the future I'm making an exception when it comes to hardware. I live in north america so whatever that does I don't know.

I also do in fact own a multimeter.

Since we're on the subject what should I get for a power supply since none of mine are actually decent.

[Camacha]

I live in north america so whatever that does I don't know.

The USA has very limited consumer laws when it comes to warranty. I am not sure about Canada. I know that some places actually have quite good laws, notably the European Union. Companies there cannot deny you warranty for failing to register, unless for very specific reasons (like intentional breakage).