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PSA: you can buy generic GPU replacement fans from GeeWiz to fix your GPU's ailing fans!

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*But it's not necessarily a simple plug and play. Because of course, why would anything in life be that easy?

Story time (with pictures!)

My 5-year-old Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming developed a noisy fan more than a year ago. Around that time I traded the card and the new owner didn't mind the noise. Fast forward a year, and the card and its errant fan were back in my life. It was a lot worse than I remembered. At idle it sounded like a family of hungry bears. As the fans ramped up it sounded like a Cummins diesel engine being put through increasingly brutal stages of torture. It's difficult to describe but other Gigabyte G1 owners will know what I mean.

But a while back, I noticed that you can buy generic GPU replacement fans from GeeWiz: Microworld VGA Fans 9.50 mm (this is the 95mm, the 75mm I bought seems to be sold out, but hopefully stock will replenished soon).

EDIT: You can also get them from Progenix: Progenix GPU Fans.

At R 125, and with the fan's seismic rumbling threatening my sanity, I thought, why not? And imagine my surprise when I opened the packet...

EshaYtw.jpg


Not one, but two fans! "What a bargain," I thought, "what a score." I cracked open the GPU and disassembled the heatsink and shroud, ready to be rid of this bugbear. But my excitement proved to be short-lived...

zoe6Aj0.jpg


The replacement fans come with female 4-pin GPU connectors, because the fan header on all graphics cards is male. This is logical. But in Gigabyte's infinite wisdom, they made the connectors on their fans male as well, with a 1-to-3 female-to-female splitter cable. This is not logical. And it meant I could not just plug-and-play the new fan in place of the old one. I had visions of using just the two new fans, or having to snip and solder the wires to each other [shudder].

But then, like a shock from a shorted capacitor, inspiration struck...

5UlDp6G.jpg


A wire twist (which may or may not have been literally lying on the floor after my new fridge was delivered) showed promise as a potential solution. And then I remembered my fundamental philosophy of computer DIY: why do a proper job when you can do a shoddy job that takes twice as much effort and time as the proper job?


DISCLAIMER: do not do what I did. This is a bad idea. Setting fire to your GPU is never fun, take it from me (don't ask 😶), and in this economy it would be tragic. Rather do it the proper way with solder and heatshrink.

Anyway, with that boring stuff out the way, I ended up with something serviceable:

pCpDmpW.png


Although I couldn't help but be reminded of something I'd seen online...

33sd3d.jpg


And then I did something even more dumb. I plugged it in. And by some miracle, nothing exploded. The new fan is pretty loud, and I think the PWM control might be a bit messed up, because the fans seem louder than I remember them at a given percentage. The generic fan also doesn't obey the PWM 0% signal so it doesn't do the semi-passive Fan Stop mode. But having one fan spin quietly while the others rest their old bones (if you look closely at the above pics you'll see a May 2016 manufacturing date!) isn't that bad.

Either way I'm not sure if I wired something wrong (highly likely), or if the fan somehow confused the controller, or if I have overly rosy memories of the pre-grinding-cacophony noise levels. But temperatures remained more or less in line with previous performance, hovering around 70 under load with a slight undervolt and a gentle fan curve. And noise levels are detectable but not intrusive with headphones on. So overall, despite my best efforts to the contrary, it seems a moderate success has inexplicably been achieved.

And that, as they say in show business, is all, folks.
 
Last edited:
Update on this: the fan has been doing its thing happily for the past few days. Idling at around 40 with just the one fan spinning (but the fact that it's cold as f*** might have something to do with that).
 
Aha! Thanks @UrBaN It is worth a try. I think next week I will order and give it a go. Hold thumbs \m/
 
*But it's not necessarily a simple plug and play. Because of course, why would anything in life be that easy?

Story time (with pictures!)

My 5-year-old Gigabyte GTX 1080 G1 Gaming developed a noisy fan more than a year ago. Around that time I traded the card and the new owner didn't mind the noise. Fast forward a year, and the card and its errant fan were back in my life. It was a lot worse than I remembered. At idle it sounded like a family of hungry bears. As the fans ramped up it sounded like a Cummins diesel engine being put through increasingly brutal stages of torture. It's difficult to describe but other Gigabyte G1 owners will know what I mean.

But a while back, I noticed that you can buy generic GPU replacement fans from GeeWiz: Microworld VGA Fans 9.50 mm (this is the 95mm, the 75mm I bought seems to be sold out, but hopefully stock will replenished soon).

EDIT: You can also get them from Progenix: Replacement VGA Fans, Pack of 2, Black, 95mm

At R 125, and with the fan's seismic rumbling threatening my sanity, I thought, why not? And imagine my surprise when I opened the packet...

EshaYtw.jpg


Not one, but two fans! "What a bargain," I thought, "what a score." I cracked open the GPU and disassembled the heatsink and shroud, ready to be rid of this bugbear. But my excitement proved to be short-lived...

zoe6Aj0.jpg


The replacement fans come with female 4-pin GPU connectors, because the fan header on all graphics cards is male. This is logical. But in Gigabyte's infinite wisdom, they made the connectors on their fans male as well, with a 1-to-3 female-to-female splitter cable. This is not logical. And it meant I could not just plug-and-play the new fan in place of the old one. I had visions of using just the two new fans, or having to snip and solder the wires to each other [shudder].

But then, like a shock from a shorted capacitor, inspiration struck...

5UlDp6G.jpg


A wire twist (which may or may not have been literally lying on the floor after my new fridge was delivered) showed promise as a potential solution. And then I remembered my fundamental philosophy of computer DIY: why do a proper job when you can do a shoddy job that takes twice as much effort and time as the proper job?


DISCLAIMER: do not do what I did. This is a bad idea. Setting fire to your GPU is never fun, take it from me (don't ask 😶), and in this economy it would be tragic. Rather do it the proper way with solder and heatshrink.

Anyway, with that boring stuff out the way, I ended up with something serviceable:

pCpDmpW.png


Although I couldn't help but be reminded of something I'd seen online...

33sd3d.jpg


And then I did something even more dumb. I plugged it in. And by some miracle, nothing exploded. The new fan is pretty loud, and I think the PWM control might be a bit messed up, because the fans seem louder than I remember them at a given percentage. The generic fan also doesn't obey the PWM 0% signal so it doesn't do the semi-passive Fan Stop mode. But having one fan spin quietly while the others rest their old bones (if you look closely at the above pics you'll see a May 2016 manufacturing date!) isn't that bad.

Either way I'm not sure if I wired something wrong (highly likely), or if the fan somehow confused the controller, or if I have overly rosy memories of the pre-grinding-cacophony noise levels. But temperatures remained more or less in line with previous performance, hovering around 70 under load with a slight undervolt and a gentle fan curve. And noise levels are detectable but not intrusive with headphones on. So overall, despite my best efforts to the contrary, it seems a moderate success has inexplicably been achieved.

And that, as they say in show business, is all, folks.
Great how-to thread. (y)
 
Last edited:
Great write up

Those pins look removable. You can use a thin office pin to depress the lockout and the wire come out the back of the plug.

The resistance of the tie wrap wire may be the issue


Fan with male and female connecter


Buy local, less hassle than importing
I've solved the problem more permanently - by selling the card to a friend of mine, who apparently has less of a sensitive ear than I do, since he reckons the card is nice and quiet. But yeah the wire twist is probably not designed to be very conductive. No real risk though I would guess.
 
Ps there are 5 coloured wires. Are there 5 connectors between the two plugs?

edit: moving on.
 
Ps there are 5 coloured wires. Are there 5 connectors between the two plugs?

edit: moving on.
There are only 4 connectors, and actually 7 coloured wires, but three of the colours are a pair (2x black, 2x yellow, 1x green, 2x blue = 7).
 

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