iRay - my GTX 970 is screaming like hell
sagoru
Posts: 32
in The Commons
When I render even a simple scene (one G3 character + hair + one dress) the fan start to run like hell, with an annoying noise... the render is fast, very fast, and I'm not worried about this, but I'm worried about the "health" of the graphic card... There is a particular parameter I must enable or disable to slow down the consumption? or I do not have to worry?
Thank you!!!
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Start by installing a GPU monitor program like GPU-Z
http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/
This will give you an indication of your GPU temperature and fan speed. I also have a GTX 970, and whilst rendering GPU-Z records my GPU temperature as 70 degrees and my fan speed as 35%.
If your fans are maxing out at 100%, or your GPU temperature is very high, that is clearly a concern. Whilst rendering my fans are almost completely silent. If yours are very noisy, even when not at full speed, this may indicate a poor quality fan, or that it is not fitted correctly, so is creating more noise than needed.
Hi Havos,
thank you for your reply. I already installed GPUZ and I attached below a capture screen of the software while monitoring a render of a G2 without dress and hair.
The same scene rendered in Octane it doesn't gives me any fan noise (capture screen below). The GPU never reach high temperature...
Thank you
Very odd, as the fan noise should be independent of which software is used. I noticed that your fan speed is slightly higher on iRay, and whilst this is not a significant difference, in theory, the extra speed could be enough to cause the fans to start rattling. If you render a more complex scene in Octane, can you get the fan speed to greater than or equal to the iRay one? If you can, and the fan remains quiet, that is extremely odd.
At least your GPU temperature seems okay during iRay render, so the main issue is having to tolerate the noise.
Try cleaning your fan and checking that the mounting screws are tight. Otherwise sounds like it could be a fan bearing. The speeds and temps aren't out of line.
The two graphs indicate to me that Octane isn't using your GPU.
But...if the graphic card is old (like more than 4-5 years old), then it's possible that the thermal paste has been cooked well-done between the heatsink and GPU, like dried up old peanut butter. It can't cool your chips if it's crusty like a dry riverbed. You might need to see about having the dried up old stuff cleaned off and reinstalling the heat sink with fresh thermal paste.
EDIT: I would say first clean the heatsink. If you have birds, cats, dogs, or humans (or if you are a human) in your house, the heatsinks will clog up with dander very quickly.
EDIT 2: But on second thought, if your GPUZ display is to be trusted, then maybe the issue is elsewhere. Hmmmmm.....
I had to dismantle my 970, as occasionally when under load, it would rattle; one of the cables inside was mistied by less than 1mm. It would be extraordinary coincindence if it was only happening under IRAY, but worh checking.
200RPM, nearly, is actually enough to change the noise you can hear; so as stated it could be that.
Iray is much more demanding on your system than Octane. The additional noise may just be the increase in fan rpm of the GPU, or it may be a combination of increased fan speed of your GPU and CPU. Iray consumes one full CPU core (physical core, not logical core) while rendering in GPU only mode, where Octane will hardly use the CPU at all. This means that there is also a lot more "traffic" between your CPU and GPU when rendering with Iray as compared to Octane, thus a corresponding increase in the temp of the components used by this traffic, giving an overall temp increase to the entire system, so your CPU fan is probably running faster as well, which is contributing to the additional Iray rendering noise.
My system (laptop) is much much much quieter when rendering with Octane than with Iray for the same reasons as I noted above (also, it is impossible that Octane is not using your GPU to render as mentioned above, Octane only uses the GPU to render). Another intereting note is that Octane will actually push the GPU harder (constantly at a higher % load) than Iray, is slightly faster than Iray, yet always runs cooler than Iray.
You might look into a better/quieter fan(s) for your video card. That may help a lot. If it's a EVGA card, you may be able to install a backplane to help cooling as well.
Thank you all!!!!!
At a reported core clock speed of 1240 isn't that overclocked? I believe theGTX 970 reference speed is 1050—do you have the Gaming variant with it set to Boost? You might try reverting it to the base (something like 1050/1114, depending on model). I have a 980 Ti Gaming and on "Gaming" and "OC" modes the fans really do kick in with a fair amount of noise (not sure about "screaming" but I guess that is a subjective description).
If the screaming you refer to is a high-pitched, ticking noise then it is probably the capacitors and not the fan. This happens on my 970 in Octane when rendering simple scenes. If the sample rate is high (over 20Ms/sec) then the ticking starts. Manufacturers have acknowledged this and consider it to be within acceptabe operating tolerances for the cards.
I have 2 evga gtx 980 cardswith the precious x monitor tools and when I do some complex rendering someimes the fans can really spool up, and clear out the dust...lol You should hear how much my fans spool up when gaming in 3d vision. If your fans are not spooling up to counter heat created during rendering then its properly not cooling your cards .. I think I would worry more about that. than how fast my fans are running . Thats why I like the precious x monitor tool