I installed the firmware and updated my gpu driver and now my card is whining louder than ever. Help?

flopticalcube
Any word on noise levels or temps with the new BIOS, particularly for the 970 SC version?

Well, the fans on the 970 SSC are silent at 0RPM, thankfully.  :-)  GPU temp stabilized at 45C doing random web surfing and such, with room temp at 23 and hard drives seeing about 37C.  The loudest thing I hear is the CPU fan, which is a stock i5-760 cooler.  PSU is a Corsair TX850W PSU with a big 140mm fan and a Lian-Li PC-E8L case with front & rear 120mm fans, which all run quieter than the CPU fan.
 
I start to hear the 970 fans at around 25% to 30%, so the original minimum speed was quiet enough for my situation.  But if I ever hunt down a new/quieter CPU fan, having this 970 card support 0-rpm-fan-at-idle with the new firmware will be good.  Anyway, I adjusted the fan curve in Precision, as mentioned in the post just above.
 
I can run anything besides Shadow of Mordor or new benchmarks at 2560x1440 / 8 x AA / 16 x aniso / 4xtransparency AA / ambient occ. => quality + max quality for all in-game settings and not need the fans to go above 30%.  Even turning on DSA at 2x or 3x didn't seem to slow most things down below rock-stable 60 FPS w/ Adaptive V-Sync.  SoM and Skyrim did see slowdowns with DSA enabled, though, and SoM would drive the temps up to ~80 C unless I let the fans run up towards 45% or so.
 
Anyway, I also did a review on NewEgg, including some benchmarking and watching thermals, power usage per a Kill-o-Watt meter, and even a little creative underclocking to stay just under the 80C default thermal trip point, which might be interesting if you value minimal fan noise:
 

cswiger

flopticalcube
Any word on noise levels or temps with the new BIOS, particularly for the 970 SC version?

Well, the fans on the 970 SSC are silent at 0RPM, thankfully.

 
Unfortunately, this is only true for the ACX 2.0.

Unfortunately, it is physically a impossible for something to be silent if it's spinning at 1420rpm. The video card and CPU fan are the only moving parts in my PC at idle and are quite audible in a silent, uncarpeted room.

CiroConsentino
Well, I for one don't need this bios update. My EVGA GTX 970 ACX 1.0 (04G-P4-0972-KR) is silent on idle an on load. On load I hear my cabinet's side fan more than the video card, and it's a silent Cooler Master 120mm fan 19dB (vibrates and makes noise due to the acrylic transparent window).
The current fan curve works great for me and I don't even need to use a custom fan profile. :)

You have a loud PC then which disqualifies you from the topic at hand.

The sound made my card (ACX 1.0) idle, unbearable ... 
 

 
I will request an exchange against a acx 2.0, if negative response I buy gigabyte g1 ...

fac7orx
How do we check the BIOS version of our card? I got mine last week and want to see what version I have to see if I need to update. Thanks.

You can see the BIOS version via the GPU-Z utility from TechPowerUp.
However, it might be easier to just check the fan curve in eVGA Precision tool.
If you can select a speed below 30%, your card already has the v1.1 firmware update.

New firmware posted for 04G-P4-0972-KR

I just ordered a "normal" 970GTX. Is there a way to see which Bios is installed before installing the card? Maybe a Sticker? Or are all now delivered with the new Bios? 

frkazid
TY Jacob. Flashed and working fine.

As mentioned before: is there any chance to provide fanspeeds below 35% @ acx 1.0?

Unfortunately no, for ACX 1.0 fans 35% is the minimum allowed by the fan motor.

For those of you who want to check your BIOS version of your GTX970 ACX 2.0 2974 in GPU-Z to see if you have the 1.1 update.
 
Before Update:
 
http://i188.photobucket.c...ersion_zps93154cf5.png
 
After 1.1 Update:
 
http://i188.photobucket.c...sion11_zps4dbba7d7.png

JimmyBon
Hello,
 
I just did the firmware update for the 04G-P4-0972-KR card. I followed the instructions and it says i now have the vBios 84.04.1F.00.71
However, the problem is that the fans 'ignore' the PWM signal.
For example when i run Heaven benchmark and monitor it with HWMonitor, it says that the Fan PWM is 35 % (as it should be).
This would equal a fan speed of approximately 1330 RPM. But the fans spin way faster than that (1500+ RPM), even though it says 35 % Fan PWM.
Here is a screenshot of HWMonitor: imgur.com/CrtlMpM . The fans spin with 1581 RPM even though it should be around 1330 RPM.
Does anyone have the same problem and knows how to fix that?
 
edit: The same thing happens when i try to set up a custom fan curve in Evga Precision X. Even though it shows the right PWM %, the fans still spin way faster than they should
 
I would greatly appreciate your help.

I wonder if this is normal to a certain extent. My card does the same (but only goes to about 1500rpm).
Maybe you should open a support ticket. Would be great if you could let me know the outcome.

- delete me -

I can't download 0972_v11.zip - broken link???

 
Try using a different browser.