Found my answer in another buried thread. Cheap fans, have to keep it at 35% at all times. :(

Rhaze48
Found my answer in another buried thread. Cheap fans, have to keep it at 35% at all times. :(

Glad you found the other thread regarding this issue. Welcome to the club of bad EVGA engineering design choices 
 
For reference in case anyone else finds this thread instead of the other one, there is a problem with the chosen fans used on these graphics cards. When the fan controller of the GPU sends the fan a PWM value between 1-36%, the RPM of the fans themselves pulse up and down like an engine revving noise. This is because the fans are of bad design. Instead of the fans themselves rejecting PWM values of 1-36% and just stopping, they continue to try and spin at those values but they can't spin that slow so they pulsate. When the fan controller of the GPU finally sends a value of 0%, then the fans finally stop and make no noise. I suspect it is because EVGA was looking for a fan with this stop technology that they decided to choose these fans knowing full well that this is the downside of the choice. 
 
I've done a lot of investigation on this since it has been bothering me to no end. Also as an electrical engineer I felt like I at least had enough background to be able to understand what the root cause of the problem is to investigate it. The stock fans have a part number of PLA09215S12H. The S in the part number indicates this is a sleeve bearing fan. The same exact fan, but the bearing version with part number PLA09215B12H have been used for years by EVGA with no problem. I bought this old version online to try out. It is a 10 min job to change it on our graphics card and you don't even need to remove the heatsink (so no breaking the warranty sticker). All the screws are accessible from the top of the card (6 fan screws and 4 screws for the plastic shroud). After installing the PLA09215B12H version fan I bought I got to see a new behavior from the graphics card. Now the fans always spin at a minimum of 1142 RPM when the GPU is telling the card to spin at 0-36%. Therefore there is no more fan stop option. However, now there is no more revving up and down. When the GPU tells the card to spin at fan speeds under 36%, the fan knows it cannot spin slower and therefore stays at it's minimum RPM of 1142 RPM. When the GPU tells the fans to spin higher than 36%, then fans ramp up as normal. 
 
I know this work around might not be for everyone, but at least it gives some people out there the choice if they want. Unless EVGA releases a bios update that tells the fans to go to 0% directly after starting to ramp down and skip the whole 1-36% range, then there is no way to fix this. Unless you want to manually control the fans using software on the operating system level. 
 
Since February EVGA has acknowledged the problem to various people through support but till now they have not addressed the issue. 

Rhaze48
 
I think what is slightly more insane is that I watched about a dozen YouTube reviews of this card, and read just as many and not a SINGLE REVIEW mentioned this as an issue. It really would have modified my choices in purchase.

I completely agree. The only really references I can find is if you go to reviews from Newegg for example and search for the word 'fan' and then you get some people complaining. The part that bothers me the most is how EVGA and others all suggest to simply use the Precision X1 software to fix this problem. I don't understand why I need to install and run a software primarily used to overclock my graphics card to simply stop my fans from destroying themselves slowly over time. I'm no fan expert, but I don't think that a fan that revs up and down constantly can be any good for the longevity of the fan components...but I guess it just needs to last long enough to work under warranty. I just want my card to work out of the box with the only thing running on my computer is the NVidia drivers. 

I think the whole design of making the GPU 'silent' backfired since the startup of these fans make noise and if they are voltage control instead of PWM, you can add motor noise as well.  I think it's best going back to the old way of cooling to keep things simple and not have noise complaints while the design was suppose to do the opposite.  If I didn't like the controls, I'd create my own custom fan curve.

There are those that have no issues with the way the cooling is designed, probably because they have cooler enviroments where the fans aren't turning on while you have others in the middle trigger range (50c) that is start and stopping is driving people nuts. 

i just upgraded to
msi b450 tomahawk max
ryzen 5 3600
16 gigs of gskill ripjawz 3200 
evga ko rtx 2060 ultra
seagate firecuda hd 1tb
thermaltake smart series 700 watt psu
 
i dont hear anything but quiet quiet and quiet i love it system is smooth operator

I just built a new computer for my kid, and I kept noticing the random noise...  I wasn't sure what it was till I spent 5 minutes with my head in the case, waiting for it to happen again. I then noticed it came from the new 2060KO... Which led me here. 
 
Any recommendation on good fan software. I have no problem telling it to stay above 1200 RPM all the time, as long as it stops the annoying rattling sound...