cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Strix 3090 Power draw and fan issues

deliverencexxl
Level 7
Hi,

I just got a Strix 3090 and i am having some problems with the 0db fan function.

I would like to mention that my card came with the latest version of the Vbios since when i want to update it, it says that my card already has the latest Vbios on it.

I am using the latest Nvidia driver and i also have GPU Tweak II installed with the 0db function enabled.

The problem starts as soon as i boot up Windows. The fans start spinning at 1000 rpm while the idle board power draw according to GPU-Z is between 60 and 130W.

I have two monitors :

- Samsung Odyssey G7 - 1440p 240hz
- Alienware AW241 - 1080p 240hz

Running one on 240hz and one on 120hz the idle board power draw is 80w.
Running only one monitor (ex. the Samsung) at 1440p 240hz the idle power draw is 60w.

The card sits between 28 - 40c at idle.

The problem is that the fans never stop spinning because the idle draw is above 50w so they never stop.

The windows power plan is Balanced.
The Nvidia control panel is set to normal power preference (no Adaptive option anymore).
The Windows is a clean install with only GPU-z , Gpu Tweak and Cam installed.

I would really like to find a solution for this as having the fans constantly running really is a let down because altough the temps are fine, the idle power draw keeps them spining.

Thank you.
652 Views
6 REPLIES 6

KMagic
Level 9
I had this exact same issue on my strix 3090 until I learned something - I was using GPU-Z to monitor my board power draw, and having that program opened, for whatever reason, caused the power draw to be higher. As soon as I close that software, and just let PC sit idle at desktop with nothing opened, the fans will stop. If you will use HWinfo to monitor board power draw instead of GPU-Z it may have the same affect for you.

I run a UltraWide 3440x1440 120hz display and a 1920x1080 72hz display. My power draw with gpu-z would sit at 54w, and fans would never stop. I toiled over the issue for a while. If I turned off one of the monitors the fans would stop, but with both on I never could get it to stop. Then I eventually realized that when I closed hardware monitoring the fans would stop. I realized it was gpu-z so I stopped using it and fired up hwinfo. I could then see that power draw at idle was around 40-45w now, and the fans will stop. Once the fans stop, they will not spin up again until temps go over around 50c, even if board power draw goes back over 50w occasionally. So the rule is for the fans to stop, temps need to go under 50c, and board power draw needs to drop under 50w. For fans to spin back up, Temps only need to exceed 50c. Now that I understand how it works, the feature works great. I also noted in my hours of testing after getting the card, that having MSI Afterburner sitting open on 2nd monitor gives me lower Port Royal benchmark scores - by about 100 or so points. I verified it over multiple runs. So, the takeaway is that some of these apps sitting open monitoring your hardware do use some system resources, enough to make some minor impacts. HWINFO, for whatever reason, has never caused me any negative impacts that I've seen....Perhaps it is because it has hardly any GUI - its just like a spreadsheet readout.

KMagic wrote:
I had this exact same issue on my strix 3090 until I learned something - I was using GPU-Z to monitor my board power draw, and having that program opened, for whatever reason, caused the power draw to be higher. As soon as I close that software, and just let PC sit idle at desktop with nothing opened, the fans will stop. If you will use HWinfo to monitor board power draw instead of GPU-Z it may have the same affect for you.

I run a UltraWide 3440x1440 120hz display and a 1920x1080 72hz display. My power draw with gpu-z would sit at 54w, and fans would never stop. I toiled over the issue for a while. If I turned off one of the monitors the fans would stop, but with both on I never could get it to stop. Then I eventually realized that when I closed hardware monitoring the fans would stop. I realized it was gpu-z so I stopped using it and fired up hwinfo. I could then see that power draw at idle was around 40-45w now, and the fans will stop. Once the fans stop, they will not spin up again until temps go over around 50c, even if board power draw goes back over 50w occasionally. So the rule is for the fans to stop, temps need to go under 50c, and board power draw needs to drop under 50w. For fans to spin back up, Temps only need to exceed 50c. Now that I understand how it works, the feature works great. I also noted in my hours of testing after getting the card, that having MSI Afterburner sitting open on 2nd monitor gives me lower Port Royal benchmark scores - by about 100 or so points. I verified it over multiple runs. So, the takeaway is that some of these apps sitting open monitoring your hardware do use some system resources, enough to make some minor impacts. HWINFO, for whatever reason, has never caused me any negative impacts that I've seen....Perhaps it is because it has hardly any GUI - its just like a spreadsheet readout.


Hi, thank you for the answer ! Unfortunately in my case it does not fix the problem. Using hwinfo and both monitors (1440p240hz - 1080p120hz) the power draw is still above 50 and the fans never stop. One thing i saw is that when windows is starting i get a 140w spike which cause the fans to start and they never go down after that because of my idle power draw. Â*

deliverencexxl wrote:
Hi, thank you for the answer ! Unfortunately in my case it does not fix the problem. Using hwinfo and both monitors (1440p240hz - 1080p120hz) the power draw is still above 50 and the fans never stop. One thing i saw is that when windows is starting i get a 140w spike which cause the fans to start and they never go down after that because of my idle power draw. Â*


Im curious if perhaps it could be your monitor configuration. Have you tried, just to test, if lowering the refresh rates of the monitors decreases the power draw? Especially the one at 240hz. If you drop it to 60hz, does it have an impact on power draw? I know one issue that used to always be an annoyance for many people, and maybe still is, is the past 2 years I ran an RTX 2080. If you ran 3 monitors on the card, the memory speed would never go to idle clock speeds, it would sit up at full 3d clock speeds, just to run a 3rd monitor. I remember that issue being discussed a lot and being brought up to Nvidia. I eventually stopped running 3 monitors so I dont know if that issue ever was addressed. The point though is that monitors do, obviously, increase demand on the video card, and It makes me really wonder if a 1440p 240hz monitor, along with a 2nd monitor, puts you in a position where the board simply will never be able to go under 50w of power draw. I really dont know the answer to that. I do know that if I unplug one of my 2 monitors on my system right now, the power draw does drop. If the power draw does go down when the refresh rate is decreased, and especially if it goes under 50w and the fans stop, then you will at least know that the culprit is in driving that monitor at 240hz.

Despite this however, there IS a way you can get around this, and that is by using your own custom fan curve. I had some bugs when I used gpu tweak to make a fan curve, and found MSI Afterburner to work better, but essentially, you can force the card to kill fans at any temperature you want using a custom curve.

Silent_Scone
Super Moderator
Hello,

It should be possible to set a custom fan curve to bypass this if one is using multiple high refresh displays. Also, as stated by another user make sure there aren't any applications drawing unnecessary power from the card at idle.
13900KS / 8000 CAS36 / ROG APEX Z790 / ROG TUF RTX 4090

Silent Scone@ROG wrote:
Hello,

It should be possible to set a custom fan curve to bypass this if one is using multiple high refresh displays. Also, as stated by another user make sure there aren't any applications drawing unnecessary power from the card at idle.


Hi, and thank for answering.
Yeah i will try a custom fan curve.
Any plans for further bios updates ?

I tried with only one monitor but still draws 56w idle with a fresh windows install so maybe bumping up the idle wattage threshold would help.Â*

deliverencexxl wrote:
Hi, and thank for answering.
Yeah i will try a custom fan curve.
Any plans for further bios updates ?

I tried with only one monitor but still draws 56w idle with a fresh windows install so maybe bumping up the idle wattage threshold would help.Â*


I suspect your monitor configuration will just never allow the card to drop under 50w, so I think its just your system configuration, and nothing is really wrong here. While I wouldnt be opposed to a slight increase in the board power draw idle limit, I doubt they make that change. If you bump it too much then the fans will spin up, then shut off, then spin up then shut off, then spin up then off again as the card heats up. The objective obviously is that at idle you want the passive heatsink to be able to handle the heat and keep the card from increasing in temperature. Increasing the power limit higher could cause some users to experience constant fan cycling

Another reason why I doubt they do much here is because there is a very simple answer to this problem for folks like you - Simply use your own fan curve. You can make the fans do whatever you want them to do with your own fan curve, and its simple to set up. Best of luck, enjoy that new card 🙂