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Strix RTX 3090 Fan vibration issues

morph_
Level 11
Multiple people on various forums from where I frequent have reported fan vibrations on the Strix shroud more specifically the left fan on load... I have one on order and am nervous about it now since its more than one person having the exact same issue... Seems to be easily reproduced and can be mistaken for coil whine.... here is a video demonstrating it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cUDftttNuw&ab_channel=%ED%99%A9%EC%88%9C

Some of the quotes:
"When play the game , fan start to spin with high RPM. The noise sounds like coil whine , so I thought it was coil whine and ignore the sounds. Last night the noise got worse so check the card , and the sounds came from the LED cover. When I press the LED cover noise disappear. So it seems the fan may contact the LED cover on high RPM. For me it happen when card is under load so fan start spin. Around 70% of fan speed is makes the noise. I found the left fan makes the sound for me(to find out I have stop the fan with my finger)."


"I noticed the same issue on my 3090 Strix OC last night too.

I can replicate it 100% of the time by just turning up the fan speed with the card at idle. It seems loudest for me at about 65% and the middle fan seems to cause it more.

Pushing on the lightbar doesn't make it go away completely but does decrease the sound significantly. Unlike in your video it decreases the vibration sound when I push on the lightbar on the right hand side (power plug end) of the lightbar about a third of the way along. Pushing where you did does nothing for me.
In all other respects the card works fine it's just a ****ty design/QC."
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205 REPLIES 205

KMagic wrote:
I just got a Strix 3090 Christmas week (purchased from newegg with next day air shipping). I had already been researching the card and had found this thread so I was eager to get my card in and test it. Its now been just shy of 2 weeks in my system, and I have tested the card extensively, stress tested it, overclocked it, and put some heavy use on it. I have had NO fan noise issue, no vibration as mentioned in this thread, or like I have seen in several videos. The card does have some fairly strong coil whine however, that could almost mimic the sound of a vibrating fan to someone who isnt familiar with these issues, but is 100% coil whine noise.

I wanted to post however because I noticed something with my card that MAY be a fix for this issue already being implemented - but I need some response here to know for sure. I noticed when I took the card out of the packaging that my fan shroud is very loose. Like I can grip it on either side and physically slide it around. It is not super stiff like every other video card I have owned in the past. The movement is only in the shroud itself - the fans themselves do not move with the shroud, and the heatsink is rock solid, its just the plastic shell, and it appears very deliberately designed this way. The range of movement isnt a ton, but its enough that I immediately noticed it when I picked it up. It appears from all I can tell however that it was designed this way. It has enough play in it however that with my vga support bracket on the end of the card, it pushes the shroud up on that end, and almost makes the card look slightly crooked in the socket, as if Im pushing up too hard on the card, but its just because of the slight play in the shroud makes it appear that way.. again Im not talking about massive range of movement here but at least a couple millimeters of play. I want to know if anyone can verify how solid your shroud feels on your strix 3090? Is it super sturdy and rigid or does it have a little play in it?

I have tried pressing and moving the shroud as the card is running full tilt and I cant make it produce any fan vibration noise. My card seems to not have this issue at all. Hopefully it doesn't develop it, but I've put hours and hours of stress testing on it so far, with fans running between 70-95% the whole time. I have of course forced other fan speeds under load to look for the issue, and its simply not present in my 2 week old card.

EDIT: also just to add for those who may be curious - my card had plastics to remove EVERYWHERE. Lightbar, front face plate, backplate, and may have even been on the fan motors but I dont recall 100% if it was on the fans. I add this because many mentioned not having plastics to peel off.


The shroud very much moves more than most, but seems to be a free floating thing (to an extent), mine does not move side to side, but can compress on both ends (how i've managed to stop mostly stop the noise - with a sag holder both ends pushing both ends up)

Happens at 80-100% fan, but also massively temp dependant. So just waiting for Asus to actually help us out instead of concentrating on getting new cards out and not caring about us. Im a patient man, its not impacting my enjoyment of gaming (headphones etc), but time will tell, just want it sorted 🙂

What kind of temps are you getting? Mine will happily reach 70deg with 72% fan with 100% load and 100% power draw, some games do 100% load but only like 80% power draw so sits in the low 60's. Most unreal engine games for unknown reasons will draw absolutely everything, stick the card at 123%, they will draw 123% and just roast the card (obviously clocks drop when power limited), i normally leave mine around 110% (i undervolt to reduce power and sustain clocks more)*

pk1209 wrote:
I'm honestly shocked that people are putting something as flammable as paper towel directly onto something that is designed to get to 80 degrees and beyond! Surely a bit of silicone or even some folded up electrical tape would make more sense and have the same affect?


1. The copper heat pipes are nowhere near 80*C
2. 80*C does not cause paper to combust.
3. I agree there are alternative materials. I used a cut up piece of double sided tape that seemed to fit just right.

Well based on the replies it seems my theory has been shot down. I was thinking the loose shroud was maybe something new that asus had done to address this issue, but it appears owners of older cards also have the same loose shroud. Based on the videos I had seen it appeared to me that the shroud was very firm and stiff. If they are all loose like mine however, then nothing has changed. I guess all I can add to this discussion then is to say that this issue does not affect every card, because I do not have this problem with vibration noises related to the fans, and I've been paying very close attention to the card the past 2 weeks as I have been stress testing and overclocking.

Regarding my temps - I run the card currently at a power limit of 107%.. In my testing of this card the sweet spot is between 105% and 110% power limit. This puts the card drawing around 400-420w of power. In my testing, taking the power limit beyond 110%, in a lot of games, results in a miniscule additional boost of performance. I spent hours and hours and hours testing the power limit, benchmarking, changing the limit, benchmarking, changing it again and benchmarking, and noting temperature and power draw at each step. Running the card at the 123% max power limit at this point is really really pointless in my opinion. You increase the temperature of the card by several degrees immediately, and often gain nothing tangible for it. This is because, as I mentioned, the card will often boost to 2000mhz+ at a 107% power limit. My card starts to show instability when you get over 2055mhz. It may run one game fine hitting 2055mhz or even 2070mhz occasionally, but then crash 20 minutes into a different game, so trying to push above 2040mhz. The way the GPU boost works makes it VERY hard to say "I want to shoot for 2055mhz" Because you can get one game to boost to 2055mhz and be ok, then lanch another game, with a different load, and the gpu will try to boost to 2070mhz, which may cause a crash. If you adjust the core down to keep it from going over 2055mhz in that game, then it drops to 2025mhz in the other game. I spent several days perfecting a custom voltage/clock curve, only to eventually, after LOTS of testing, throwing the thing out and just going with a flat +60 on the core. +60 on the core will not crash in anything Ive tested. Some games I will hit 1980mhz, other games Ill see 2040mhz, its all in the different type of load and how the card responds. If you push too hard on the core, then you find that some games will try to boost way too high and cause you to crash. The only way to control this is to find the highest offset you can apply that will work with everything. +75mhz in my testing is about the limit for my strixx 3090 OC edition. The next step up would be +90mhz, and this will work most everywhere but the closer I got to a 100mhz offset the more instability I would eventually start hitting.

So, the card will already clock over 2000mhz at 110% power limit, so pushing the power limit to 123% will only cause the average clock over a given time period to be higher. For example, if you ever run 3d mark and watch your clocks in real time, they bounce around a lot along the voltage/clock curve. Pushing the power limit up to the max will enable the card to spend more time in the upper ends of that curve, so instead of dropping from say 2040mhz down to 1995mhz in one section of a benchmark, it may only drop down to 2010mhz instead, so at the end of the benchmark your average clock is a little higher. It nets a few more points in 3d mark scores, and costs about 7 or 8 degrees higher temperature, which is not at all worth it. GPU boost is already so aggressive that overclocking video cards these days is a lot more tricky than it used to be back when clocks were just a fixed value. I have even had moments where a certain overclock is unstable, and you can run the same benchmark 20 times in a row and it will crash on the 21st time as soon as the card tries to hit 2070mhz or something, eventhough it bossted to it fine 20 times prior. It means that 2070mhz isnt 100% stable, but given the card only sits there for a few seconds typically before dropping back down, you can run some quick tests and think you are stable only to crash hours later. You have to really be cautious on the overclocks for this reason, and is why I finally found +60 and 105 - 110% power limitto be a super solid sweet spot. The card will boost to its near maximum stable clock of ~2040mhz in some games, but on average sits around 2000mhz, and keeps the temperatures in my case right at 70c max load with fans around 75 to 80%. If I max fans out to 100% I can keep the card around 68/69c under full long duration load. The case cooling set up has a big impact on this though. I am moving to a new Lian Li o11 dynamic XL build this weekend, and out of a Phanteks p400a build, so I expect to see my gpu temps come down. I will have intakes on the floor of the case feeding into the GPU, and wont have a CPU radiator blowing warm air into the card.

I rambled a lot here but maybe someone finds it useful. This has kinda been consuming my free time the last 2 weeks doing all this testing so.

HANS_SUCHOCKI
Level 7
Blake just told me to RMA my Card (EU).... i dont think i will do that, theres almost no stock and i cant wait like 4 Weeks for my card 😞

HANS.SUCHOCKI wrote:
Blake just told me to RMA my Card (EU).... i dont think i will do that, theres almost no stock and i cant wait like 4 Weeks for my card 😞


Yeah, same for me.. but RMA process doesn't even recognise my serial number, so can't even proceed if I wanted to. Have emailed and asked about advanced replacement as an option, as not going to sit without a card for weeks on end... Shouldn't have to amount of money I spent on this thing

pk1209
Level 8
Reply from my email to Asus:

"Thank you for contacting ASUS Support. My name is Arsen

Please be advised that the RMA/return process is via the place of purchase only, true to the distribution channel. There is no direct RMA process with ASUS, this is why the form is not accepting the serial number.

I understand this is inconvenient, however in this case we suggest you contact your retailer for advice on returns/replacement or any other options they can offer. As part of the sale process the retailer accepted that they would control all returns/replacement on behalf of ASUS for the duration of the warranty. They should be able to sort this out for you. ASUS has no other policy on these devices; We cannot replace or repair these devices.

If you have any further questions feel free to contact us again."

Blade said I could do it through Asus, Asus say I can't... @Blake - can you advise here. No point RMA'ing with retailer if there is no stock

pk1209 wrote:
Reply from my email to Asus:

"Thank you for contacting ASUS Support. My name is Arsen

Please be advised that the RMA/return process is via the place of purchase only, true to the distribution channel. There is no direct RMA process with ASUS, this is why the form is not accepting the serial number.

I understand this is inconvenient, however in this case we suggest you contact your retailer for advice on returns/replacement or any other options they can offer. As part of the sale process the retailer accepted that they would control all returns/replacement on behalf of ASUS for the duration of the warranty. They should be able to sort this out for you. ASUS has no other policy on these devices; We cannot replace or repair these devices.

If you have any further questions feel free to contact us again."

Blade said I could do it through Asus, Asus say I can't... @Blake - can you advise here. No point RMA'ing with retailer if there is no stock


Also got message from Blake, rather confusing.

No point of sending back to retailer until they have excess stock (which won't happen for a long while yet), not really sure what to do, also, if they won't repair and get new cards, I want my specific card back, I know its exact traits and clocks and voltages it runs at, don't want something with is subpar to what I have now (which is possible).

I've asked the retailer I bought my card from what the next steps are — I shall report back with information when I have it.

pk1209
Level 8
Yeah, I been told I have to go through the retailer which would be the same as kissing my card goodbye... pretty piss*d seeing as I held out for the Asus ROG Strix specifically as I wanted to know I was getting quality given how much the card cost. For now, I have fixes in place along with the sag bracket, and basically no vibration issues... but once stock levels even out, I think the RMA is still my plan

pk1209 wrote:
Yeah, I been told I have to go through the retailer which would be the same as kissing my card goodbye... pretty piss*d seeing as I held out for the Asus ROG Strix specifically as I wanted to know I was getting quality given how much the card cost. For now, I have fixes in place along with the sag bracket, and basically no vibration issues... but once stock levels even out, I think the RMA is still my plan


Only solution is to RMA it, i've taken one for the team and will see how long it takes, according to Blake they are ready with replacements. Ive been down the route of brackets, which "helps" but does not fix.

Really sucks, but thats just how it is 😞

Well, I had posted previous about not having the fan noise issue. Mine started today. Havent touched the card. Its even got a support bracket. I took the panels off the case to investigate. I feel pretty certain my noise is coming directly from the actual fan bearing on the 3rd fan (The one furthest from the monitor connections). I can gently tap the back of the card near the open backplate vent and it goes away as I tap. The noise only occurs between 1500 and 1700rpm. Any other RPM from 800 to 3,000 sounds normal - Its only inside that window, particularly right at 1600rpm where it makes a grinding noise. No amount of pushing, pulling. flexing, squeezing the shroud or card in any way makes the sound go away. Putting finger in center of fan and gently touching it causes sound to stop. It sounds like its coming right from the bearing, and Im all but certain it is, so in my case that has just developed I can say I dont feel it is the shroud. Going to keep playing with it.

My card has been flawless and completely silent aside from normal fan noise and some coil whine. I could maybe work around this new fan noise but I'm concerned it could mean the fan bearing is going out.