PC Drivers & Software

[higgih01]

I have a Sapphire RX 5700XT Nitro +, and under 20.2.1 I had adjusted my fan PWM setting to be a constant 12% up to a temp of 60C as it was whisper quiet at this speed and much less annoying than having the Fan Stop feature enabled, as the Nitro's heat sink is just not big enough to passively keep 5700 XT GPU cool enough to stop its temp steadily climbing up to the point where the fans come on and ramp up to 1300 rpm (in silent vBios mode) which is really quite annoying. I saved my modified fan speed and a stable undervolt that I had worked out as a Profile.

I upgraded to 20.2.2, but when I imported my saved Profile, I discovered that 20.2.2 no longer allows me to set a fan PWM% lower than 26%. The heat sink on my Nitro + is much bigger than the reference card's and can keep my GPU temp below 50 deg C for desktop use at a fan PWM of 12%. I thought that this might be an issue with my imported Profile, so I did a complete DDU clean and installed 20.2.2 fresh. I tried to set new, fresh fan PWM profile, but once again found that 20.2.2 won't allow a fan PWM% lower than 26%.

Please AMD, let me set the same fan profile that I could set in 20.2.1.   

[makkara]

Try edit the saved profile manually and then load it.

I have fan curve like this first point is 35C, 15%.

<STATES>
<STATE ID="0" Enabled="False" Value="35"/>
<STATE ID="1" Enabled="False" Value="15"/>
<STATE ID="2" Enabled="False" Value="36"/>
<STATE ID="3" Enabled="False" Value="16"/>
<STATE ID="4" Enabled="False" Value="37"/>
<STATE ID="5" Enabled="False" Value="17"/>
<STATE ID="6" Enabled="False" Value="70"/>
<STATE ID="7" Enabled="False" Value="30"/>
<STATE ID="8" Enabled="False" Value="85"/>
<STATE ID="9" Enabled="False" Value="40"/>
</STATES>

[higgih01]

Thanks for the suggestion. I opened the Profile in an editor, but my settings in the Profile file exactly matched what I had set them to in 20.2.1, so I suspect it would not have made any difference. I have inserted images of my fan settings in 20.2.1 and 20.2.2, with the 20.2.2 image showing that my lowest PWM% I can now get is 26%. The lowest I could go in 20.2.1 was 10%, but I settled on 12% as this kept the GPU temp to around 49degC in the desktop.

In 20.2.1 above, I can go as low at 10% for the PWM fan setting, although I have it set to 12%.

In 20.2.2, the lowest I get get is 26% , which is way too high (and noisy) for an idle fan setting on my 5700 XT Nitro +.

[bobalazs]

use MorePowerTool to set minimums.

[higgih01]

Thanks for the tip bobalazs. Unfortunately MPT did not seem to work for me. I installed MPT and loaded in my vBIOS which I extracted from GPU-Z.

The only thing I changed was to set the PWM Minimum % down to 10% rather than the 26% as per my vBIOS - it seems that 20.2.2 was not letting me go below this vBIOS value but 20.2.1 was as it should.

I then hit the Write SPPT and got an indication that it had been successful. However, when I rebooted my PC, my GPU fans spooled up and ran at 100% as soon as 20.2.2 loaded and I had to uninstall 20.2.2 to stop the fans. I must admit I may have not been using MPT correctly, but as 20.2.2 was also indicating a much higher idle frequency than it should have been (around 800-1000 MHz - should have been indicating around 6-15 MHz - it seems 20.2.2 broke more than it fixed for me. I have reverted back to 20.2.1 which I know works and at least have some confidence in.  

[kingfish]

Don't you have the 'Zero RPM' option in global settings? 20% fans have been the default minimum setting when using custom profiles since the Crimson days.. I see no big deal. My global setting runs my normal PC usage @0 rpm and the profile kicks in when I am playing a game.

[higgih01]

I have, but I find it really annoying in desktop workloads. I use my PC around 65% for desktop related work and 35% for gaming. The heat sink on the Sapphire RX 5700 XT Nitro + is not large enough to keep the GPU temp from climbing up to the 60degC threshold under desktop workloads (not gaming) at which point the fans spool up to 1300rpm (I am using the Silent BIOS) to bring the temp back down to 50degC. This fan off/fan on cycling occurs every 3 minutes approx and is really annoying. Have a look at this GPU-Z trace I sent to Sapphire - the GPU is basically idling the whole time, but the heat sink can't keep the temp from climbing and the fans from constantly coming on. 

I have found through experimenting that by setting a constant low fan speed of around 500 rpm (PWM of 12%) I can't hear the card's fans and the GPU temp is maintained at around 50egC. With the release of 20.2.2, I have now lost the ability to set it below 26% - so I am back to square one - either have a constantly annoying fan noise (PWM of 26%) or have an cycling annoying fan noise using the Zero RPM setting which only lasts for 3 minutes - not great given the price of this graphics card. 

I was really disappointed to find that Sapphire under cooked the heat sink for the 5700XT Nitro + , just like my original RX 480 Nitro +. Sapphire put a much beefier heat sink when the RX 580 Nitro + was released as they knew or realised the RX 480's heat sink was too small.

My older Sapphire VEGA 64 Nitro + had a great heat sink and the Zero RPM fan setting was a true Zero RPM setting. However this card weighed 1.6kg vs the RX 5700 XT Nitro + at 1.1kg - i.e. there was approx 500g more heat sink for the VEGA 64 Nitro+ card.      

[kingfish]

I would use the previous driver..the one that worked.

Honestly, I use the Automatic setting for fans and temp in Global settings. I have never exceeded 63C ...and that is playing a browser game....where max fan speed was 25-30%.

[buzzalar]

Same problem. On the same card. 26% is too much for idle mode. Earlier, when i used the old drivers, there was no such limiter,and i could easily change it to 5%, for example. Sad(

[bobalazs]

Tbh iirc they said this "high" fan speed is what was intended to be default. Something to do with ramp up speeds for fans.

[higgih01]

I think you are correct with this, but isn't the point to the Performance Tuning feature in Adrenalin is that it allows users to alter aspects of their cards outside/different from the default settings?

I am all for a better approach to ramp-up speeds as a default setting, but I would like to have the power to manually override the default settings using Performance Tuning - otherwise I am not sure why AMD would give users Performance Tuning functionality? I can't quite see why it was permitted in 20.2.1 and not in 20.2.2, unless it was an unintended consequence of some changes in the Adrenalin software which I trust get addressed in later versions.

[kingfish]

I don't understand...in Global settings use the default settings (automatic) with zero RPM and in the game profile set your higher fan/temp and power limit.

[higgih01]

zero RPM mode does not stay 'zero' on my Nitro + card for very long. The heat sink is not larger enough to maintain zero rpm for desktop work unfortunately, and the card's three fans spool up to 1300rpm every 3 minutes, which is really noticeable.

Believe me, I would like nothing more than if the fans never came on under very low loads. The promise of actual, sustainable zero RPM is one of the main the reasons I bought the Nitro + version of the 5700 XT as I thought that the zero RPM mode was a true 'zero' RPM mode just like my Sapphire VEGA 64 Nitro + card. But it has not turned out this way for me. All the reviews I read of the Nitro + stated that the card was zero RPM under desktop loads, but it seems that they did not test this feature of the card for long enough to realise that the heat sink could not maintain the temps from climbing up to 60 degC, at which point the fans come on.  

I really hate noise for productivity work, and I found that by setting the fans to a PWM of 12% = 510 rpm (approx) the card's fans are virtually silent and keep the GPU at around 50 deg C. This is only for when I am using my PC for desktop/productivity work - I don't care as much if the fans speed up to in games as I am wearing headphones, plus I have undervolted the card to 1075mV and underclocked the card to 2050mHz which is really effective at keeping the GPU cooler and quieter than the stock voltage/speed. 

Because 20.2.2 now only allows me to set a minimum PWM of 26% the fans are much louder than the 12% I could get with 20.2.1, and I am left cursing both the card and AMD as I am forced to put up with it being either constantly loud (PWM 26%) or even louder every 3 minutes (zero RPM mode that does not stay at zero RPM longer than 3 minutes).  

I just want to get some pride of ownership (and get my money's worth ) with this card, but I am not feeling it right now. I trust that this makes sense.

[Ray_AMD · Accepted solution]

With regard to your issue, this is the response I have received from Driver Engineering.

Some Radeon owners may have noticed that with our latest Adrenalin 2020 Edition version 20.2.2 posting, the lowest allowable PWM percentage in fan tuning has been modified or increased versus previous drivers. This change is the result of revised logic that now correctly sets the minimum fan PWM percentage to the minimum limit defined by the product’s VBIOS. As well, Adrenalin 2020 Edition version 20.2.2 fixes an error in the Advanced Fan Control user interface whereby a lower limit PWM percentage may have been incorrectly reported in Radeon Software, when in fact the fan was running at the higher minimum PWM defined by the product’s VBIOS. It is expected that with these fixes, users will have a lowest selectable point on their fan curve that conforms to the PWM limit defined in their specific product’s VBIOS.

[higgih01]

Hi ray_m - this is really valuable and helpful information. Thank you very much for sharing it as it does certainly clarify this issue for me. I can certainly appreciate AMD's approach here. The only question I have is that I thought the reason for including Performance Tuning (and Wattman before it) was to allow users to push the envelope of settings beyond what is set in vBIOS, including the fan profile.  

I can only guess at how difficult it is to get fan setting functionality balance (user control vs. card vBIOS control) just right in Adrenalin Performance Tuning given the range of board partner designs and vBIOS tweaks over an above the reference card's design.  

Given this valuable information, I will upgrade to 20.2.2 and revert back to the default fan curve settings (including Zero RPM mode kingfish!) as I do prefer to keep my GPU drivers as up-to-date as possible given all the good work AMD is doing to continually improve and enhance them.     

[havoc-28]

Hi,

Hum, so 5700 XT reference blower design minimum fan curve is now 20 % starting with 20.2.2 and so on ?

Initial reviews from July 2019  : 700 RPM at idle ("fixed" with a later driver but you could still revert to 700ish RPM at idle), and now 1200 RPM at idle is the minimum ... No going back right ?

Sorry to restart this one, just to be sure ...

[kingfish]

As far as I know, 20% fans at idle have been the norm for AMD graphics for years. It's not something new.

[havoc-28]

kingfish‌

Well, on Reference Blower 5700/5700XT from initial driver to 20.1.3 you could go as low as 10 %. As said, on initial reviews, the blower was running  around 700 ish RPM at Idle, it was corrected on a later driver, but you could still ajust the fan as low as 10 %. You read a review, "low noise at idle, 700 rpm", later there is a driver that change it but you still can manage to go as low as 10 %, no problem, but 7 month later, it changed again and the minimum is 20 % around 1200 ish rpm, maybe it's how it was intended to work from the start, but now it's not good for some ... if from the start it was 20 % minimum (1200 ish rmp at idle), i would not have bought the reference card ... Now what are my choice if nothing change, sell it ? change the radiator ? 

[kingfish]

You can use zero rpm in global settings.

[havoc-28]

kingfish‌

It's a reference Blower card, you can't use zero RPM with blower cards ...

[kingfish]

Ooops...I learn something every day

[scrabble]

Hi,

I have an RX 5700 Blower (reference design) and an RX Vega 64 Blower, and I am really shocked that this problem is marked as resolved. Previously, the fan was at 760 rpm at idle, which was very silent. Now the fan runs at 1225 rpm at idle, which is noisy when working. This is not acceptable for daily work. I hope that this problem will be fixed in future drivers, as it’s no use having advanced ventilation management if you can’t set the minimum speed correctly.

[higgih01]

As I suggested in an earlier part of the conversation, I get AMD's approach, but I thought that the reason for having Wattman and now Performance Tuning was to allow users to adjust settings, including fan settings, outside (both above and below) the default vBIOS settings in our cards. My Nitro+ vBIOS minimum fan PWN setting is 26% but earlier versions (before 20.2.2) of Adrenalin 2020 Performance Tuning did allow me to go lower than this - as it should.

I certainly don't mind AMD's approach for users who do not want to play with their default settings, but for those of us who do, I can't quite understand why AMD removed this level of functionality - especially given the requirement to click the 'I agree' button when first using Performance Settings.    

[kingfish]

higgih01 wrote:

  My Nitro+ vBIOS minimum fan PWN setting is 26% but earlier versions (before 20.2.2) of Adrenalin 2020 Performance Tuning did allow me to go lower than this - as it should.

 .    

"As well, Adrenalin 2020 Edition version 20.2.2 fixes an error in the Advanced Fan Control user interface whereby a lower limit PWM percentage may have been incorrectly reported in Radeon Software, when in fact the fan was running at the higher minimum PWM defined by the product’s VBIOS."

So you were a happy camper when the percentage was incorrectly reported (and you had no issues) but now they fixed it to report the correct percentage you are not happy. Even tho nothing changed. 

Here's a idea!! Reinstall the previous driver that had the incorrect values..and then use "have disk" to install the  display drivers only from the latest version. That way you will have the latest drivers with the previous control panel. Problem solved.

[roger991]

I just installed the 5700XT to my system and I have the exact same problem. The fan speed in idle is 1225 RPM, way too loud. I use my computer 80 % for work and 20% for gaming. I uninstalled the latest driver, 20.4.1 and installed the Radeon Pro Software for Enterprise. This driver allows me to set the fan speed to 11% so the fans are now running at 693 RPM, the temperature of the card is 39 degree celsius and I can't hear the card anymore.

AMD please integrate this option to lower the fans to under 20% into the next regular driver update. There are a lot of people working at home now due to the Corona virus and the last thing they need is a noisy fan - ALL - DAY - LONG!

Thanks.

[kingfish]

If you left your settings alone..and not changed your Global settings...you would have Zero RPM. There is nothing wrong with the software or drivers.

[havoc-28]

I guess that he's talking about a reference 5700 XT (blower design).

[vogaldo]

I use my computer for music production (DAW) and 1200 RPM is too loud. If AMD doesn't fix this problem I guess I have to sell my  RX5700XT 50th Anniversary and it is a shame, because this graphic card is a very good hardware. 

[havoc-28]

Try the Radeon Pro software 20.Q2 ? It still use the previous system where you could lower it to 10%.

[vogaldo]

This solved my problem. Thank you so much!

[roger991]

With the ProSoftware for Enterprise driver you are able the set the fan to 11% and a fan speed of just around 690 RPM so the card is very silent.

However be aware that this driver, that I use as well, is very buggy. Chrome crashes frequently, Microsoft Teams crashes as soon as somebody uses a webcam. This is because this driver is not as up to date as the regular driver where they fixed these issues.

So you have the choice: Buggy driver where Chrome/Teams will crash but is silent or a driver that is more stable but will not let you set the fan lower than 1200 RPM and thus is very noisy. I chose the first option because having to work a lot from home during the Corona pandemic I couldn't stand the fan noise all day long.

I had Nvidia cards for around 10 years before giving AMD a try and never had this kind of stability issues the way I have it now with the AMD drivers. The AMD graphic card may be a good product but the driver stabilty and fan issues caused by the drivers after 20.2.2 just ruins the experience.

[vogaldo]

I understand that a driver focused on work should be more stable. At the moment I had no problem or instability with it. I hope everything continues to work properly. Your recommendation, if everything continues to work well, has been very useful.

[ucantosbagayoshi]

I have an MSI 5700 XT reference design video card. This situation is stupid and absurd. Why are users not allowed to use fan lower than 20%? You will receive a warning text before making personal settings in the AMD software. So the responsibility belongs to the user. I accept the responsibility to run my graphics card at 1% fan speed. But AMD does not accept this? AMD reference design video card in the new driver should take into account the wishes of the users. It should offer users the freedom to adjust as desired, starting at 100 rpm and 1% pwm speed. There are several options in the plug-in called "More Power Tool" for bios, but frankly I'm afraid that the card may have problems. Has there been any user who set up PWM over bios before?

[fijosh]

I have the same problem with ASRock Radeon RX 5600 XT Phantom Gaming D2 6G OC. Minimum fan speed that I can set is 33%  which translates to 1460RPM for this card!

Like higgih01, the same thing annoys me: The card was advertised with 0dB mode, which sounded great. But in reality, the passive cooling (even with a help of airflow from a couple of 120mm case fans) is not enough. The fans are stopped for a few minutes but the temp goes up and when it reaches 53°C, fans start spinning (1450RPM), cool it down below 50°C, stop again and this repeats over and over. It is really noticeable and very distracting.

Not saying this is AMD's fault, clearly the manufacturer is to blame here. Clearly they messed up when designing/testing this card, and okay - it happens, but at least let me (and other users) correct the manufacturers' faults that they are likely not going to fix for us.

I can live without 0dB mode, but it is harsh to have the fans spinning at 1460RPM when the card is under no lod at all. Just please let me set the fan speed lower than what the manufacturer restricts in the vBIOS! 

In the end, this change in the drivers (i.e. to restrict the users to override the minimum fan speed), made by AMD itself, just makes AMD look worse and kind of does not make me want to buy an AMD card next time..

Come on, AMD, you're portraying yourselves as a company that creates products for gamers, for people, so step up and let the people tweak the products to their needs and allow them to fix the missteps of the manufacturers!

[fijosh]

So I need to retract my statement about the "manufacturer being to blame here" when it comes to the thermals on my card.

Today I discovered that the abnormal temps in idle (and thus completely usless zero-RPM fan mode) are caused by the VRAM clock running at max speed when using a different refresh rate than 60Hz. (or than 120Hz for people who have high refresh rate monitors - I have only 70Hz one so I can't test that myself)

This problem causes the card to draw unnecessarily more power than it should (25W instead of 10-ish W when 60Hz is set), and this is what completely kills the "zero RPM" fan mode, because the card gets too hot with these clocks and keeps triggering the threshold for when the fans start to spin.

Apparently, this has been an AMD bug for yearsh, which still hasn¨t been fixed and was being swept under the rug with false statements (more like excuses) like "the high memory clock is needed for high refresh rates". Clearly that's not true based on the evidence from hundreds of people on reddit and other internet forums..

Really hope that these problems will get fixed, otherwise my next graphics card is probably not going to be another one from AMD.. :|

[chiefv20]

This also happened to me because of 20.11.2 driver and I got it fixed by uninstall it using DDU and reinstall 20.10.1 version of the driver. I have a 75hz monitor and now the VRAM clock stays at 200 MHz idle.

[fijosh]

I know we've gone a bit off topic, since this thread is about the lack of proper control for fan speed and not about the VRAM clock issue, but... Still, the issues are sort of related in a sense that one causes the other to be a much bigger problem. So just one last off-topic post from me:

I tried going down to 20.10.1 but it didn't make a difference for me. When at 70Hz, VRAM clock is still maxed out, while at 60Hz it is OK.. :( The process I followed was:
- uninstall current driver (I had 20.11.1) via DDU in Safe mode
- disconnect ethernet cable
- reboot
- install 20.10.1
- reboot

Sadly, no luck. Thanks for the tip though, hopefully it will help at least some other people.

I also tried going to 20.11.3 just out of curiosity, and that's even worse - VRAM clock is maxed out even at 60Hz <insert facepalm here> (it's very likely broken in 20.11.2 as well, based on your experience)

[makkara]

PWM% minimum is probably working as intended. When the PWM% is set low enough the fan will stop spinning, but the PWM is still trying to power the fan and thus heating the fan motor. To prevent this situation there is minimum PWM%.

PWM fans stop spinning around 10-20 PWM%. Also high RPM fans spin faster at lower PWM% than low RPM fans.

So because the card manufacturer used high RPM fans, the fans run at high RPM at low PWM%.

[fijosh]

Sure, the reason for minimum PWM% is clear. But that doesn't change the fact that some manufacturers set it way too high while the fans can still spin just fine even at lower values.

As reported by numerous users, after rolling back to older version of AMD drivers or after changing the minimum PWM% in MorePowerTool and flashing the modded vBIOS, they were able to lower the PWM% below the original minimum to achieve the desired noise level while the fans were still operational.

The point is - users should have the option to go even below the minimum PWM% set by the manufacturer (at their own risk, of course) without having to jump through hoops like being stuck on old version of the driver or having to flash modded vBIOS.