I have a first world problem with my new card, a KFA2 Geforce GTX 1070, that is driving me insane: The fans start and stop all the time, producing a grating noise. Many newer Nvidia cards have a silent mode that will stop the fans on the card completely at low temps. Only if the temperature of the GPU rises above a certain treshold the fans will start up, the idea being that the card will be quiet in 2D mode. Unfortunately in my ventilated case the temperature hovers right around that treshold while gaming as well. This causes the fans to start up for a second or two and then slowing down again, producing a grating noise everytime they start up. Ironically I cannot hear the fans spinning at the lowest setting over the background hum the computer produces anyway. Is there any way to turn this feature off? I don't really mind having the fans spin all the time, if they stay in silent mode.
Most gpus set this temp to 40c or above some even higher than that. Most cases are more capable of producing sufficient air flow to stop the on off effect. Custom profile will work but from what I remember it will need setting on every boot or it will just deactivate the default one.
Setting a custom fan curve will be the way to do it. Use EVGA Precision X or MSI Afterburner and set it to load the profile when Windows loads.
I found this when I had my 980Ti Strix, and I was able to set a custom fan curve using MSI Afterburner (as GeorgeK suggests). KFA2 might also have their own utility that enables you to change the fan behaviour on your specific model of the card.
Thanks guys. The KFA2 tool is way to simple for my taste: I had a look at MSI Afterburner, but I am not really sure how to set up a fan curve without messing with any other settings.