Gigabyte HD 5870 fans at 100% in 10.8.2

[hylkepylke]

Hi guys,

I recently acquired a Gigabyte HD 5870 GPU. Everything runs fine (except Chimera is ugly as it doens't support 1080p as a VESA resolution), I get tons of FPS in StarCraft 2, but the fans are always full on, making quite a lot of noise. The upside is that the temperature never reached above 40 degrees C, but I was hoping that there's a way to turn them down.

I presume the kexts are all working fine, System Profiler recognises the card as a Radeon HD 5800 series, and QE/CI is working as well. FakeSMC even reads the temperature from the card, so why isn't fan speed control working?

Could it be that disabling OemSMBIOS.kext to get the 10.8.2 update to work could've caused this? If so, is there an updated version of FakeSMC that supports 10.8.2?

 

[sfroom]

My previous hack used a reference 5870. I found that the fan ran quite differently with GraphicsEnabler=Yes vs. GraphicsEnabler=No. I can't remember which was quieter.

Your card shouldn't require graphicsenabler, so I'd recommend turning it off if it's on, or vice versa, and seeing if that helps with the fan speed. I can't guarantee results, but it's worth a shot!

 

[hylkepylke]

I've tried both GE=yes and GE=no, but both keep the fans spinning at full speed.

 

[sfroom]

What's your system definition? If set to MacPro3,1 try a different system definition (and make appropriate edits to AGPM.kext).

Also, is your 5870 a reference version(black and red, with AMD logo on the PCB above the PCI-E connector)? I seem to recall some third party cards having issues with fan speed.

The fan speed profile of the card can also be adjusted by editing the cards BIOS, but I'm not an expert in such matters.

 

[hylkepylke]

I've got both MacPro3,1 and MacPro5,1 working. I'm currently on MacPro5,1 as I found that to be cooler =p. Editing the BIOS requires Windows, but I could try editing AGPM. I'll try that now, thanks!

 

[hylkepylke]

I'm currently trying editing AGPM.kext. However, my device-id, 6898 for the Radeon HD5870, doesn't show up in AGPM.kext. I'm now adding it myself, but shouldn't there be a better way of tackling this? Also, there's no reference to g-state switching on my 5870 when I look in the console. Fixed using LogControl=1 in info.plist, but still can't find any switching going on except when booting, going from 3 to 0 instantly, 0 being required only when on full (0% idle) load.

 

[gorg]

Could you give more details? I have the same problem, once I get to the MacOSX Mountain Lion 10.8.2 login screen the fan of my AMD/ATI Radeon HD 5870 goes 100%.

I tried to edit AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext in various IOKitPersonalities/AGPM/Machines (MacPro4,1 , MacPro5,1 , iMac12,1 , iMac12,2) by inserting Vendor1002Device6898 entries where there were missing and adding LogControl=1, then booting using the corresponding smbios plists (all generated by MultiBeast, also had to remove AppleTyMCEDriver.kext to avoid KPs at boot time) but get the same fan behaviour