Category: Support

Everything You Need to Know

When you’re building your own PC for the first time, the most common problem that you’ll encounter is when your GPU fans not spinning. This can be frustrating because you’ve probably done everything right, or that you might have a potential problem.

But in most cases, GPU fans not spinning is a simple problem to remedy, and you don’t need to do some complicated troubleshooting.

In this guide, we’ll go over how your gaming PC’s GPU fans work and how you can fix the most common problems associated with graphics card fans.

What’s The Most Common Reason Why GPU Fans Not Spinning Properly or At All?

Your gaming PC does not need to run its GPU fans at all time, or at least until they hit a specific temperature. Your GPU software may come with a passive cooling mode that’s designed to reduce system noise, which in this case, is the noise of your GPU fans.

Most first-time PC builders would turn on their computer and take a moment to realize that their GPU fans are not spinning, or spinning slowly. When they do find out their fans not spinning, they immediately assume they did something wrong or that their new GPU is defective.

To find out if your graphics card actually has a GPU fan problem, just simply run a game or do a stress test/benchmark test that will put your GPU under load. You can install MSI Afterburner, or something similar, to help you raise the speed of your fan manually too.

If your fans do not spin after going through benchmarking your computer, or even after you’ve manually set the MSI Afterburner, then you might have a GPU problem.

What Are Other Problems Associated with GPU Fans Not Spinning Properly On a New Gaming PC Build?

If you have a brand new gaming computer and everything is turned on except for the fans, here are some common problems to help you do basic troubleshooting:

PCIe Power Isn’t Plugged In

It’s common for first-time PC builders to forget to plug things in properly. A PCIe power connector might be one of the few things that first-time builders often overlook, which cause GPU fans not spinning.

If you suspect that you might not have plugged in your PCIe power connector, this can easily be fixed by plugging it in to the power supply unit.

You can also check if your GPU is connected to the PSU properly. Take note that older graphics cards such as GTX 1050Ti/1050 don’t have 6-pin or 8-pin power connectors to connect to a PSU because they run on the power provided to them through the PCIe lane.

If your graphics card does not need to be connected to a power supply via a PCIe cable and the fans aren’t spinning, then you might have a different problem.

A Different Power Cable Isn’t Plugged In

If your PCIe cable is connected properly to the power supply and the fans are not spinning, you might have another cable that’s not plugged in correctly. If everything is plugged in correctly but fans not spinning at all (or slowly), then you might have a GPU problem.

To check if you do have a GPU problem, you can reseat all the cables and ensure that they are all connected properly to where they’re supposed to be connected (graphics card included). If everything is properly plugged and other connections are working as intended except for the fan or GPU, then you might need to purchase a new graphics card.

What Are Common Issues That Could Cause Your Fans To Stop Spinning In An Older Build?

If you have an older gaming rig and your video card’s fans suddenly decide to stop spinning, you can look at these following issues:

Your Video Card Might Be Too Dusty

It’s possible that your video card might be too dusty. Your fans not spinning might be due to heavy accumulation of fan dust. Think of them as a heavy piece of cloth dangling around the fan blades.

If this is the problem, you can just pull the video card out and clean it. You can use a can of compressed air to get rid of all the fan dust and in other components of the video card. You can also use small paint brushes together with a can of compressed air to help you clean the dust around the fans. This should make it easy for your fans to start spinning once more.

Your GPU Fans’ Bearings Need To Be Oiled

If you have one of those old GPUs, a common cause for GPU fan not spinning is its bearings. You can expand your video card’s life by re-oiling the fans’ bearings with a lightweight machine oil (like a 3-in-1 household oil). Word of advise: do not use WD-40. They can do more harm than good to your aging video card.

If you’re lucky, a little bit of oil might make it look like your GPU has a new fan. But if your GPU fans are not functioning properly even after being oiled and dusted, then it might be time to replace it with a new GPU.

Different Fixes For Most GPUs

If you have one of those modern GPUs and your fan is not working properly even after you’ve done the basic troubleshooting above, you can try one of these fixes. You don’t have to use all of them. You just need to work your way down with any of the go to fix listed below:

Fix #1 – Update your Graphics Driver

Sometimes, when fans stop spinning, it’s mostly because of a driver issue. It could mean that you’re using a broken or outdated driver. In most cases, when you didn’t install the graphics driver properly, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it makes things worse, but there will be problems. Your GPU might not even show up in the Device Manager if you have a faulty driver.

This is also easy to resolve because you just need to visit your video card’s manufacturer website (Nvidia/AMD), download the latest correct installer, and follow the steps provided.

You can also use a software called Driver Easy, which is a software that makes driver installation and updating easy. You just install the program, click Scan Now button and it will do the rest.

It will list down every driver that needs to be installed or updated, as well as drivers that contribute to a faulty component. But note that you need the Pro Version of the software if you want to make this program work for you.

Note that you can still manually download and install all the drivers with the free version even if you don’t have the technical know how, but it’s time-consuming. Some drivers may require a bit of web browsing if the free version has problems installing it.

Once all drivers are updated, your computer hardware should be running smoothly, including your GPU. Any hardware issue caused by an outdated GPU driver should be resolved afterwards.

Fix #2 – Reconfigure Your GPU’s Fan Speed or RPM

If your GPU fan not spinning properly even after you reinstalled the drivers, you might want to readjust the fan’s RPM or fan speed. You can do this by using a hardware monitoring program such as MSI Afterburner so you can adjust the fan speed manually.

Open the MSI Afterburner program and click on the A Icon to toggle auto control. Once the fan speed control is accessible, drag the slider to manually toggle fan speed. If you don’t hear anything even if the slider is already at 100, proceed to the next fix.

Fix #3 – Scan and Repair Your System

To proceed with this step, try and remove your graphics card and install it in a test PC. This test PC may or may not have the same specs are your actual unit. You just want to make sure that the components are properly installed, including your graphics card, PCIe power connectors, and more.

If your graphics card works on another PC perfectly, but it’s not working on your actual unit, then it might be a system issue. When we say system issue, it could mean that you have bigger problems than your graphics cards. It could mean that your power supply unit might not have enough power to boot up your graphic card, or there are missing or corrupted files in your operating system.

To help determine if your system is at fault here, you can use a program called Restoro. This is a professional repair solution that lets you scan and fix system issues without deleting or losing personal data.

Much like Driver Easy, there’s a Free Version as well as a Paid Version. The Free version only allows you to scan your system but not repair the files. The Paid Version lets you do the full repair. Don’t worry as there is a 60-day money-back guarantee if Restoro is unable to fix the problem.

If GPU fans not spinning yet after running Restoro or checking for system files, then proceed with the next fix below.

Fix #4 – Upgrade your GPU BIOS

Much like a corrupted driver, a corrupted GPU BIOS can also cause problems that make things worse. BIOS problems are uncommon, but they’re still problems regardless. You need a little bit of technical know how to upgrade your BIOS, but nothing that a quick site search can’t fix.

If you aren’t confident about your technical skills, you might want to refer to a computer specialist to help you do upgrade your BIOS.

Frequently Asked Questions About GPU Fans Not Spinning

How Do I Force My GPU Fan to Spin?

If you really want to manually spin your GPU fan, you’ll need a third party software such as MSI Afterburner. This is a software that lets you manually toggle the speed of your fan. Just go to the Fan Speed section and click Manual.

Then just slide the dial based on the speed you want. If this doesn’t force your GPU fan to spin, then you might have done something wrong when you built the PC the first time, or you’re already dealing with an old GPU that needs to be replaced.

How Do I Know If GPU Fans Are Not Spinning?

GPU fans aren’t exactly known for being silent, so you’ll actually know whether or not your fans are spinning just by listening.

Doing a stress test, or manually firing up a graphically demanding game at the highest settings possible, is a sure way to make your fans spin and sound like an airplane taking off.

If you have a top-of-the-line case with a tempered glass side panel, you might be able to see for yourself if the fans are spinning or not. If not, you might want to de-lid the PC casing and see if the fans are spinning or not.

How Do I Know My GPU is Dying?

If your GPU fan is dying, it will show the following symptoms: 

• Abnormal Performance – Lastly, when your GPU temperatures spike for no reason at all, even when it’s idle, it’s a sign that there’s something wrong with the GPU fan or the GPU itself. Note that when this happens, you might not need to replace the GPU just yet. Simply reapply the thermal paste on your GPU and see if it’s working fine after that. If the temperatures still spike after a new thermal paste, double check if your fans are spinning or if there’s something that’s pushing your GPU to the limit when there shouldn’t be. If there’s nothing suspicious with your GPU and fans don’t start spinning still, it’s time to buy a new video card.
• Crashing – When your GPU suddenly crashes unexpectedly and you’re unable to reboot, chances are your GPU is dying and needs to be replaced. Note that you don’t need to put your GPU under heavy load as well. It’s actually worse if your PC crashes even when it’s idle.
• On-Screen Artifacts or Excessive Glitching – If you’re noticing FPS drops for no reason, or if your game is graphically glitching, your GPU might be having problems and it’s letting you know that it’s not going to last long. When you ignore glitching or on-screen artifacts, you’re putting more load on your GPU and PSU, so you’re at risk for further component damage apart from your GPU.

Is It Bad To Have GPU Fans Running All The Time?

There’s nothing wrong with having your graphics card fans spin all the time, even if they’re at 100% (if you use MSI Afterburner or its counterpart). You can run them this way because GPUs are meant to handle heavy workloads.

When fans are always running, it will keep your GPU temperature below average, which is what you want regardless if you’re gaming, working, or editing. The downside here is that having your fans constantly on creates noise pollution if your case has a tempered glass panel. If you’re wearing gaming headsets or if you live alone, the noise shouldn’t be completely detrimental.

But note that years of constant spinning might wear off your GPU fan bearings faster than they should. You can refer to the previous section above that talks about maintaining fan bearings with lightweight machine oil.

Conclusion

The methods mentioned in this article to fix GPU fans are only possible if you have ample time. You must primarily check the power cable and graphics card fan are appropriately connected. If under these multiple stress tests, too, there is a fan spinning issue, and there it is under warranty, you must contact your seller. 

We hope this article gives you some details about the GPU fans of your computer on spinning, but you should always upgrade it to keep your PC safe. GPU fans can make you worry about your PC’s motherboard, which can be very risky. If your GPU fan becomes a faulty product, it must be replaced with a new one. 

You can either go with a lower-range GPU fan or a higher-range GPU fan. If you want the latest GPU card, then you can go for the all-new RTX 20 series cards, which can be your best buying option at a higher rate. This new series will work fine and live up to your imagination while playing a high graphics game.

Gaming chairs are considered a luxury. They’re made of high-quality materials, and are both functional and aesthetically pleasing to look at. It comes as no surprise that brands such as Secret Labs, DXRacer, Lenovo, and Cougar to name a few.

To keep these chairs in tip-top shape, you need to keep them clean and properly maintained. You’re not dealing with regular office chairs here, after all. This article will show you how to clean a gaming chair, how to maintain their materials, and more.

How Do You Clean Gaming Chairs?

It takes more than using a damp cloth to remove tough stains on your gaming chair. Sure, it may do the trick, but you’re probably doing more harm than good.

This section will discuss the general step by step guide for you to clean a gaming chair, and later on, we’ll show you how to maintain your gaming chair, regardless if it’s made from PU Leather, PVC leather, and so on.

First Step – Identify What Upholstery Your Gaming Chair Is Made Of

Before you clean your gaming chair, you have to know what upholstery is on it. You have to know what the chair is made of so you don’t end up damaging the material. There are different approaches to cleaning different materials, and we’ll talk about them in a while.

Gaming chairs are usually made up of one of the following upholstery materials:

• PU Leather
• PVC Leather
• Mesh
• Fabric

Some gaming chairs might be a combination of different upholstery, so you’ll have to clean them separately. Your gaming chair’s manufacturer will provide you with whatever upholstery is used and probably some generic cleaning instructions.

Second Step – Use a Vacuum Cleaner To Remove All The Dust

Now assuming you know what your gaming chair is made of, it’s time to start cleaning it. First thing you need to do is to remove all the dust, debris, and other small particles that could leave a smudge or cause further staining when touched by a wet cloth or cleaning solvent.

For mesh chairs or those with fabric upholstery, vacuuming can help remove the dust particles that’s embedded into the material. You can use a brush attachment for the vacuum cleaner over the fabric upholstery, or regular vacuum attachment for the mesh chairs.

If your chair is made from PU Leather or PVC Leather, there’s no need to use a handheld vacuum. You just use a regular feather duster, or use a microfiber cloth.

Third Step – Clean Upholstery With Solvent Solution or Water

Your gaming chair deserves better, and vacuuming and dusting can only do so much. When it comes to food stains, sweat stains, and other stains, you need to use water or solvent solution.

But how do you know if you need to use either? Simple. Look for the care tag that’s attached to your gaming chair. They’re usually found at the back or underneath the chair. You’re looking for one of two letters here: S or W.

S stands for solvent, and W stands for Water. If you see S/W, then the chair can be cleaned with either S or W.

PU Leather and PVC Leather (or any type of faux leather) chairs usually come with the W-tag, and mesh or fabric upholstery can use either. When you’re using a cleaning solvent for these tougher stains, gently blot over the stained area but never rub over it. If it’s fabric, you need to brush directly over the stains.

Fourth Step – Spot Cleaning For Tougher Stains

This is an optional step if the third step can’t get rid of the tough stains. If you still see some stains on problem areas even after you use a water or solvent solution, then you’ll need to spot clean them.

To spot clean these problem areas, you just need rubbing alcohol and cotton ball. Soak the cotton ball with rubbing alcohol first. But don’t dab on the area just yet. You need to find out if the alcohol can damage the material.

You can do a test by wiping a small area on the underside of the chair, or least a spot that’s out of sight. Wipe a small area and wait for a few minutes to determine if alcohol can damage the material. If it doesn’t, proceed to spot clean the affected area by gently blotting or rubbing the alcohol-soaked cotton swab.

Be careful with spot cleaning on a mesh chair because the material can get damaged easily.

Fifth Step – Wash The Frame, Base, and Armrests

Upholstery is clean by this step, but you’re not done cleaning gaming chairs just yet. Now you need to move on to the other parts of the chair, namely the base, frame, and armrest.

This is relatively easy because to clean a gaming chair’s armrest, base, and frame only requires warm water combined with mild detergent. Use a clean cloth to wash the surface and then proceed to wipe it dry with a paper towel or a dry cloth.

Be sure you’re not using the same damp cloth that you cleaned for the upholstery because you might be adding more dirt as opposed to removing them.

Sixth Step – Clean The Casters and Tighten Screws

After the base, armrest, and frame have been cleaned, it’s time to move on to the caster wheels. This is the most difficult part because the wheels gather lots of debris that may get embedded into the mechanism. These debris are often difficult to remove, especially if there are fur or carpet fabric lodged into it.

The first thing you need to do here is to flip your chair upside down first. Ideally, you want to start cleaning the casters first before you clean the upholstery and other parts because you might end up getting them dirty again.

Grab a vacuum cleaner and remove debris using the crevice tool. Once all the big debris and chunks of fur and hair are removed, use a soft cloth and wipe the caster wheels down with surface cleaner. For the inner parts, use a clean cloth soaked with rubbing alcohol. Use a paper towel to remove any moisture.

Once those are clean, be sure to lubricate the chair’s wheels with something like WD40 if you’re hearing squeaking noises or if the wheels don’t roll easily. Be sure to check for loose screws and bolts and tighten when necessary.

And voila! That’s how you clean a gaming chair.

How Do You Deep Clean A Fabric Gaming Chair?

My personal experience with fabric gaming chairs is that staining is inevitable. Spills, sweat stains, coffee stains, and even dried out dust particles can be hard to clean if they’ve been ignored for too long.

Part of learning how to clean a gaming chair is learning how to deep clean fabric materials. You may be using a faux leather chair now, but sooner or later, you’ll upgrade to the fabric ones.

To deep clean a fabric upholstery, you need to use baking soda. First, vacuum the chair like you would with any gaming chair.

Then once the dust particles and small debris are removed, it’s time to use baking soda. Using a microfiber cloth, work baking soda into the upholstery and let it stay on for 30 minutes.

Run the vacuum cleaner a second time to remove the baking soda. By this time, stains should have faded but they’ll still be there.

Apply a layer of baking soda once more using the microfiber. Then put the chair out in direct sunlight to completely dry and deodorize the upholstery.

Why Is Your Gaming Chair Dirty?

To better learn how to clean a gaming chair, you need to know why your chair is dirty to begin with. Like our parents used to say, “prevention is better than cure”. So if you can prevent your chair from getting too dirty, you’ll end up cleaning it less frequently.

These are some of the biggest factors that cause your mesh or fabric chair to become dirty:

1. Eating and/or Drinking – It goes without saying that mesh, fabric, and faux leather chairs can get dirty when you eat or drink while gaming. You’ll end up spilling your drink or dropping crumbs that get embedded into the mesh or fabric. When spilled drink or sauce becomes unattended, it turns into stubborn stains that may be difficult to remove later on. Water stains are also quite common problems because they’ll cause spot discolorations or inadvertently damage the surface.
2. Dust From Outside – Dust particles can come inside your house or room from different sources. Your centralized air-conditioning units might be reeling in dust from outdoors, or you could tracking dust from your clothes when you do go outside. Your gaming chair will never be dust-free unless you just cover it with cling wrap.
3. Bodily Fluids – Or sweat stains to put it simply. Sweat stains against a white fabric or mesh can become easy to spot because they’ll turn yellow as time goes on. You won’t really notice you have sweat stains on there until they turn a shade of yellow.

Faux leather chair, be it PVC leather or PU Leather, are actually more resistant to dirt because they don’t allow dirt or dust particles to get embedded into the material. But it doesn’t mean that your chairs won’t get dirty too.

Much like fabric and mesh chairs, PVC leather and PU leather get dirty the same way. The only difference here is that the latter’s cleaning process is easier and the materials are easy to maintain. You may not get the usual stubborn stains as you would with mesh and fabric chairs. The cleaning process for leather chairs is a lot easier too.

How to Maintain Your Gaming Chairs And Keep Them As Clean As Possible

After all that’s said and done, you now want to make sure that your chair is as clean as possible for a long time. If you really want to keep it clean, here are some tips:

Remove Dust Particles Once A Week

To keep your chair regularly clean from surface dust, you need to vacuum or dust at least once a week. Dust particles often work themselves into the fabric or material when left unattended. They turn into tough stains that end up becoming too difficult to clean.

Direct Sunlight Is Your Worst Enemy

Exposing your gaming chair to direct sunlight for prolonged periods of time can damage the upholstery. Discoloration might occur for fabric and mesh chairs, while surface cracks might appear for faux leather materials.

If your workstation is near a window with direct sunlight running through it, use a curtain to reduce sunlight from coming into the room.

Read Your Manufacturer’s Cleaning Instructions

If you bought your gaming chair as brand new, then you’ll need to read through the manufacturer’s cleaning instructions. The cleaning directions provided will help you clean the chair as intended rather than relying on a random cleaning solution.

Not all gaming chairs are made equal, so be sure to browse through it first. Certain fabrics might be sensitive to mild detergent, or a commercial cleaning solution, so you might end up damaging the chair. Some brands might also have their own water based cleaner or stain remover, like Secret Lab. A few drops of that cleaner might do wonders for a Secret Lab chair, but might not be the case for another named brand.