Fan Control Bug Causes MSI R9 290X Lightning Cards To Burnout!

While this news isn’t exactly new to some people out there, it’s now gotten to the point where it’s been discovered to be a wider issue that one or two cards having problems with their fans. It’s no secret that a small percentage of any type of technology will have defects, but the issue here seems to be with the Catalyst 14.3 drivers.

The MSI R9 290X Lightning is a very power-hungry card, it needs to be kept cool, the 290X cores are hot enough as it is and overclocking doesn’t do them any favours in terms of thermals, this is why MSI uses a triple fan configuration to keep it in check. Unfortunately it looks like a very serious software bug is causing the outer two fans to stop spinning, causing severe and sometimes fatal heat build up.

Simple solution to this is to downgrade to Catalyst 13.12 if you’re having fan speed issues, and while this seems limited to the MSI R9 290X, it’s always best to double-check your GPU in both idle and load states to make sure the Beta drivers aren’t causing any issues.

Thank you WCCF for providing us with this information.

Image courtesy of WCCF.