Only one GPU fan available

[Beerislife]

Yesterday I was doing a small hardware upgrade on my PC and noticed there was some dust around one of the GPU fans but not the other.

After putting things back together I checked and found that the official nvidia driver is only reporting one fan available.

Once I fully wake up I'll investigate but in the meantime does anybody have any clues?

Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GP107 [GeForce GTX 1050 Ti] vendor: Micro-Star MSI
driver: nvidia v: 515.48.07 bus ID: 01:00.0
Display: server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: nvidia resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti/PCIe/SSE2
v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 515.48.07 direct render: Yes

Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 42.4 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 41 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 43%

nvidia-smi

Wed Jul 13 08:39:06 2022
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 515.48.07 Driver Version: 515.48.07 CUDA Version: 11.7 |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU Name Persistence-M| Bus-Id Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan Temp Perf Pwr:Usage/Cap| Memory-Usage | GPU-Util Compute M. |
| | | MIG M. |
|===============================+================= =====+======================|
| 0 NVIDIA GeForce ... Off | 00000000:01:00.0 On | N/A |
| 43% 40C P5 N/A / 75W | 505MiB / 4096MiB | 11% Default |
| | | N/A |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes: |
| GPU GI CI PID Type Process name GPU Memory |
| ID ID Usage |
|================================================= ============================|
| 0 N/A N/A 1205 G /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg 129MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 1539 G /usr/bin/kwin_x11 65MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 1604 G /usr/bin/plasmashell 26MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 1816 G ...b/thunderbird/thunderbird 120MiB |
| 0 N/A N/A 1876 G /usr/lib/firefox/firefox 137MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[rab0171610]

Mine says the same thing and it has two fans. I don't think they are operated independently. I think they are controlled together, so they slow down simultaneously and stop or start simultaneously. If what you are saying is that Nvidia Settings (last photo) ID0 and Fan 0 speed at the bottom led you to think there is only one fan reported, then I believe that is normal and nothing to worry about. The two fans are reported as a single operating unit.

[Beerislife]

Except there's no physical evidence that the fan has ever spun (dust on the blades)

Looking around I see that others have reports of:

fan:0
fan:1

I'm still not fully awake, further investigation will have to wait...

[rab0171610]

I can't say for certain but It may entirely depend on the card. I do know for sure that some cards have separate controllers onboard for each fan and some do not. The fans do not have any software or chips in them. If they are connected to the board with one connection, I can't see how the card can distinguish between the two fans. If there is a dedicated connector for each fan connected to two separate controllers, then the card would be able to see the fans individually. On a lot of the lower to mid-range cards they are connected with a Y type cable that connects to one controller connection on the board. Some cards use fans with dedicated individual connections. Fortunately, if the fan is not working but the controller is good, many graphics card fans can easily be replaced. Search for Graphics Card Fans on Google to find an electronic retailer of your choice.
The important thing is to keep an eye on the temp in Nvidia Settings, especially under heavy load. If the temp is rising and the fans are not coming on then there is a problem obviously. If the temp stays relatively low, even under heavy load the fans may not come on. They no longer run continuously as they did generations ago. If and when the temp increases, you can check the fans with a flashlight visually to see if they are actually running.
Another place to look for help might be the Nvidia forums.

[rab0171610]

Another thing to remember is that most cards have a heat sink on the gpu under the fan as well. They will stay relatively cool if there is good case ventilation from the system fans. All GPUs will die out eventually from heat damage and fans are only one part of the design that helps pull heat away from the GPU, prolonging their life. Unless the card is being used for intense gaming or mining it should be okay with less than optimal fan performance under average desktop workloads. Obviously, if you can, correct the problem by replacing or cleaning the fans but if not it does not necessarily mean imminent GPU death. If the situation become dire, many people with great success have resorted to opening the case and pointing a small box fan directly on the GPU to keep it cool.