Design Flaw in Twin Frozr fans

Question

So, I'm finally creating a thread about this.
There's been reports over the last few years about fans making rattling noises, grinding noises, high pitched whines, whether on cold boot, idle, high RPM, or constantly, and quite frankly I'm tired of MSI ignoring the issue.
There is a design flaw with the Twin Frozr fans.
MSI needs to publicly acknowledge this.
Currently, the only way to get a replacement fan is to send your ENTIRE card in for repair.  Other more reputable companies will send you out an entirely new fansink attachment at no cost.  As one poster said it; "That would be like sending my car to Nissan every time I blow a tire"
My personal experience with Twin Frozr started with Twin Frozr 2 on my GTX 460 Hawks.  The Talon Attack edition started to make a bad grinding noise on cold boot or if it actually got cold enough during idle operation.  When the card warmed up, the noise stopped.  Speeding up the fan to 100% sometimes also caused it to get rid of the noise, but that was only temporary unless the card stayed warm.
My non-hawk exhibited rattling as well, but to a lesser extent.  No grinding noise on cold boot, just a low rattling.
My next card was a GTX 670 PE with Twin Frozr 4.  Surely they fixed the issue by now right?  Wrong!  Within 30 days I started having fan issues.  This fan doesn't rattle, but there is a high pitched whine when the fan is in operation.  The faster the RPM, the louder the whine.  Most people don't even know they have this issue because of the subtle tone of the whine and it being muffled by the fan's air sound at higher RPMs.
That's 3 separate graphics cards all exhibiting an issue with their fans.
There's one thing in common with these issues; it's only caused by the fan closest to the I/O.  This boggles my mind.  Surely if there was a problem with the fan design itself it would affect both fans, right?  I just don't understand it.  This leads me to believe it's a design flaw with the Twin Frozr design.
Some people seem to have an issue with the other fan, but it appears to be rare and not the same type of problem the majority of people are reporting.
Seeing as they want you to lose your card (and $10+ to ship it) for weeks at a time to 'fix' an issue which will no doubt happen again, something needs to be done about this.  Their 'warranty' policy for this issue is completely unacceptable, as is the fact that the fans start acting up within a month of ownership.
If you want to see more threads, just do a search. Here is some of them:
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=151578.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=157567.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=156284.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=161914.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=153463.0
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=154030.0
Googling brings more results.  I've posted about it in this thread, and others have mentioned it as well: http://www.overclock.net/t/1265574/msi-gtx-670-power-edition-twin-frozr-4-cooler/0_30

Answer 1

Quote from: Noway77 on 28-May-14, 05:39:49
I don't think we have a MSI office in Portugal, most brands don't.
Some stores are not reliable they buy from EU retailers some even from Asia retailers and usually they don't give proper support. In Lisbon you have stores like Globaldata, Nanochip, Chiptek and AquaPC they are in business for years, have good customer support and have also good prices.
I'm probably not going to buy any MSI product from now on , for obvious reasons.
Trying to contact a support shoudn't be this hard from a client , at this point I assume anyone that's doesn't want to lose time will just give up.
As a consumer I was forced to RUN and TRY to find msi support , MSI support mail doesn't event exist , since I made this thread it still hasn't been changed.
I really liked MSI ( I still have my 875P MSI neo here with my p4 and the NX6800 working ) it's like saying goodbye to an old friend that has been by my side since P4 times.
I'll buy msi products in US , or in another country maybe , but never MORE in portugal.
This is not cause of the shops , I recommend everyone to buy in the shops listed !!
In fact most of the portuguese shops tried to help me find msi support ( even though they weren't the stored that sold me the card ).
I really don't want ppl to get this mixed up, the problem here is MSI not acknowledging a problem that is simple to fix, having a non-existant email on their webpage as support for over 4 months and the fact that as a consumer I was forced to jump trough loops to actually contact MSI itself !
Every portuguese shop I contacted was super nice and really helpful pointing me to the new msi email
And actually the fix ( hot needle fix forum post link ) came from a shop reply.
US support was always super nice and helpful !
I was forced to fix my fan with the help of users.
If right now my MSI gpu is working is thanks to guru3d and hardwareoc and simillar forums ( thanks to everyone that posted Twin Frozn fixes , this may not mean much , but really .. thanks for helping me out ! )
MSI didn't help or even try to help me , I had to go out of my way to get help , and I never did.
I know some of those stores , they have great prices , but if I buy anything in portugal I'll buy other brands for obvious reasons. ( it was actually one of those shops that helped me pinpoint the "real" msi email )
I am a customer , I should be treated as such , I was joked and pushed around emails , found emails that don't even exist , I was ignored and left looking at a card going dead.
Maybe for some of you it's easy , you just buy another one .... and maybe that's the custommer MSI wants. But that's not me.
Pointing me to places to buy MORE is almost insulting at this point. I wont buy more ... I would be stupid of I did.
I just hope some other person that has MSI and is having this problem with Twin Frozn fans ( that msi refuses to acknowledge as THEIR problem !! ) can fix them themselves or take some info from my posts and others to at least understand what is happening.
From my pov , the fan eventually has some sort of lubrication problem , and due to that it starts to wobble , after that the coils heat up to a point it wobbles even more.
Due to the high temps the fan either "looses" enough to dump all the lubing out.
At some point the fan will heat up so much the plastic IS REALLY hot to the touch and fells that it can be actually moldable ( so I assume this is really bad )
This leads to the start-stop problem , the fan tries to kick itself on , but just makes things worse.
This leads to a fan that fails in 2-3 years.
MSI should either had a way to put oil in the fan OR just start to be ready to replace them.
The fact that IS an ebay market for Twin Frzn fans is just flabbergasting .
I wish I had a better view on this , but seriously looking at this thread,  and seeing all the steps I have done , to find there are others like me that have a failing fan and that the ones that aren't ignored like me have to RMA a card for a simple fan doesn't give me any sort of confidence in this brand.
MSI has one of the best gpu coolers  , honestly it's so god that after all this mess I stand as a testimony for it being one of the BEST gpu coolers around ! All my MSI products so far have been great ... but this experience was just ... weird ..
I wish MSI would contact the ppl that are in my position and help them , it's just a fan  , it's an easy fix and it's easy to replace.
There are lots of ppl right now with fans starting to fail , just take their card , replace the fan and send them back , and MSI will have happy customers , HAPPY cause the brand CARED !
I'm only 1 client , MSI hardly "fells" me leaving ... I really like MSI ... so I wish this won't ever happen again to no one !
I have been ignored in mailing for TDR problems , after that about the 12h+ card artifacting being fixed with cold boot ( I assume this was an nvidia problem )
After using certain drivers that didn't TDR my card ( I have enough PSU for it so ... it's not the PSU ) and having been 2 years finding my own "solutions" to problems ... being ignored and just struggling to get help from MSI for a stupid FAN a cheap part and being hard just to contact them to get no answer .... and getting help from other users while MSI ignores me ? ... I'm thinking on leaving the brand ...
The fans are now working 100% , I'll post info when and if they fail ( if I see my "fix" stopped working ) .
It has now been a long time since 2011 and my first reports , and its been almost 6 months since I contacted msi about the portuguese email listed not existing.
The email is still there , that non-existent email is STILL listen in MSI website RIGHT NOW after me being emailing them about it for 4+ months ,as a customer,  I can only assume they either ignore people , or they have a terrible communications internally .
Again after all this mess , I would be kinda stupid to support or try to buy another product from this brand , MSI support was always great and was the main reason I bought msi products, all this posts are from a person that was truly SHOCKED in everything that is happening and the feeling that no one cared.