Nvidia GPU fan not properly controllable

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1

Hello Fedora community,

I’m running into an issue with my GPU (Nvidia RTX 4060) fan speed control.
Rather than progressively turning up or down, it turns on or off.

I’ve tried to set fan curves using CoolerControl, but to no avail.

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The nvidia drivers seem to be installed. Running nvidia-smi produces:

Tue Feb 10 13:41:06 2026       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 580.119.02             Driver Version: 580.119.02     CUDA Version: 13.0     |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| 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 RTX 4060        Off |   00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   40C    P3            N/A  /  115W |    1378MiB /   8188MiB |      1%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI              PID   Type   Process name                        GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
| Some processes                                                                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

and nvidia-smi -q -d TEMPERATURE:

==============NVSMI LOG==============

Timestamp                                              : Tue Feb 10 13:43:47 2026
Driver Version                                         : 580.119.02
CUDA Version                                           : 13.0

Attached GPUs                                          : 1
GPU 00000000:01:00.0
    Temperature
        GPU Current Temp                               : 39 C
        GPU T.Limit Temp                               : 44 C
        GPU Shutdown T.Limit Temp                      : -7 C
        GPU Slowdown T.Limit Temp                      : -2 C
        GPU Max Operating T.Limit Temp                 : 0 C
        GPU Target Temperature                         : 83 C
        Memory Current Temp                            : N/A
        Memory Max Operating T.Limit Temp              : N/A

But as can be seen in the CoolerControl screenshot and in nvidia-settings, the fan does not seem to found.

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note: at the moments of both screenshots, the fan was spinning at full tilt

I’m at a loss of what to do.

2

Have you tried running nvidia-settings with sudo, changing the fan speed and applying the setting to see if you actually have control over the fan speed?

3

Yes, I ran nvidia-settings with sudo and it’s still just an off/on control.

4

Bizarre - I can control both fans on my 2080 without any issue. As you can see, one at 100 and one at 41, as requested.

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Same driver version but I also note you have some bizarre temperature limits in your termp output - mine for comparison. -7 and -2 doesn’t look correct in your output:

┌─🎩 lurcher ~
├─
└─➜ nvidia-smi -q -d TEMPERATURE                                                                                                                                               ⏱️ 12s 13:36 Tue 10-Feb

==============NVSMI LOG==============

Timestamp                                              : Tue Feb 10 13:37:11 2026
Driver Version                                         : 580.119.02
CUDA Version                                           : 13.0

Attached GPUs                                          : 1
GPU 00000000:0E:00.0
    Temperature
        GPU Current Temp                               : 41 C
        GPU T.Limit Temp                               : N/A
        GPU Shutdown Temp                              : 100 C
        GPU Slowdown Temp                              : 97 C
        GPU Max Operating Temp                         : 88 C
        GPU Target Temperature                         : 83 C
        Memory Current Temp                            : N/A
        Memory Max Operating Temp                      : N/A
5

What DE do you use?

6

KDE, same as you.

7

Alright, I’ve managed to fix it, the issue was neither in software nor firmware.

I took out my GPU and took it apart (I don’t recommend doing this) to check if the fan cables were properly connected, which they were.
Then I put it back together and reseated it on the motherboard. And then it just worked, no more off/on but a steady ramp up along with the temperature.

So, I believe my issue may have been that the GPU had become slightly disconnected and just needed to be reseated properly.

Note that nvidia-smi -q -d TEMPERATURE readings are still the same as posted before, but these values are not strange according to the man pages, the T.Limit temps are relative the target temp.