Noisy Fans / PSU?

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Dosdamt

Member
Hello lovely forum-ers!

I have had a desktop from PCS for about a year now and am super pleased

However recently, when I've been running SW:TOR, I've been hearing alot more noise out of my PC than I have before - although, before I've never really ran gfx intensive games (WoW whacked up to Max settings being about the most intensive game I play). I have everything set to Max on SW:TOR along with the resolution running at 1920 x 1080.

My spec is below

Case PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£59)
Overclocked CPU OverClocked Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-760 (2.80GHz @ max 3.80GHz)
Motherboard ASUS® P7H57D-V EVO: FULL ATX, TRUE USB 3.0 & SATA 6.0GB/s
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
2nd Hard Disk NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling TITAN FENRIR EXTREME DIRECT TOUCH COPPER CPU COOLER (£39)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

I opened the case up and gave everything, apart from the PSU, a good clean and all the fans look clean and clear. The case runs warm but not roasting hot when running the game. I have a couple of questions

(1) Could the PSU need a clean, and if so, how do I do that? I don't fancy trying to clean the thing given the danger of faffing with PSUs?
(2) There's a side fan in the box that isn't connected. I had a look around trying to find a connector and couldn't find one - I am away from home with work, so can't post right now, but it looked like a fairly standard white power connector thing? Where would I plug that in? M'board?
(3) Is the gfx likely to be labouring a little, running hot, and therefore pushing the PSU / fans to the max?

It sounds like it is the fans that are working hard, but when I hold my hand over the vents above them they just seem to be working normally. It's a bit confusing!

Any help would be most appreciated?

-Ben
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
1. Be very careful trying to clean the psu. I wouldn't, may get a nasty shock.
2. The side fan may be in the box (is it the large 20cm side fan?) because of the titan cpu cooler, as its massive it may prevent the fan being fitted.
3. Do you monitor the gpu temps at all? If so what temps are you getting?
 
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Dosdamt

Member
(1) My thoughts exactly! Is there anyway to safely clean the PSU, or at least clean out the fans that supply the PSU?

(2) the side fan is in the case itself, the cooling unit for the processor is a big beastie, but the fan fits. It just hasn't been connected up inside the case

(3) I don't monitor the GPU temperature - is there an application you could recommend for this?

Many thanks :)

-Ben
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
1. Is the psu mounted fan side up? or down? If its mounted fan up, you could invest in a can of compressed air. Turn off pc, unplug, removed power lead from psu. press hold and power button to discharge the power that left in psu, open up, spray short bursts of air at fan.
2.the fan should plug into the motherboard, what does the connection look like on the cable from the fan? like the one on the left of the picture, or the one on the right of the cable? l_07843212.jpg
3.I use GPU-z more gpu temps, its a light piece of software perfect for keeping an eye on temps. :)

tom
 
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Dosdamt

Member
Hello!

(1) I'm not sure where / how the fan is mounted in the PSU, and unfortunately I cannot find out till I get home tomorrow night! :( I have some compressed air so I will follow your steps and give it a few blasts from the air

(2) Off the top of my head, it was the connector on the right, the larger one

(3) Awesomesauce! I'll grab myself a copy of that when I get home tomorrow and monitor the temps in my PC, and post back after some "SW:TOR stress testing" over the weekend xD

Thanks :)

-Ben
 
tom_gr7

tom_gr7

Life Serving
the connector on the fan is the molex plug, it will connect into a power cable from the power supply. I'd recommend doing this to get the fan running. :)

the gpu z is free jsut do a google for it. For cpu temps, I use Asus probe II, which comes on the asus motherboard disk.
 
D

Dosdamt

Member
Thanks guys - appreciate the help!

I've read elsewhere on the forum that the GTX 460 sometimes runs a little loud with the GPU / fan - if that's the case, is there anything I can do to rectify that? I would rather not turn down the gfx settings to put less strain on the GPU if that's possible!
 
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