Strange alarm sound occurring at random? Vortex 440

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Badmungo

Active member
Hi,

So this has happened a couple of times now, so I thought I'd ask on here....
I got a Vortex 440 just before xmas - all has been pretty good so far, except:
This alarm sounds a bit like the noise your phone makes if you leave it off the hook? I was playing a fairly untaxing game (Hearthstone) at 4k, and this alarm starts up. I closed the game, and it stopped.
It looked like the fans on the graphics card (GTX980) weren't going round at the time, but I'm not sure if the game taxes the card enough to get them spinning anyway.

Anyone have any ideas? the case fan is working fine, and I've not had any error messages appear, so I'm at a loss as to what's caused it!
 
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Badmungo

Active member
It's happened twice now.
If it happens a third time I'll try and video it.
It's just a weird sound - that sort of "Wheee-oooh wheee-oooh" noise that comes from a landline phone if you don't put the receiver back? It's definitely from the machine though.

I'm wondering if it's the 980. It's the Palit GTX980 jetstream. I'm hunting google to see if I can find anything about warnings or anything. Motherboard is an Asus X99-S I'm guessing it has to be one or the other, as nothing else would be able to make the sound?
 
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Badmungo

Active member
nope, it's definitely an alarm sound. It fluctuates rhythmically?
I'm not explaining it very well am I.... If/when it happens again i'll record it!
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Its the first time I've ever heard of an 'alarm' on a PC - typically everything works fine and if you get too high temps (very unlikely for most uses) then things either throttle themselves (GPU/CPU tend to do this) or in extreme cases shut down. You don't often get alarms...

Could be coil whine as Manta has suggested, its possible that coil whine can fluctuate rhythmically.

I take it when its happened both times have been during hardcore gaming? If so, then try to run some benchmarks (simulates high load on the PC) that should replicate the situation and maybe cause the alarm again.
 
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Badmungo

Active member
I benchmarked it through engine and 3dmark when I got it, and it didn't occur. Hearthstone is just a card game, it shouldn't be stressing it at all!!
Will give rebenchmarking it a go anyway in the morning. Thanks for the replies
PS: the ram has been down clocked from 3000mhz (by PCS at build stage) due to issues with it on x99 boards, any way that could be involved?
 
steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Well its possible I guess, but I'd suggest that under-clocking isn't going to cause an alarm of any kind...
 
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Badmungo

Active member
Definitely the machine. Speakers are little ones in the monitor on the desktop, the sound is coming from knee level. Actually, I think the PC was muted when it happened...

Update: Ran the full 3D Mark test just now (all of them from Ice Storm up to FireStrike Extreme) and no alarm sound. Kept Hardware monitor running and the temps didn't get higher than 62c on anything....
Also, found out the RAM is only running at 1067mhz :(
 
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mantadog

mantadog

Superhero Level Poster
Badmungo said:
Definitely the machine. Speakers are little ones in the monitor on the desktop, the sound is coming from knee level. Actually, I think the PC was muted when it happened...

Update: Ran the full 3D Mark test just now (all of them from Ice Storm up to FireStrike Extreme) and no alarm sound. Kept Hardware monitor running and the temps didn't get higher than 62c on anything....
Also, found out the RAM is only running at 1067mhz :(
Click to expand...

Found that info on the RAM where? Was it using the bios or a monitoring utility from within windows? if it was from within windows it will be reporting half speed that is perfectly normal and it will actualy be running at 2133Mhz which is much more acceptable. best way to check is in the BIOS.

As for the alarm sound im totally stumped, do you have a fan controller or anything? That's the only thing I can say would emit an alarm
 
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Badmungo

Active member
stats.jpg
 
B

Badmungo

Active member
mantadog said:
Found that info on the RAM where? Was it using the bios or a monitoring utility from within windows? if it was from within windows it will be reporting half speed that is perfectly normal and it will actualy be running at 2133Mhz which is much more acceptable. best way to check is in the BIOS.

As for the alarm sound im totally stumped, do you have a fan controller or anything? That's the only thing I can say would emit an alarm
Click to expand...

Info on the ram was on the 3dmark result, during build the tech said it would be underclocked to improve stability, seems to be a bit overkill to run it that slow, but i'm not savvy enough to fully get how much diff it has made. Will look into the BIOS in a bit. I changed the setting in there to 'Performance' setting but nothing else.

no fan controller, here's the spec:
Case
NZXT H440 MID-TOWER BLACK/RED GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-5820K (3.3GHz) 15MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® X99-S: ATX, HSW-E CPU, USB 3.0, SATA 6 GB/s
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X PREDATOR QUAD-DDR4 3000MHz X.M.P (4 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
 
mantadog

mantadog

Superhero Level Poster
Yeah looks fine to me, im fairly sure if you look in the BIOS it will report 2400Mhz or there abouts. You need to multiply the number by 2 because DDR stands for double data rate.
 
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Badmungo

Active member
ah, cool. I learnt something today!
Been messing about with pc's since my zx spectrum back in the 80's but been out of the loop a bit in recent years, I knew what DDR stood for, just didn't know that you had to do the maths yourself!
 
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Badmungo

Active member
It just happened again. It's not the pc, it's the monitor!!!! if i turn it off, the sounds stops. I'll have to look into it. It's an Iiyama 28" B2888UHSU. could have sworn the sound was coming from the base unit! connected via Displayport.

http://youtu.be/UQqM66KqVgk - you may have to turn your speakers up - mic on the phone isn't the best.....
 
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steaky360

steaky360

Moderator
Moderator
Do you use the monitor to play sounds? If not try turning the volume down on the monitor (should be settings for that somewhere) see if it stops.
 
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