What could be causing this noise?

[specialistyo]

Bought my PC a while ago and haven't used it since with confidence, I've even been using my old rig from 2010 because I simply cannot cope with the sound my new PC makes.

At first I thought it was my 780ti graphics card as the deep noise only occurs when I start playing games. In some games, the noise only occurs when I look at certain things and stops if I look at something else, in other games, it's constant. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does mostly. I listened to coil whine on Youtube but the sound is far more low pitched in my PC than what I heard.

I sent my graphics card back to PC Specialist and they sent me a new one, they also said to me that the graphics card I sent back was fine after testing, which made me confused.

The second card I recieved seemed fine for the first few minutes of gameplay, until the noise returned yet again. Now I'm apparently unable to send the second card back. I figure that the chances of getting 2 faulty 780Ti cards in a row, though not impossible, is highly unlikely, so I'm starting to think perhaps the 750w PSU is the problem?

Anything back would be appreciated, I am at a loss.

 

[tom_gr7]

Hi,

can you post up your full spec please?

also, is the noise a fan like noise?

it could be psu coil whine, open the side panel and have a listen.

 

[mantadog]

Well I think the GPU is probably ok, the chances of getting 2 with exactly the same fault would be really low.

I would do the same as you and be focusing my attention on the PSU. As tom said, pop off the side and see if you can locate the noise. While your in just double check nothing could be caught on any fans.

Coil whine can sound very different depending on the exact nature of the fault, can you take a quick video of it or perhaps an audio clip?

 

[specialistyo]

Sorry for the late reply, been extremely busy. I tried taking a video on my phone of the PC yet the website is telling me I need to upload it to Youtube rather than directly upload it here, which I an unable to do at this time.

It seems on top of the other noise that I am now almost certain is caused by the GPU, another noise, which is constant has appeared and I simply can't pinpoint it. Sometimes, there's even a red LED that appears on my motherboard next to my CPU too.

I have no problem playing anything, except that sometimes Bioshock can make my GPU throttle at 85 degrees celsius. If I was deaf, which I probably will be if I keep using this, I wouldn't mind using it until the GPU burned out due to the poor cooling provided.

Rather than send it back to PC Specialist and have nothing been done to it, (as they said my old GPU was fine), is a rebuild possible despite (regrettably) purchasing this in November? This entire rig is a disaster and has continued to be so since I bought it.

 

[tom_gr7]

hi, can you post up your full spec please? its a little easier to diagnose if we know your full spec.

And your gpu shouldn't throttle at 85c. I ran two 580's well over 90c once, and whilst they were hot they still performed very well.

 

[mantadog]

The red light by the CPU is rather worrying, when you get it does the machine need to be turned off at the wall in order to get it to re boot?

if you can post the full spec it will give us an idea what were dealing with

 

[specialistyo]

My PC boots down fine, the red light on the motherboard only appears once in a while too.

I called PCS and they basically said there was nothing they can do about the GPU noise and went in detail as to why, so I took the drastic measure of moving my PC in another room and wiring it up through the wall and as ridiculous as it sounds, it helps me use my PC in silence.

I am however worried about my corsair h80i's fans seemingly being stuck on 100% after load, though the GPU noise doesn't bother me anymore as I can't hear it, the h80i on 100% can even be heard faintly through the walls, which although doesn't bother me, makes me worry as to....well, why it's doing that, any ideas? It wasn't always like this. As I said, I don't mind the noise anymore as I can no longer hear it, being in a different room, but it's still a concern to me in regards to heat.

With my GPU, I tend to hit around the 75-84 degrees celsius mark depending on what games I'm playing and it stays around 34 degrees celsius on idle, is that alright? I hear the max for a 780ti is 83 degrees celsius.

Help appreciated, all of this just doesn't seem normal. (Sorry about not listing the specs, I've been trying to find the official PCS list)

 

[mantadog]

For the CPU cooler issue, have you had a look in corsair link? What are the CPU temps with the fan seemingly at 100%?

 

[specialistyo]

Thanks for the reply, I've heard of this software but seem not to have it pre-installed on my PC, is that normal despite having the cooler itself? I would of thought it would of already been installed in order to configure the fan speed by PCS. If not, any link to download it from? I've checked Corsairs website but can't seem to find it. (im quite foolish)

 

[mantadog]

it wouldn't be installed as standard (I don't think) PCS don't install anything other than what you ask them. Its just to keep the PC as clean an installation as possible for when it arrives at the user.

You may have got it on a CD in your welcome pack. if not try this page, near the bottom "corsair link" http://www.corsair.com/en-gb/support/downloads

 

[Spuff]

As has been said above, you could do with running the PC with the side off, which may allow you to see what is going wrong, and may let you more easily track with your ear where the sound is coming from.

 

[specialistyo]

Thanks for the suggestions, but another problem has arisen.

I was at my desktop looking at temperatures whilst eating and all of a sudden my windows theme was changed to basic and my GPU utilization spiked to 97% and wouldn't go back down (according to nvidia experience) so I shutdown my PC and did a malwarebytes and avast scan and nothing was found, is this normal or perhaps a hiccup with my hardware?

 

[TheGeeza]

Check through your process list in task manager. It's a bit of strange suggestion but it's worth looking in case a process is using your GPU without you knowing. You could also open command prompt and type tasklist > c:\tasklist.txt this will save your task list to a text document. PS. You need to start up command prompt as admin to do this.

 

[specialistyo]

I really appreciate all your suggestions, but it seems everytime I leave to try and fix one problem, another appears.

This rig is so loud when I'm playing games, I can hear the h80i through my wall, the temperatures go to the recommended maximum for the 780Ti on a game from 2004 (WoW) and would probably get damaged if I tried to play something modern. I sometimes notice strange artifacts appear on the screen for half a second every half an hour or so, which is usually what broken GPU's do I hear. The odd red CPU light and GPU spikes I can only consider minor at this point.

Overall, there's so many problems popping up, as a hardware novice, I really do not want to attempt to fix them and possibly screw them up even more. I would send the rig to PCS to be repaired but I really don't have faith in them to fix the problems as this rig seems beyond repair and if I got sent back the rig in practically the same state, I'd just lose it. Is it possible at all to get this thing refunded or is there some steps I must go through before that's even an option? I know it seems like a rude suggestion, but for £2000, I really did expect perfection, a few hiccups here and there would be fine too, but it's got to the point where it's beyond use and it seems all I've paid for is months of frustration.

 

[vanthus]

I really appreciate all your suggestions, but it seems everytime I leave to try and fix one problem, another appears.

This rig is so loud when I'm playing games, I can hear the h80i through my wall, the temperatures go to the recommended maximum for the 780Ti on a game from 2004 (WoW) and would probably get damaged if I tried to play something modern. I sometimes notice strange artifacts appear on the screen for half a second every half an hour or so, which is usually what broken GPU's do I hear. The odd red CPU light and GPU spikes I can only consider minor at this point.

Overall, there's so many problems popping up, as a hardware novice, I really do not want to attempt to fix them and possibly screw them up even more. I would send the rig to PCS to be repaired but I really don't have faith in them to fix the problems as this rig seems beyond repair and if I got sent back the rig in practically the same state, I'd just lose it. Is it possible at all to get this thing refunded or is there some steps I must go through before that's even an option? I know it seems like a rude suggestion, but for £2000, I really did expect perfection, a few hiccups here and there would be fine too, but it's got to the point where it's beyond use and it seems all I've paid for is months of frustration.

Give PCS a call,they are very helpful and will sort it out one way or another.

 

[specialistyo]

Give PCS a call,they are very helpful and will sort it out one way or another.

Thanks for the reply, I've called PCS on numerous occasions, even got sent a second GPU from them after my first one made this horrendous noise, but now after the second one makes it too, I'm being told it was normal and although fixable in some way, it would void my warranty if I tried it. I've had plenty of PC's and have never had problems like these before and especially haven't been told there's nothing that can be done about it. I will call PCS again if it's possible to get this refunded but I'm not sure what steps they require before they give me that option.

 

[mantadog]

They will only refund in exceptional cases, or within 7 days or delivery.

One of the down sides of a high performance PC is noise. it shouldn't be as bad as your describing, but I could well believe you could hear it from another room.

You need to call PCS and request an RMA, describe exactly what the problems are in as much detail as possible. Unless you have opened the side of the PC and really stuck your ear into it you wont know where the problem is coming from. You must be as accurate with the description of the problem as possible. we have suggested fixes here but im not sure if you have tried any of them yet, if you do it will help PCS narrow it down so they're no stabbing in the dark.

 

[fedris the red]

Going back to the O.P's initial noise problem, it doesn't sound anything like this does it? (I hasten to add this isn't my video or anything to do with me.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrDL5F1ZhY

I've got PCS rig with 780Ti and a Corsair TXM 850 power supply and I get intermittent noise just like in the video (I don't know if my fan is acting the same way - it's not exactly easy to get to while the computers running.) in games that only moderately use the graphics card (Kerbal Space Program, Planetary Explorers, Fallout: New Vegas) it will happen more than in games that push the graphics card a little harder (Sim City, Deus Ex: HR, Anno 2070.) in the case of those games it generally only happens when transitioning from static menus back into the game or if the menus are animated it will happen all the time you're in the menu and then eventually cease after you've gone back to the game and been playing a while.

All my temperatures are well within normal standards, though the PSU fan does seem to come on a lot more than I expected it would - the computer can be sitting idle with all sensors reading around 30 degrees and the PSU fan will cut in. (It's not a unduly loud or disturbing fan it just strikes me as odd, as the Corsair blurb says the power supply is meant to be fanless below a certain threshold - of course there could be parameters that are beyond my ken.)

 

[Kuniva]

Probably coil whine, nothing to worry about, but you also can't do anything about it, well apart from smash a hole in your wall and chuck it in another room, but you've done that already.

 

[specialistyo]

It sounds just like on the video you linked, Fedris,

Now my PC is out of the room and I can somewhat cope with the noise it makes, I decided to use it as I would normally.

I was playing a game earlier today and my monitor turned itself off, after around 5 seconds it turned back on and windows informed me that "Nvidia Kernal Drivers failed but sucessfully restarted, assuming it was a driver problem, I went to Geforce Experience and began reinstalling my drivers.

I know from past experiences that when installing GPU drivers, the screen can sometimes flicker or go off for a while, so I wasn't so concerned when it did as I started to install the drivers. After 5 minutes or so however, the screen was still blank and seemingly not coming on. Usually, the drivers only take around a minite to install.

With no solution in sight, I turned off the PC using the button on the case and restarted it and was greeted by an unfamiliar menu that said "American Megatrends" and listed my RAM and CPU and gave me numerous options such as "performance" and "balanced". I clicked on "Save and quit" as I have absolutely no idea what this menu is or what I'm doing with it and windows started to boot and the drivers have apparently installed finely.

I'm doing another scan with malwarebytes before I attempt to start another game. Anyone got any insight into what the hell just happenned?