I was happily deafening myself playing Dragon Age Origins with headphones on when the wife tapped me on the shoulder to complain about a noise coming from the PC, (it was disturbing her watching "Grisham's Greatest" apparently).

As soon as I took the cans off I immediately saw what she meant, there was a loud vibrating noise coming from the case. It sounded exactly like a loose panel (the classic Lian-Li rattle) so I took the side off to have a look.

It turned out to be the bottom HD5850, the fan to be precise. It only does it under heavy 3D load at a certain fan speed, it's still whisper quiet on the desktop. If I (very, very, lightly) touch the centre of the fan when it's making the noise then it recedes until I move it away again.

Any ideas?

Mine does this on boot usually. When it does it and how loud it does it varies. However, it's always fine in game.

It's a known fault with the fan mechanism I think.

Ahhh, I see. Is there a fix for it? It's not something I can live with, if it was just on boot up I'd not worry but during gaming's no good really.

It's RMA time - there isn't anything you can do that doesn't invalidate the warrenty to fix this unless you happen to see a piece of packing material stuck in there.

If the fan is making a noice it is 1) less efficient at its purpose and most likely 2) contacting something it shouldn't be.

If it is contacting something it shouldn't be then it is a race until that contact wears the fan into a shape that doesn't touch, or the unusual loads on the bearings cause them to fail. Neither place is where you want to be & why companies have an RMA process.

You'll still have a one 5850 to get by on until it's replacement arrives....

Thanks, I'd resigned myself to RMAing it, I suppose I was after some kind of "known" quick fix that may have been floating around. This is the first time i've ever had a GPU go wrong, they've generally been bullet proof for me. All's not lost I suppose, like you've said, I've still got one to struggle on with, lol.

it seems cards from nvidia do not have a issue like this, my 4870 also making extreme fan spin sometimes

Not sure what Nvidia cards you have been using, but they sound like a plain engine!

Sounds like its spinning out of balance, hope it arrives fixed

reflux said:

Mine does this on boot usually. When it does it and how loud it does it varies. However, it's always fine in game.

It's a known fault with the fan mechanism I think.

Click to expand...

Mine makes quite a racket during boot up too, as if the fan is running at 100% speed. Soon as Windows kicks in it fades to a whisper.

Both mine sound like a hoover at boot, then go silent once windows loads. This sounds like a rattling case panel, very noticeable.

I haven't noticed much difference between Nvidia/ATI in terms of noise, the latest ATI hsf's seem pretty good to me, i'd say they were comparable. These are my first ATI cards for years and so far so good mostly. I still prefer the nvidia control panel (especially for multi-gpu) but it's certainly no deal breaker.

Mine sounds like a 747 after 40% and its going back because of it.