GTX 280 "Squealing" in games...

[silversurfer]

My psu ticks, but its not loud luckily. If you send me your gfx card I will test whether it screams or not I do have a 2900xt allready though and its not made it any worse but I use earphones anyway and play noisy games so I dont care about computer sounds too much unless it cant idle silently

Ive never come across a psu that would be as loud as an out of tune radio if thats the kind of thing you mean

 

[MystaEB]

My psu ticks, but its not loud luckily. If you send me your gfx card I will test whether it screams or not I do have a 2900xt allready though and its not made it any worse but I use earphones anyway and play noisy games so I dont care about computer sounds too much unless it cant idle silently

Ive never come across a psu that would be as loud as an out of tune radio if thats the kind of thing you mean

Yep, it's very loud and very noticable, especially since the rest of my PC is very quiet. It changes pitch drastically based on what I'm doing in game too, like in different menus and stuff it'll change from low to high and also click.

It's definately coming from the PSU, too, I've established that, there also almost sounds like there is some sound coming from the PCI-E power ends connector to my GPU, but I think that's just the sound from the from the PSU travelling into the case.

I think this must be some kind of issue with the OCZ ModXStream power supplies, because it does it on mine and also my friends 700w version of the same model, however, I popped the card in my brother's PC, which has a Hiper 580w PSU, and it doesn't make the same sound, there is some minor squealing in the Crysis menus, but otherwise it's completely silent.

I'm looking at the Corsair HX 620W at the moment, looks solid.

 

[silversurfer]

Ok I just went to check what psu I have, its a ocz modstream 520w modular

Its advertised as silent and its ok, it uses one massive fan which is inferior to 2 smaller ones imo and Ive had quieter but there is no high pitched noises from it

Says 3 year warranty on the side of mine, explain the noise problem to them and maybe ask for a different (cheaper) model prehaps. If its advertised as quiet when its not, thats fair enough


What wattage is your system actually using, google for a power usage calc

 

[MystaEB]

Ok I just went to check what psu I have, its a ocz modstream 520w modular

Its advertised as silent and its ok, it uses one massive fan which is inferior to 2 smaller ones imo and Ive had quieter but there is no high pitched noises from it

Says 3 year warranty on the side of mine, explain the noise problem to them and maybe ask for a different (cheaper) model prehaps. If its advertised as quiet when its not, thats fair enough


What wattage is your system actually using, google for a power usage calc

Yeah, I would send it back, except it didn't do this with my old GTS 512, and my friends 700w version does the same thing. From this I would normally say it's the card that has a problem, but it's not the card making the noise, and in my brother's PC with a Hiper PSU, it doesn't make any noise.

Do you have a GTX 280? Because with all other cards I have had in this system (GTS 640, GT, GTS 512, X1800 XT), it was fine. It obviously something to do with the extra load the 280 is putting on the PSU causing the squeal.

 

[silversurfer]

Surely a 280 gtx cant beat my 2900xt for noise, power, heat and general mayhem

I listened to your video and I cant hear much loud noise sorry

 

[silversurfer]

A couple of related threads and a pic

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/252915-15-power-280gtx

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_280_Amp_Edition/23.html

Can anyone tell me if I lower my clock speeds by a quarter does it greatly reduce the idle power consumpation, 157w is terrible just to browse the internet

 

[MystaEB]

Surely a 280 gtx cant beat my 2900xt for noise, power, heat and general mayhem

I listened to your video and I cant hear much loud noise sorry

Yeah, the video is not a good example of how loud it is, it's just to give an indication of what the sound is like. It was taken with the record function on my digital camera, and the squealing is barely picked up and drowned out by the sound of air.

In reality it's MUCH louder and much more annoying. Basically, it's loud enough that I can still hear it even when my Z-5500's are turned up to one third volume in game.

My PSU is 900w by the way, so it should be able to handle it, and it does handle it, it's not like the game is crashing, it's just that it's clear the extra load caused by this GPU is causing one of the capacitors/inductors/whatever to squeal like a little girl for whatever reason, cheapness I assume.

 

[Reality|Bites]

Turn on V-sync, It helps on my 8800 Ultra anyway.

If you run 3dmark, You will notice that the higher the FPS the higher pitch of the squeal

 

[silversurfer]

Reading that article it seems it makes a difference if your motherboard is nvidia, it alters how the card operates. I like the bit where it says it will turn off the card altogether and use onboard instead in windows but you have an intel chipset?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-091-GI

My ocz psu goes upto 620w but its not supposed to do this for long or maybe it'd squeal like this, not sure. Does yours have an overdrive feature

Anyway I guess it should easily cope, enough to boil a kettle even but I'd still add things up on a usage calc

 

[MystaEB]

Turn on V-sync, It helps on my 8800 Ultra anyway.

Yeah, this did help a little, but the problem is that v-sync makes a number of my games feel sluggish when moving the mouse, and affects the framerate of others quite a bit. (Even with triple buffering) In Crysis I lose like 10 FPS with v-sync, which is a huge amount for Crysis.

Also, I don't see this as a solution unfortunately, since it helps in some games, but not in others. It still whines incessantly in Crysis, for instance, even with vsync.

Anyway I guess it should easily cope, enough to boil a kettle even but I'd still add things up on a usage calc

I used this calc: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp, and my score came to under 400w. 371w to be exact. I don't really have a very heavily loaded system. 1 hard drive, a couple of fans, don't even have an internal rom drive.

 

[thegoonden]

Yeah, this did help a little, but the problem is that v-sync makes a number of my games feel sluggish when moving the mouse, and affects the framerate of others quite a bit. (Even with triple buffering) In Crysis I lose like 10 FPS with v-sync, which is a huge amount for Crysis.

Also, I don't see this as a solution unfortunately, since it helps in some games, but not in others. It still whines incessantly in Crysis, for instance, even with vsync.


I used this calc: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp, and my score came to under 400w. 371w to be exact. I don't really have a very heavily loaded system. 1 hard drive, a couple of fans, don't even have an internal rom drive.

Vsync will only help in games that can and do run at 60fps+ all the time. It simply helps by limiting the amount of work the card has to do. For example, let's say the machine can do 120fps in COD4, that would involve the GPU running flat out. Shoving vsync on, and thence limiting the game to 60fps, will be halving the card's workload, therefor reducing the squeal.

Vsync is sadly, as you say, a total curse in any game that cannot ALWAYS reach 60, because once you drop below 60, you have frames held for 2x refershes and so on, which makes thing jumpy, laggy, and overall, slower (2 frames that may take 1.1 refreshes to render, will take 2 refreshes to display etc).

 

[platinum87]

My Leadtek 280, my M1730 and my old 8800 GTS 512 all make/made that same squeeling sound. Takes a few days to get used to, I fold overnight with my GTX 280 making that squeeling sound.

are u sure thats not your mobo, i dont think having 3 squeeling cards is very likely?

 

[wombraider]

Just a tip , if you have anything electronic that makes a noise and the noise is
NOT coming from its fan its a really bad sign , and I would get it looked at.

I have never had a mobo , card or anything else squeal on me unless it was on its way out.

I spent about 3 months fixing switch mode power supplies in a previous job ( hated it )

 

[MystaEB]

Just a tip , if you have anything electronic that makes a noise and the noise is
NOT coming from its fan its a really bad sign , and I would get it looked at.

I have never had a mobo , card or anything else squeal on me unless it was on its way out.

I spent about 3 months fixing switch mode power supplies in a previous job ( hated it )

Well yeah, the noise is one of the reasons I'm looking at replacing the PSU. The noise is definately coming from the PSU, and it does not sound healthy at all.

I've come across two seperate very similar issues on a couple of forums while Googling - GTX 280 causing PSU squeal, and when the PSU was replaced (Both times with a high-end Silverstone PSU, incidentely) the problem went away. So I'm thinking of picking up one of those if I can.

I'm quite certain this is something to do with the PSU either being faulty, having a weak link somewhere, or just not being quite up to the job for some reason. Or I could be completely off the mark here, I just don't understand why the card would make the PSU squeal unless the problem was with the PSU, but I don't know a sure way of how to fix it either.

 

[The Asgard]

Just a tip , if you have anything electronic that makes a noise and the noise is
NOT coming from its fan its a really bad sign , and I would get it looked at.

I have never had a mobo , card or anything else squeal on me unless it was on its way out.

I spent about 3 months fixing switch mode power supplies in a previous job ( hated it )

That's utter rubbish!

I have a degree in Electrical & Electronic engineering and I have worked in the computer hardware & software field all my working life. I also spent about 10 years programming and commissioning some very big PLC systems. I buy hardware on a regular monthly basis. All high powered devices will suffer from cap/inductor squeal to some degree and it doesn't mean they are about to fail.

 

[wombraider]

Opinions vary.
My experience is from working in the Electronics industry for over 15 years.

I was just quoting my experiences based on 4 years of doing electronic fault
finding to component level on different Electronic boards , your experience in
component level fault finding might have lead you to have a different view.

 

[The Asgard]

Opinions vary.
My experience is from working in the Electronics industry for over 15 years.

I was just quoting my experiences based on 4 years of doing electronic fault
finding to component level on different Electronic boards , your experience in
component level fault finding might have lead you to have a different view.

You sound a very experienced chap and it surprises me that you should make such claims.

So far this year I have bought the following cards

8800GT
8800GTS
8800GTX
3870X2
9800GTX
4870
GTX 280

All the cards above have suffered from squealing to a certain degree. Are they all faulty?
All my previous cards way back to the X1900 also suffered from this problem. Which is where I started to notice the problem.

Even my Laptops ( Vostro and Inspiron ) make a high pitched squeal which varies with load.

Sorry but I don't like people spreading misinformation. Lets keep it informative and real.

Apologies if you feel I'm trying to make you look silly. It's not my intention

 

[wombraider]

Dude no offence taken

My last 2 cards were of the larger more power hungry beasties ( 8800GTX , GTX280 )
But I have never disabled the gfx card fan to see if
the card itself was making a squealing noise , anyway with
6 case fans I think any squealing form the board would prob
be drowned out.

Iam trying to think back long ago enough to remember a card
I had that didnt have a fan on it, think it was a ati 128 all in wonder

 

[p0rks0da]

..snip..

I've only heard one PSU make a high pitched noise before, and that was a in a dell. I've never had a single PSU/GPU/MB make any noticable high pitched noise in 8 years or so of building computers, and i have very good hearing.

 

[silversurfer]

Are you able to alter the psu cables so its powered differently maybe.

You can get molex convertors to power a gfx card, I wonder if that would stop this.


Theres no point discussing noticeable because with high pitched noises especially it varys between people, some may hear nothing