Loud cracking sounds when PC under full load

[Michael789]

Hi people,

I've noticed loud cracking and click sounds coming from my tower when my PC is going to and from a full load.
Someone has said its probably the sudden changes in temperature causing thermal expansion (Metal expanding and contracting)
Is this normal and is this OK? I can't seem to find any advice on the internet.

Thank you for your time

 

[Michael789]

Hi all,

Thanks for getting back to me. I’ve chopped the footage up so there’s no long gaps in-between the clicking noises, as they can be 6 or 7 minutes apart.
The spec of the PC including the PSU is below, its 10 around months old, although its not really been used like it has been the last couple months, which is when I started to notice the sound. Other than the noise, I’ve not experienced any other problems.

I don’t think its anything hitting any of the fan blades, I’ve looked and to further rule it out I manually turned the fans up to their maximum speed whilst the PC was idling, and didn’t hear any clicking. It only seems to start happening when the PC is under a full load for ten minutes or more, becoming a little more frequent as it goes on.

https://computerproblem.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F716085651294109696

There is also a really quite whirling lazer sound too, and a consistent quite click coming from the back of the PC. Its hard to hear in the second video because of the noise of the fans. But I uploaded it anyway. Its more noticeable here in person. Again that only happens whilst under a full load. But no where near as loud as the other clicks that happen spontaneously.

https://computerproblem.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F716085410371076096

PC Specs:

i9-11900K Overclocked and Watercooled
ASUS ROG STRIX Z590-E GAMING WIFI Motherboard
Team Group 8Pack Edition 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C16 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Watercooled Asus GeForce RTX 3090 Strix 24GB with EK Plexi Black & Backplate
Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 2280 PCI-e 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive
Samsung 1TB 870 QVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 64 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive
Kolink continuum 1050W 80+ platinum modular PSU

Phanteks enthoo 719 full tower DRGB Case
2x corsair hydro x series Xr5 360mm tripple fan Watercooling radiators
11 x Lian-li uni al120 120mm fans
EK water blocks EK-quantum kinetic FLT 360 DDC PWM D-RGB pump / reservoir combo

Temperatures:

Under load:
CPU temperature 78 degrees
CPU Package 86 degrees
GPU 70 degrees

Idle:
CPU temperature 34 degrees
CPU Package 35 degrees
GPU 27 degrees



Thank you all for your help.

 

[Michael789]

Thanks everyone, the PC came with a 3 year return to base warranty. So overclockers are going to send someone out to collect it. Once, I've managed to purchase a box and some bubble-wrap.
It also got 3 Fatal Rounding Errors on Prime95 after ten minutes of running it. Not sure what that means exactly? But I’m sure they can sort it.

 

[Michael789]

I purchased the PC from overclockers.co.uk from the overclocked PC section of their website for £5,120 around 10 months ago, shortly after buying it they stopped selling them. They now sell a different spec with the same name that they've moved from the overclocked section to the high end PC section of their website, link below:

It seems all Infin8 systems they build come with a Kolink PSU (Or at least the Overclocked ones). They don't have the option of changing it in the customisation options. As everyone has pointed out that Kolink PSU's are no good. I'll ask if they'll upgrade it if I pay the difference when they swap it out.

It'll probably fix the USB 3.0 ports at the front of the case too. As I noticed 2 run considerably faster than the other 2 when moving files across the same external drive (Which I later confirmed with testing). As I usually only have one thing plugged into them, I just reminded myself to use the end port. Forgot all about it until earlier when I went to plug a drive in and figured that could also be PSU related.

What brand of PSU do you think would be a better option?

Infin8 Swarm MK2 - Intel Core i9 11900K @ 5.0GHz Overclocked Watercooled Extreme Gaming PC

 

[Michael789]

The difference in USB speeds is down to your mobo. Some ports may be plugged into 3.1 gen 1 and some into 3.2 gen 2 or something like that. It is annoyingly complicated now with Intel making the USB standard to anything anyone wants it to be but what it boils down to is that some will be 5gb/s and some will be 10gb/s. There is most likely a logical reason why you are getting different speeds.

You're right.

After looking at the motherboard manual there are a couple of USB 2.0 connections on the board. And one of them is in use. Tracing the cable would be a headache with how well they've tied everything up, but the only thing it could be connected to is the front panel.
The difference in speed between the first 2 and the second 2 is about X10 as shown below, which is about the same difference between USB 2.0 and 3.0.

Untitled

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@Mcnumpty2323 @Haz123

Thank you for the PSU recomendations. I asked if they could replace the PSU with a different brand rather than swap it out for the same brand / model, and I said that I would pay the difference in cost.
I mentioned the 2 PSU's that I would prefer and they said they would swap it with the silverstone one that I had picked below free of charge. Which was really nice of them.

Silverstone SST-ST1200-PTS 1200W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply

Order Silverstone SST-ST1200-PTS 1200W 80 Plus Platinum Modular Power Supply now online and benefit from fast delivery.

www.overclockers.co.uk

They're coming out to collect it this week. The delay has been because of me, trying to source a box tall and wide enough to put it in, and finding a temporary PC to use whilst they're repairing mine.
Eventually I found an empty box big enough on Amazon. Shouldn't have thrown out the original packaging.

I'll make a pirate ship out of it or something with the kids because £20 for an empty box is ridiculous. But it is what it is.

@keef247​

That's all I have to update so far, I'll make another post once my PC comes back to me.

Thank you all again for your help

 

[Michael789]

So I received my computer back, this was the technicians report:

(SYSTEM REPAIR: Other (Not Listed), Component Failure, PSU was replaced due to clicking whilst under load, replaced with an alternative as requested. Tested the system. System was crashing on blender when we were running a render test. Re-installed windows and all of the drivers then re-tested the system with no further issues.)

When I booted it up, the bios had been reset to default and windows 11 had been factory reset. After installing windows 11. I installed the drivers from the motherboards website, and I reloaded the overclocked bios profile that they had saved, I ran Prime 95 and got two errors within 11 minutes. But the good news is the PSU isn't making any clicking sounds.


Prime 95 results example

worker #1

Fatal error: Rounding was 0.4975535683, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected running 360K FFT size, consult stress.txt file
torture test completed 3 tests in 5 minutes 1 errors, 0 warnings.
Worker stopped

worker #5

Fatal error: Rounding was 0.4.998537884, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected running 4608 FFT size, consult stress.txt file
torture test completed 12 tests in 11 minutes 1 errors, 0 warnings.


I tried again after completing all of windows updates the same issue.
I cleared the CMOS battery loaded the same saved overclocked profile. Same issue.
I ran a memory test from the bios it came back with zero errors.
The whole time I only had a keyboard, mouse, ethernet and monitor plugged into the ports.

I reset the Bios back to default, ran Prime 95 for 30 minutes and there was no errors. The CPU was running around 4.7ghz the ram defaulted to 2.4ghz instead of 3.6ghz.
I tried their overclocked profile again which changes the CPU to 4.98ghz but I left the ram at 2.4ghz, and prime 95 still came back with similar errors.
I formatted the drive installed windows 10 instead of 11, installed all the drivers and updates, same issue.

Since receiving the PC back the temperatures seem slightly higher. Its worth noting that the room is 2 degrees hotter than it usually is. As the thermostat reads 24 and its set to keep the room at 22.

Idle
CPU temp before 34 degrees now 37 degrees
CPU Package temp before 35 degrees now 40 degrees
GPU temp before 27 degrees now 27.5 degrees

Under load:
CPU temp before 78 degrees now 84 degrees
CPU Package temp before 86 degrees now 95 degrees

I'm guessing the reason the technician received no errors in prime95 after reinstalling windows and drivers, was because they had reset the bios back to default without realising. Its the only way I don't receive any. Or am I missing something?

Some websites online state the prime95 errors don't really matter unless you're rendering or gaming etc. But I render all the time which usually pushes the CPU constantly to 100% on all threads for 2 hours at a time. And I game, but nothing as intense as that. Just GTA 5 and dying light atm.
I haven't installed any games or tried to render anything at the moment. As its a headache to install it all, and figured its best to have nothing but windows installed whilst testing.

I know a comment above said that this means that their overclock isn't stable (which is something I paid them to do). Does this need fixing? What do y'all think?

 

[Michael789]

I wouldn't mess around with voltages and the overclock settings unless OCUK where guiding me over the phone.
I have the bios profile saved to USB and to a text file, so I dont loose it. After reloading windows 11 and using HWinfo to check the temperatures of the individual cores whilst running Prime95, I noticed the cores that where throwing the errors where the ones hitting 95 degrees.
Which is 5 degrees below the suggested limit for the processor.

But you're right real life usage would be a better gauge to whether its running correctly. I'm going to install some games and render some stuff over the next few days.
If it starts resetting, crashing or shutting down I'll give them a call. Prime95 seems to stop using the individual core that hits those high temperatures after running for 6 minutes.
Worryingly, I'm not sure if D4z will do the same. And it runs the CPU at 100% the same way but usually for a couple of hours. Which was perfectly fine before sending it back to them.

I got them to build the PC and overclock the system because I didnt want the hassle of doing it myself. But unfortunately I didnt realise that if you send your PC back to OCUK.
They won't fix any faults you dont diagnose yourself. The technician stated he didnt have any problems with a blend test after a fresh install and updating drivers, where as I am. So I'm trying to rule everything out.
Afterall, they wont fix it if I don't tell them what it is. So I'm having the hassle of having to test it. Personally if I had built it myself I'd just run it with stock settings.
But if you pay to have a system built a particular way i.e overclocked with the promise of all 8 cores running at 5ghz, 'As was advertised'. You expect to get what you paid for.

edit: As for the noise of the fans. I really don't care. Theyr're usually spinning at 100% whilst rendering and are quiet loud anyway.

 

[Michael789]

So, your fans spin at 100% and that noise doesn't bother you, but some cracking noise does? Got a spinning HDD in the machine?

PC Fans are supposed to make a noise when they spin. Having a PC make a crackling sound is like having a cat that barks. It's not the norm. And could possibly indicate something isn't right and needs investigating. Which is why I posted. And no, I have no spinning drives.