MSI 3090 and loud popping sounds from PC - capacitors blown?

[caff]

I recently upgrade to an MSI 3090 Gaming X Trio.

I've heard two loud popping sounds (like a balloon being burst, but metallic) come from my PC in the last 24 hours. At first I though the first one was a sound effect in a game, but the second one definitely wasn't.

The PC has remained stable both times.

I've noticed the card has been running very hot in the last couple of weeks, certainly much hotter than when I first bought it, but I put this down to playing more intensive 3d games. I ramped up all the case fans to try and maintain temps under 80'C.

Is there a way to check if capacitors have blown on the GPU?

 

[caff]

Thanks for the replies all.

A popped capacitor would be pretty obvious though, are you certain its not from your psu or any other component?

Are you sure its the GPU popping and not the PSU?

The PSU is a 5 year old Corsair RM850X. I had a look through the fan slots and noticed a white goo covering a couple of the capacitors...

 

[caff]

lol

Yeah it was quite an unnerving colour...

Post pics if you can - unless they are obviously damaged - sometimes components in PSUs are glued to reduce/prevent whine/hum.

Here's a picture of it - I couldn't see any obvious tops of the capacitors gone (where the cross is on top), but the goo here seems to come out of the side of one of them and spreads across two capacitors.

[edit] This looks like standard manufacturing caulk used to prevent movement of components i.e. silence the PSU [/edit]

 

[caff]

Hmm yes according to this Reddit thread, this is normal on a PSU to to stop whine/reverberation...

So now I'm a bit lost... my gut feeling goes back to the GPU capacitors. I'm going to try and see if I can locate anything unusual if I can see anything on either GPU or motherboard.

 

[caff]

Could also be a loose 12v connection they can make quite a noise - and generally lead to a problem down the road even if nothing was damaged this time.

Ok I've had a detailed look at everything. There is no smell anywhere, and no signs of melted plastic or scorching on the board. I reconnected the 12v connector at both mobo and PSU ends to check too.

GPU also looks fine, no smell, nothing leaking.

The only visible thing that looks a bit unusual is a faint bit of shiny/oily residue (10mm wide patch) on the motherboard, just below the peripherals block and above the top PCI slot. It is around an unused chassis fan connector. I touched it and it doesn't smell. If this is a leak from somewhere, it could be one of the capacitors under the peripherals block, but it doesn't seem big enough.

Bit of a mystery.

 

[caff]

I heard the exact same noise again this afternoon... yet the PC is still operating fine.

Is your GPU overclocked? Seems strange you are struggling to keep an MSI Trio under 80C without ramping up all the case fans... Benchmark software possibly but not playing normal games surely?

I had MSI afterburner installed, but pretty sure it was on default settings... I installed it to monitor the fan speed whilst gaming, not to apply any overclock. Unless afterburner's default settings are to overclock? Regardless, I've just uninstalled it now.

 

[caff]

Cheers for the replies all.

I think your suggestions may well be right - the case is getting too hot and when it cools down, it causes the metallic popping sound as the case panel attached to the motherboard flexes.

I've been playing a lot of RDR2 at 4K high settings, and it's been using pretty much 100% CPU, causing the CPU and motherboard sensor to read high temps, up to 85-90 deg C. I can feel significant heat on the outside of the case from around the CPU area.

It first popped when I closed the game the other day.... so the timing explains it.

The next step is to clean it out and add more case fans for airflow. Failing that, I might have to upgrade the CPU and cooler, and case. A good excuse to upgrade