I have a MSI GTX580 twin frozr.

Upon opening some of my games, my graphic card just makes this weird screeching like noise like 'wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee'. It only does that on certain games and would not go away until i exit the game. The game is able to run fine, but that weird sound is very troubling to hear. It isnt extremely loud but its noticable when i remove my earphones.

What on earth is causing this noise?

dbddbddb

Singapore969 Posts

July 15 2011 13:31 GMT

here's a list of games so far i found that causes this sound..

1. torchlight
2. killing floor

both of these games run on steam.

tofucake

Hyrule19178 Posts

July 15 2011 13:42 GMT

The most common cause is a crappy fan at high RPM. There's not much you can do aside from replacing the fan or ignoring it. It doesn't cause any problems, so there's no danger. You could try turning down your graphics settings or manually limiting the fan speed (go with changing graphics settings first).

Specifically in KF, you can turn down AA and Blur. I've found those the least important and most intensive settings.

dbddbddb

Singapore969 Posts

July 15 2011 13:45 GMT

I've tried adjusting my options in killing floor and the following fixes the problem.

In the graphics setting, i changed Direct 3D 9.0+ to Direct 3D and the sound completely stops.
Is there a reason why this occurs? Still no idea how to fix it in torchlight.

Why does this problem only occur upon immediate launch of these games? I also notice that when I skip around the menus, the sound sorta changes, like a different pitch.

Also, none of my other games such as TF2, SC2 etc are affected by this at all.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 15 2011 13:54 GMT

Because there's no frame limiter on the intro screens, so your video card is working obscene overtime to generate roughly 36 trillion FPS. I have to vsync and play windowed fullscreen to kill the input lag from vsync or it happens in game too for me.

Doko

Argentina1737 Posts

July 15 2011 13:54 GMT

See if its capacitor noise.

Play a game on like 640x480 at low settings and see if the noise goes up. (your computer should be getting really high fps) Then turn it to high and see if the noise is lower. If thats the case its just capacitors vibrating.

Remember to turn off V-sync.

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

July 15 2011 13:56 GMT

If it's not the fan, it may be coil (inductor) whine. It wouldn't hurt to set the fan to a manual speed to make sure that wasn't it. On certain electrical load patterns, current passing through those devices can be at a resonant frequency that causes them to mechanically vibrate. That's nothing to worry about in terms of the card operating properly--just an annoying side effect.

Sometimes it's possible to use some caulking material to alleviate the problem.

edit: or the capacitors, as noted above. And on second thought, the inductors used are probably not the free air toroidal type in a card like that. I'm not sure what the difference is with regards to potentially being noisy though.

You can try RMAing the unit for a replacement, which may or may not have the same problem.

dbddbddb

Singapore969 Posts

July 15 2011 14:10 GMT

On July 15 2011 22:54 Doko wrote:
See if its capacitor noise.

Play a game on like 640x480 at low settings and see if the noise goes up. (your computer should be getting really high fps) Then turn it to high and see if the noise is lower. If thats the case its just capacitors vibrating.

Remember to turn off V-sync.

Ok i tested using torchlight.

Resolution affected the noise in no way.

However, turning off V-sync caused the noise to drastically increase. Turning on V-sync and the sound is alot less noticable.

Is there any harm in the capacitors vibrating?

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 15 2011 14:12 GMT

The only potential harm is you going completely batshit, that I know of.

Mind you, I've never let it continue, or read much about people intentionally testing them, so I could be very wrong.

dbddbddb

Singapore969 Posts

July 15 2011 14:15 GMT

#10

So i take it that its not uncommon for this to occur?

What exactly is causing the squealing sound from the capacitors?

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 15 2011 14:18 GMT

#11

Basically, to put what Myrm said in laymans terms, and mangle it in translation, the electrical frequencies involved happen to be just the right frequencies to cause an actual physical vibration in the capacitor, turning it into a tuning fork for some note you won't find on any piano outside a haunted house.

Delinius

United States324 Posts

July 15 2011 14:19 GMT

#12

On July 15 2011 23:15 dbddbddb wrote:
So i take it that its not uncommon for this to occur?

What exactly is causing the squealing sound from the capacitors?

The coil whine happens when the card is unnecessarily stressed; i.e. the menu screen of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat does this as well.

Turn on V-Sync. It'll limit FPS to your monitor refresh rate and greatly reduce load/heat from your card.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 15 2011 14:23 GMT

#13

If it's still happening at Vsynced load for those games, you're mostly unlucky. You could try downclocking your GPU prior to playing those games, and see if that helps.

Roflhaxx

Korea (South)1244 Posts

July 15 2011 14:39 GMT

#14

just go into the settings for your nvidia card (the program that comes when you download driver) and go and set it so that you force stuff like vsync to be off no matter what.