Mysterious ticking noise in Gigabyte 9600GT

[AtomD]

Recently got a Gigabyte GeForce 9600GT.
(This one:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/VGA/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2774)
It works absolutely splendidly, except for a type of weird ticking noise it makes whenever I run a 3D application. It's not made by the cooling and it gets worse the more graphics intensive an app is. It sounds like a small electrical short.

I am running it on a PCIe 1.0 slot (with a Intel 946GZ chipset), but I don't see how, if it would cause a problem, that would be the only one it causes.

I'm also running a 460W Gigabyte power supply. (With one optical and three hdd's)

 

[dagger]

Could be the fan. Or if it's more like a hissing, could be capacitor loading.

 

[AtomD]

I've checked the fan and it doesn't seem to have an influence. And it's a tick. In vista basic it doesn't do it at all unless I scroll up or down a page.

 

[aziraphale]

Huh? Sounds strange. Let us know when you find the cause. I'm curious...

 

[AtomD]

Shure, will do.

 

[nvalhalla]

It's a pipe bomb!

 

[aziraphale]

The only other sound source on a GC would be a defective transistor; But that would for sure not ba a clicking noise...

 

[gomerpile]

sound like voltage regulator having problems. Have you noticed if your fan rpm is going up when playing 3d apps or does it stay the same. I had a gf3 gamers and it did that too, disabling smart fan fixed the problem. I set the fan speed to run full with a bios flash. Maybe the voltage tabe timing is off seeming its new you should get a rma

 

[AtomD]

Thanks for all the help.
If it is the regulator, how would I turn smart fan off?

Oh, and I've uploaded the sound. The fist part is that of the card in Vista Aero, the second of it in Mass Effect and the last part still Mass Effect, but slowed down a lot, just to freak me out. And don't mind me clicking.
http://www.supload.com/music/Me-My-Graphics-Card-Breaking-download-FB0ULAXQZ3JD.html

 

[gomerpile]

Thanks for all the help.
If it is the regulator, how would I turn smart fan off?

Oh, and I've uploaded the sound. The fist part is that of the card in Vista Aero, the second of it in Mass Effect and the last part still Mass Effect, but slowed down a lot, just to freak me out. And don't mind me clicking.
http://www.supload.com/music/Me-My-Graphics-Card-Breaking-download-FB0ULAXQZ3JD.html

Read the vcard bios wiff nibitor. Change the vid setting to table 3 or the hightest voltage table, (of your reading), not as shown below, also check the temp reading to see if any throttling is active if so change, now save and flash your bios.

I dont trust software to run any voltages, temp, powersaving but I've tried corecell, asus smart tech., riva. Also disable any powersaving features in your system bios. If you do a check before you flash and get a green light your off, also remember to save your current bios
For diagnostic purposes only, I use the changes permanently
OR send in to rma

 

[shoota]

try a different driver version. i had weird noises coming from 9600gt as well when i first got it. then new drivers came out and they fixed the problem.

 

[asdasd123123]

It's going to be another one of the nVidia series cards to explode (literally)

There are a few coils on those cards, on some older revision cards that coil is too small for the load given, and it will explode and give off smoke quite violently.

Can you take a picture on the back of the card? Same side as the power connector.

 

[AtomD]

I've tried 3 driver versions and it's all the same. I'd rather not reflash or unscrew the heat sink to take photo's just yet. Just in case RMA is really anal about that type of tampering. But I'll send it back to the shop. Well hey, at least I know it's not normal.

Dammit. I actually bought this as a replacement for a 8600GT that got screwed to which I lost the receipt. Stupid luck.
Thants everyone for being smart.

 

[jpbg]

im going for the fan the reason the noise increases when playing a game is becasue the fanis spinning up and going faster, most nvidia cards to this but you have a defective fan or so i think

 

[asdasd123123]

Oh, you have one of the cards with the power plug covered, doh!

Well, my most probable solution is still that parts of the power controller on your card is defective, we've returned three 9600's and two 8600's that had blown coils/diodes whatever it is, they're responsible for adapting all that wattage down to suitable levels for a gpu.

You can see them on this picture, it's the device that says "delta" on the right, and the two larger ones below it.

The ones that blew were the one exactly above the power plug, our RMA's had replaced those pieces with the same size as the largest ones.

http://www.ixbt.com/video3/images/ref/gf9600gt-scan-front.jpg

 

[gomerpile]

im going for the fan the reason the noise increases when playing a game is becasue the fanis spinning up and going faster, most nvidia cards to this but you have a defective fan or so i think

Thats the reason I suggested making all the VID to their factory highest. Disable fan temp monitoring this solved the problem wiff the 6800ge gamers I own and still in use, well built card, it was the VID change for 1.4 to 1.3 and in one instance an error came up stating (their is an error with the video card reducing power to their lowest setting). That is when the clicking sound started. So I fixed this wiff a bios flash. I tried to play with the video card at the low setting of 1.2volts, the reduction of power really took out the performance of the card and the clicking sound troubled me. This is the reason I investigated about bios flash for video cards. I have flashed often so I do know what kind of performance gain there is with bios flash and software performance, the set back is if you have a great cooling and set the clock speeds and volts according to your great cooling and decide to use the card in a different computer the chances of memory, core burn out is good, if the bios is not reflashed to that systems cooling.

 

[sarwar_r87]

interesting sound. the ticking sound was could form the fan....
but is it just me or was there sum sort of poping sound at the end of that audio clip........if it was poping den its definetly not the fan......it sounded lik sum sort of alien signal from xfiles......anyway....no fan or capacitor or IC is supposed to make poping sounds.if it is indeed a poping sound then its reali reali mysterious. take it bak to the vendor and see wat dey say.

or u could try connecting the card to a difrent PC
or u could try increasing fan speed to max. if its making the sound with fan speed maxed out, den its da fan. otherwise its not.

 

[gomerpile]

In my case it was not the fan it was the voltages. I'd rma the card or ask gigb techs. If all things fail and a rma is not possible my solution may work it did for me. Forgot to mention I had a feeling that the clicking had something to do with the fans voltages and maybe a regulator controlling the power to the mother boards components, what ever caused it the flash worked.

 

[AtomD]

Will do guys.
The popping sound is probably me being stupid and clicking the mouse...
I don't know if this might be related but I did have 2 8600GTs and both gave me the same problem (graphical glitches about 3 months in, in particular green/purple chequered pattern in 3D apps.) Do you think my PC might be breaking the cards?

 

[dagger]

Will do guys.
The popping sound is probably me being stupid and clicking the mouse...
I don't know if this might be related but I did have 2 8600GTs and both gave me the same problem (graphical glitches about 3 months in, in particular green/purple chequered pattern in 3D apps.) Do you think my PC might be breaking the cards?

Lol, possibly. Did you try to oc the cpu and forgot to lock pcie at 100mhz?

 

[AtomD]

I don't overclock anything that isn't a Celeron (aka when I have just about nothing to loose.) Well actually that's not true, I did overclock a Radeon 9200 in ye olden tymes, but I got scared off from ever trying it again when giant pixels started roaming the skies in some of my games.

 

[aziraphale]

Dearie me....

 

[someoneZA]

My Gigabyte 8600GTS does this every time it renders a frame. And mine doesn't even have a fan (Silent pipe :/) so it is NOT the fan. My advice is to get used to it, I've had to put up with it for nearly 3 years!

 

[Demono]

I have a 9600GSO, got it 2 months ago. About a month ago it started to make a ticking noise sometimes when I would play graphically demanding games. I isolated the sound is coming from right by the card's fan. I'm assuming when I heat up the card it expands the casing just enough to touch the tips of the fan.

The three screws that hold the fan are snug and nothing feels loose except the normal I wish I didn't have to remove the whole heatsink to get the plastic part off. The sound has been slowly occouring more frequently though so I want to do something about it. I tried gently pushing the case out away from the fanblade but it didn't seem to help and I didn't want to risk snapping anything so gave up on that.