cromero55

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First built, about a week now and I have an ASUS 4870 DK 1GB and I'm not sure if the fan on the card is making a loud vibrating sound when am playing EMPIRE Total War or is it the case fan. When not playing the system is fairly quiet, I can hear the cpu and case fans, but its nothing like when I'm playing.

Can the card be defective? Do I need to go back and ensure once again that everything is tight? Is this normal with graphics cards? What can I do to improve this situation?


 
Solution
To see what fan it is, you can stop/slow it with you finger(in the center hub, not the blades).

Fans speeding up is normal to some extent since that is how you keep an idle machine quiet while still having the power to cool it while its loaded.

Once you find the fan making the noise, you may be able to see about replacing it. If its the cpu fan, there are many quiet fans/heatsinks you can use.
Likely your card is sitting at 0% and then spinning up to 100% when under load, manually set it to 70-80% and it should stay cool and quite while you are gaming, i know my XFX 4850 gets extremely loud once the fan passes about 83%, luckily it runs nice and cool and never breaks 70% on automatic anyway.
 

cromero55

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I just checked and it sits at 50% but I'll set it at 75%. When I quit the game, it takes about 30 seconds or so and it's back to normal. I'll try your suggestion and repost.
 

johnnyq1233

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ATI cards do run hot so you'll really need to get into the control panel of your card and determine the best settings for your fan speeds.
Also, if your case is inadequate for cooling you'll need to look at more fans (if available) or changing your case to one with better cooling (air-flow).
Please list all your components including your case and power supply.
 
Also check other fans, CPU fans speed up as well. My 4870 fan hardly ever passes 30-35 percent when gaming.

Case air flow is also important.

I do not know why Asus would have chose to use a loud heatsink. My older Asus cards where silent(for real, no noise at all)
 
are you sure its your graphics card and not your PSU buzzing or a fan on your CPU cooler? There should have been no change on the fan speed of the card once you manually set it so there is no reason the sound would change. Use Furmark to stress out your GPU to make it heat up, if the sound instantly happens its not the fan on the card as the card would take some time to warm up.
 

cromero55

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after opening the case and running the game, I'm now starting to think that the CPU cooler is what's making all the noise. I have an amd 955 BE. I will add another case fan in hopes it helps. Any other suggestions are welcomed. Newegg said they would take the card back, but want to be certain.
 
To see what fan it is, you can stop/slow it with you finger(in the center hub, not the blades).

Fans speeding up is normal to some extent since that is how you keep an idle machine quiet while still having the power to cool it while its loaded.

Once you find the fan making the noise, you may be able to see about replacing it. If its the cpu fan, there are many quiet fans/heatsinks you can use.
 
Solution