GPU Buzzing

[great_captain]

Hi all,

For a few weeks now my GPU (Sparkle Calibre GTX580 Thermal Guru - stock clocks) has been making a fairly quiet 'electronic buzzing' kind of noise. It only does it when I'm playing games, and will stop if I pause. It seems to be linked to how hard the GPU is having to work (i.e. playing Crysis 2 will result in fairly loud buzzing whilst Half-Life 2 is much quieter). It's definitely not the fans, I've checked and double checked, it's coming from the GPU itself. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated; I basically just want to know if it could be damaging my system at all. I'm pretty sure it wasn't doing it for the first few months of owning the card, unless it was and I just wasn't paying attention. Aha.

 

[Chaz21]

Hi all,

For a few weeks now my GPU (Sparkle Calibre GTX580 Thermal Guru - stock clocks) has been making a fairly quiet 'electronic buzzing' kind of noise. It only does it when I'm playing games, and will stop if I pause. It seems to be linked to how hard the GPU is having to work (i.e. playing Crysis 2 will result in fairly loud buzzing whilst Half-Life 2 is much quieter). It's definitely not the fans, I've checked and double checked, it's coming from the GPU itself. Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated; I basically just want to know if it could be damaging my system at all. I'm pretty sure it wasn't doing it for the first few months of owning the card, unless it was and I just wasn't paying attention. Aha.

I'm guessing you already removed and re-seated the card. You could do what we used to do when checking cars in the old days (only don't use a screwdriver) . Using a never sharpened pencil the next time you hear the buzzing touch the top of each of the cards fans and see where the buzz is the loudest. That fan's mount might be the problem. If there is a good connection between your card and socket it shouldn't hurt your system. Just an idea.

 

[kajabla]

Yeah, see if it's correlated to fan speed. Crank your fans way up with EVGA Precision and see if you get the noise. If not, I'm thinking coil whine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coil_Noise
This is a harmless issue that you'll have to live with, unless it's really bad. My 460 does the same thing. Is it a very high-pitched noise?

 

[great_captain]

I've cranked the fans up to max, and it makes no difference to the noise (apart from the fact that I can't hear it over the fans =P). It's quite high pitched, but with a very 'buzzing'-like quality to it... It's no where near as high as this for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9AjFYnKTdnw#t=29s

And it 'buzzes' much more.

 

[Chaz21]

I've cranked the fans up to max, and it makes no difference to the noise (apart from the fact that I can't hear it over the fans =P). It's quite high pitched, but with a very 'buzzing'-like quality to it... It's no where near as high as this for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9AjFYnKTdnw#t=29s

And it 'buzzes' much more.

If its not the gpu fans and the card is seated properly and it only happens in certain situations (actions) I'm guessing its a diode or chip on your gpu board that only "vibrates" at specific frequencies. It may have come loose because of a bad design placement or heat reaction. Both you and the youtube guy are using NVidia cards which tend to warm up a bit (it hurts me to say it 'cause I'm a "green" fan - mainly because of driver issues with "red"). If that's the case I don't know what you can do about it. Sorry.

 

[kajabla]

Call up Sparkle, then. If it bothers you, I think you'll have to RMA.