Video card making high pitched squeal when rendering particles?

[jjgoeman]

So I just built a new computer with an EVGA gtx 560 ti. I'm currently working on a 3d game as a hobby and there is one particular scene with lots of particles. When the particles emit, the card makes a very quiet, high-pitched whine that changes pitch down and up like a slide whistle until the particles are gone. It's barely audible, and I didn't notice it in other games that are more graphically intense even with the sound turned off. Maybe the fan is going faster then and covers it up? Anyway should I be worried? Is it just normal operating noise? I'm thinking capacitors, but I really don't know. I saw some people say it's a small power supply on a similar thread, but I've got power to spare

 

[nukemaster]

It is coils. They vibrate with the high switching frequencies. They are are part of the power delivery system on the card(turns the 12 volts into whatever the card needs).

It is not damaging and many users simply can not hear it.

In general, it is luck of the draw, I have had cards i could hear at the strangest times.

The same thing can even happen on motherboards(coils around the cpu) and even power supplies(coils again).

 

[alvine]

enable vsync and see if you still hear that high pitch noise

 

[wanderer11]

I hear that on menu screens with vsync off when I get 10000 fps. It's probably no big deal, just annoying. Either use an fps limiter or use vsync and see if it will go away.

 

[jjgoeman]

Enabled VSync and it's gone! Not sure how that make a difference, but ok. Thanks guys!

 

[nukemaster]

Your card renders less frames per second(Vsync matches the frames per second to that of your screen). Some people get this from the card running insanely high frame rates. Your particles must have been doing just that.

 

[jjgoeman]

Best answer selected by jjgoeman.