whining noise and really bad game performance - help!

[MouseyB]

Hi all - I need help!

Very recently I noticed terrible performance when playing Skyrim, which I've been playing for many months with no problems and high FPS. There's also a high pitch noise coming from the PC - and I noticed both about the same time.

I have disconnected all fans and the gpu - but the noise still seems to be coming from the cpu or perhaps motherboard (ruling out the power supply and HDs). The whine tends to appear when I get the computer to do something slightly hard, or anything involving graphics.

Please can someone tell me

1) if the two problems are likely to be connected?
2) what's likely to be causing the whine?

Thanks in advance!!!!

Spec: AMD FX-6300
ASUS M5A97 motherboard
Sapphire AMD 7850 1GB GPU
8GB RAM 1600
2x OCZ ssd hds 250GB each

 

[Reddax]

If you've disconnected your GPU and it still does it, then i reckon it's your cpu fan hard at work. Try cleaning out the CPU heatsink with compressed air

 

[someone755]

Is it possible that it's the PSU's fault?
Thinking out loud; under load, a system needs more power, so you may be stressing the PSU too much. (By the way, you didn't state which PSU you have. If it's a good, non-cheap one, I doubt it's it causing the issue.)
Or maybe the CPU/PSU fan is rusty a bit.
Perhaps there's air in between the CPU and heatsink. My old laptop always starts squealing, even when not under load (it doesn't have thermal paste at all...).
OR, it could be one of the SSDs. It's not common, but I've seen one squeal under high load. But this is rare.
Unless you have a standard HDD, those are the only options I see.