... is the noise my computer (graphics card?) seems to be making at regular intervals ;o It's probably worth noting before I begin that my old motherboard used to make similar noises and found out that it was a problem with the 'toroids' or something, in that if I pushed one of them with a pencil the noise would stop. Anyway, I got a new motherboard, and a new graphics card at the same time, but it's still making a similar noise: bzzzZzzZzztTtt! The recording above is from me just doing normal things in Windows such as minimising windows, or dragging an MSN window around the screen. Oddly, it doesn't seem to do it specifically whether it's under load or not, plenty of games (in fact, the majority of games) don't cause the noise at all, only a small handful of games and many desktop tasks seem to cause it. I'm using an Antec Sonata case with the default TruPower PSU, the motherboard is an Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe, and the graphics card is an Asus V9999 6800. One thing that does strike me as being out of place is the voltage reading from within SmartDoctor (which irritatingly resets the fan speed every time I turn on the PC, could it be related?), anyway, here's a screen shot: http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=untitled1tm8.gif] Any advice or suggestions on what could be causing it and ways to fix it would be ace, thanks!
Bit of an update, just set it to monitor the voltage settings and alert me to any problems, there's definitely something wrong which I assume is the causing the bzzzttt noises?
It's also probably worth noting that I can leave the computer on over night not doing anything and it won't make the noise at all, or I can play a game of say, Half-Life 2 for ages and it not make the noise at all, but as soon as I'm on the desktop and minimising or moving windows around the screen (as well as a few other select things, sometimes games or other programs are effected) it'll start making those noises. So I guess the noise isn't consistent like the sound clips make out, that's just with me persistently moving and minimising Windows, but it is consistent in that anything that causes the sound will almost always cause it.
I think you might have an unbalanced or damaged fan. Sounds like the fan is clipping some thing. Check to make sure that there are no wires being clipped. You might need to buy a new fan/heatsink for the card. Based on the speeds I think you have a GeForce 6800... right? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835186133
If it only makes a noise when moving or minimising windows I can't see it being a hardware problem but i would like to know if it is
If you turn the speakers off does it make the noise? I had that happen at first with my X-Fi Xtreme Music and I had to move it down a slot because my X1800XT was causing interference.
check all your fans if the blades touch anything when spinning, how old is your hdd, old ones make noises when you accesse files from it. check also the monitor if its from there the bzzt sound.
Right! Huge apologies for dragging up an old thread, but I think I've diagnosed the problem so please disregard anything said above! Tried a different AGP card yesterday, it was an old GeForce 2 and it worked absolutely fine without any noise whatsoever. My first question is, does this definitely mean it's the graphics card or is there a chance that the GeForce 2 doesn't push the motherboard so much and might not be using one of the bits that was causing the noise? My second question, should it actually be the graphics card (I'm almost certain it is) is basically which card I should get? My specs are only AMD Barton 2500+ and 1GB of RAM so I don't want to spend silly money on it, ideally I just want something at least even to my 6800, but preferably one that has low power consumption/low temperatures so I can keep the fan speed down as in my current PC the card is by far the noisest thing regarding the fans. Thirdly, my friend has decided he actually likes the noise my card makes and has offered to swap my card for his 9800 XT, at the time he thought his was slightly better and didn't mind swapping 'cos he never uses his computer any more, but after looking up some benchmarks it seems the 6800 is quite a bit better than his, my question is should I swap? Is my card a potential liability and will it die in his PC? I'd like to swap but not if it's going to die on him, and not if there's going to be a big performance difference. Thanks guys and apologies for bringing the old thread up, just I'm so close to a conclusion at the moment so if you could help me with that I'd really appreciate it.
Did you check to see if the fan on the graphics card is the problem and if so can it be tweaked a litle to give it more room or simply replaced. If so and the noise stops I wouldn't be afraid to run it.
Just got my new card, w00t! Running quite well I think, going to try some games etc now and see how it performs. One final question; can anyone recommend some software to control the fans speeds etc? I haven't tried the ATI control panel 'cos I've heard bad things and generally don't like 'bloated' software so it'd be great if there was a decent/lightweight program that'd sort the fan speeds. Cheers!
ATI Tool looks neat, thanks! One thing I'm having issues with at the moment is the performance of the card. I didn't have time last night to do any proper tests but the things I did try were massively disappointing. I ran Aquamark as a basic performance test; my 6800 (Asus V9999) got a score of ~46xx and my new x1650 only got a score of ~37xx. No problem I thought, maybe it's just that particular software, so I loaded up Half-Life 2 - exactly the same problems. It actually runs worse than my old card which makes no sense at all. In the benchmarks I was reading the x1650 (256mb DDR3) came out above the 6800GT almost every time, and as far as I know the 6800GT was a fair bit better than my old card (128mb DDR) so this should be even better again. I installed the latest drivers from the ATI website from the start so I don't think it's a driver issue.
Majorly disappointed with this card based on first impressions really, the fan actually sounds awful at low speeds (like a low pitched drone noise) and the next speed up sounds like an incredibly noisy CD drive. And that's discounting the fact it seems to really underperform compared to my old (apparently very) inferior card! Even ATI tool screwed up, I set to find the maximum GPU/MEM speeds and it was pushing the limits up, there were heaps of artefacts on the screen at one point but just said "no errors" and kept on going 'til the card temporarily died and I had to restart the computer :/
Some cards just don't like ATi Tool. But you should be able to control fan speeds. Are you sure what card you got? There's an X1650, X1650Pro, and an X1650XT. The performance is going to be dramatically less on the X1650 vs the X1650XT. I know that an X1650XT definitely outperforms a 6800 no problem. So I think you just got the X1650.
It's an X1650 Pro, pretty sure anyways! ATI Tool really is a lovely piece of kit, thank you! It took me a little while to find the options I was after, but now it's overclocked to 695 for the GPU core and 859 for the memory, that's after dropping it quite a bit from what ATI tool said was the maximum, and it's running at a fairly decent temperature and without any artifacts at all, even after running the artefact test for a good few minutes. Most importantly I've changed the fan speeds too, basically any temperature below 63 degrees and it'll run at 43% which is lovely and quiet, and anything above that it really kicks in quite heavily so when I'm playing games the temperature shouldn't get very high at all, after just running all of these overclock tests it never went above 68 degrees, I've just finished and it's shot straight back down to 58 degrees and is running very quietly as I'm posting this. No idea still what the performance will be like, I assume I'll see quite a considerable difference though since I'm running it at much higher speeds now, either way it's very quiet, it's over clocked well and I've suddenly gone from hating this card to actually rather liking it in the space of around 10 minutes, gotta love that ATI Tool!
Just tried all sorts of things and benchmarks with 3DMark03, here's the results: GPU @ Stock & Graphics @ Stock - 7,621 (CPU got 373, lol) GPU o/clocked & Graphics o/clocked - 8,530 (CPU still only got 429, lol) As above, with the Omega drivers - 8,509 So quite a nice performance boost from overclocking, my FPS in Counter Strike Source also shot from very choppy to a stable 35fps which is nice, especially since I'm running it at 1680 x 1050 in full detail on a pretty naff PC Not too impressed with the Omega drivers, Half-Life ran very slightly better but 3D Mark in particular seemed to come off a tad worse, but most importantly it crashed a few times too and threw up some weird error messages, so I went back to the standard ATI drivers! My only concern is that the CPU is running at around 65 degrees under load, it's an AMD Barton so should go up to 85 I think before it starts getting into trouble, but 65 degrees still seems quite high; should I underclock it/whack the fan speed up or should be alright?
I think you might need a better cooler for it. Check out coolers for Barton and find a tutorial on how to install it. I recommend Arctic Cooling Freezer fans. I use one myself with quite a high spec CPU. Buy some Arctic Silver Ceramique thermal paste instead of Arctic Silver V if you're afraid of shorting anything. I'd recommend something more like 1280 x 960 or so for that card. It should run much better with still very nice IQ.
Brilliant thanks for the info, I'll try and find a decent heatsink and fan if I can! Regarding the resolution, 1680 x 1050 is native so if possible I guess I'd like to stick with that.
