Do CPU's make noise under load?

[Charlie98]

I've been stress testing my 2500K with LinX the past day or so, and have found an annoying 'ticking' sound when it's under load. I don't believe it's the CPU fan (on the 212+) because the ticking starts, and then the CPU fan throttles up.

Do CPU's make noise when they are under a load?

 

[dajeepster]

I've been stress testing my 2500K with LinX the past day or so, and have found an annoying 'ticking' sound when it's under load. I don't believe it's the CPU fan (on the 212+) because the ticking starts, and then the CPU fan throttles up.

Do CPU's make noise when they are under a load?

it's probably one of the VRMs on the mb or such... or the psu.

if it was the cpu... you'd be screwed.. which most likely it isn't

 

[RavenSEAL]

I'd be more worried about the VRMs as someone has said above...

 

[TuxDave]

I doubt it's the CPU. I can't even come up with a plausible explanation of how a CPU could make ticking noises.

 

[BrightCandle]

Even since we started using lead free solder this has been a problem. Most of the recent boards I have seen haven't suffered as the manufacturers are doing a considerably better job now than when it was first introduced, but it happens occasionally. It could be a Capacitor or a VRM that is very slightly loose. Its unlikely to fail but its vibrating in the solder hole and making a high pitched noise at a harmonic of the actual frequency of the signal going through it. You may find that setting spread spectrum gets rid of it or that changing a bus speed or CPU frequency changes the volume and pitch, which may allow you to eliminate it with slight tweaks.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I've been stress testing my 2500K with LinX the past day or so, and have found an annoying 'ticking' sound when it's under load. I don't believe it's the CPU fan (on the 212+) because the ticking starts, and then the CPU fan throttles up.

Do CPU's make noise when they are under a load?

90%, motherboard to blame.

 

[CZroe]

I had a professor teaching a CIS course telling his students that a Celeron is noisier than a Pentium. He even said "Isn't that right, Emmett [my name]?" I chuckled and said "only because they are typically inside budget computers often paired with slower, noisier hard drives." Another time, he tried to explain why it was bad to have your files in compressed folders because ZIP compression was "like a tumor on your drive." At first, I thought he meant that one corrupted bit corrupts all files in the archive, which isn't entirely accurate. Eventually, I figured out that he was talking about the infamous Zip drive Click-of-Death and did not know the difference between Zip disks/drives and zip compression!

 

[Charlie98]

Even since we started using lead free solder this has been a problem. Most of the recent boards I have seen haven't suffered as the manufacturers are doing a considerably better job now than when it was first introduced, but it happens occasionally. It could be a Capacitor or a VRM that is very slightly loose. Its unlikely to fail but its vibrating in the solder hole and making a high pitched noise at a harmonic of the actual frequency of the signal going through it. You may find that setting spread spectrum gets rid of it or that changing a bus speed or CPU frequency changes the volume and pitch, which may allow you to eliminate it with slight tweaks.

That makes more sense... it sounds like a rattle in the car at a certain speed... a frequency vibration. It speeds up and slows down, gets louder and quieter... :\ I am dinking with the CPU speed, I'm not reaching for max speed so I'll start there.

You may find that setting spread spectrum gets rid of it

...my ignorance is complete. What is that? (That phrase reminds me of the trick we used to pull on n00bs in the motor pool... they needed to sign out a can of compression for a diesel motor.)

I can't even come up with a plausible explanation of how a CPU could make ticking noises.

Electrical current is a funny thing... I know it's supposed to be silent, but...

 

[BrightCandle]

Spread Spectrum is a bios option that people are told to turn off when overclocking. My understanding of the feature is that it alters the frequency ever so slightly so that all the EM given off by the various parts of the computer is not perfectly aligned and more random. At the peek of overclocking this can cause problems and limit the overclock but it reduces the EM output of the computer, it also changes various bus frequencies a little which depending on which component is making the noise might be all you need to stop the resonance.

I personally don't relate it to ticking though, more like a similar noise to a cheap and nasty power brick only louder.

Since its simple to check (some bios tweaks with CPU/memory speed and spread spectrum) its easy enough to test my hypothesis.

If its happening at stock speeds you might get a replacement as in my opinion its a fault.

Edit - Its worth mentioning that electrical current isn't silent. The movement of electrons in metal that are touching air must be affecting and moving the air, just not enough for our ears to detect at any range we could get to. Given the right equipment boosting the noise and a suitably cold room in theory we could hear it. But for all practical purposes its meant to be silent and its faults in electronics that make the noise.

 

[nyker96]

I agree w/ other posters, I heard VRM noise from motherboard or the PSU before not cpu.

 

[Charlie98]

I had it up on the desk today... it's not the PSU, but it is coming from the board.

It's better now that I'm down to 3.8GHz, off from 4.2GHz... it was really clattering then. I have to pull the cooler off and work on it a little, once I remount it I'll see how the noise is then.

Thanks, guys!