Hissing/buzzing coming from videocard when rendering

[Yuriman]

Since I got my 4870, I've had a strange hissing/buzzing coming from my PC intermittently. I recently became bothered enough to isolate it, and found it comes from the videocard itself, seemingly close-ish to the DVI-connector end of the card. The pitch of the noise also varies based on the framerate of whatever the card is rendering.

Noise - I open and close rthdribl to cause the noise, with my mic next to the video card.



Yesterday, I put in a new Auzentech Forte, which is a PCI-E soundcard, only to find that the noise also comes through my headphones, in the exact pitch. With one ear to my headphones, and one next to the videocard, it's easy to tell the noise is the same.

Now, the only PCI-E 1x slots my board has are adjacent to the videocard, and thus my sound card is immediately adjacent to it, so I thought it might help if I insulated the card behind a few layers of metal. I cut up an anti-static bag (and put tape over it) and placed that over the sound card, but it didn't help. I then cut up an arizona tea can, and placed the sheath of metal over the antistatic bag already over the card, but it doesn't seem to make any difference either.

Is it possible the my sound is being interfered with over the PCI-E bus? Anyone have any solutions or suggestions?

 

[mpilchfamily]

RMA the card. The buzz is likly coming from the voltage regulators on the card. Its not a major problem but well worth an RMA on the card.

 

[Yuriman]

I was curious, I asked my roommate if his 4870's made noise. He said he didn't think so, had never noticed it (his PC is quite loud). However, upon testing, I found that both of his 4870's made the same noise. So, what are my chances of getting a quiet card if I RMA mine?

 

[alcoholbob]

Turn on vsync. It won't solve the problem, but it should limit it significantly. Most high end cards have capacitor whine these days. In high end home electronics--like TVs, digital audio amplifiers--companies know that noise like this is unacceptable by the average paying adult. If you look inside a TV there's a TON of dampening and on an audio amplifier there's hundreds $ invested in noise dampening electronics.

In the computer electronics industry they know they are selling this to kids and know that you'd hardly complain about minor inconveniences--I mean what are you gonna do, complain to your parents, who never really wanted to pay for this in the first place? They know you'll shut up and swallow your pride--and more profit for them.