Noisy GTX 460

[Tsavo]

Oookay. This is new to me. I have an EVGA GTX 460 (non EE) that makes a high pitched squeal when I move my mouse.

The video card makes the same noise but lots louder when I play WoW, but it's quiet in other games.

Thoughts, gurus?

 

[Throckmorton]

Sounds like a bad capacitor. Call EVGA

 

[notty22]

You might have to troubleshoot whether its the PSU or the video card.
Its definitely because of load on the gpu, since its started when you installed the card.
If you search youtube for whining video card, whining psu, video card you will find others with this problem.
Some claim , that some Corsairs did this and were not 'faulty' ?

 

[Seero]

Contact EVGA if the noise does come from the video card. It is possible that your PSU starts to scream after installing the card.

 

[Rifter]

as mentioned could be PSU and could be the card. For what its worth my Corsair 850TX and MSI cyclone 460 1GB are dead silent(other than the small amount of fan noise, no whining)

 

[Tsavo]

Hmm..the plot thickens. I was certain that it was the video card, but as someone said, it's hard to track down high frequency noises. I set my CPU at stock clocks, and the sound isn't nearly as bad, but it's still there. Power supply is a Corsair TX650.

Odd also it that it only does this in WoW and not in any other games.

 

[nyker96]

you need to post some more info for people to diagnose it well.

 

[zagood]

Logitech laser mouse?

 

[Ben90]

Yea that sounds like a cap. More than likely you won't get a RMA, but you can always try if it really bugs you. I know for a fact that XFX couldn't care less about it, but they have seemed to slipped downhill.

 

[Tsavo]

Logitech laser mouse?

Yeah. G500. Other stuff: Gigabyte P55 UDR3, Corsair TX 650 (Seasonic model) EVGA GTX 460.

At this point I'm thinking it's a whining coil in the PSU. The sound is almost impossible to locate, so I'm going to pull the PSU out of the chassis tomorrow to test it.

 

[zagood]

I think you'll find if you replace the PSU with a non-corsair one it'll go away. If you RMA it (and they will accept it for RMA, I've done it twice for the same thing) you'll probably end up with the same problem.

Replacing the mouse may solve the problem for that particular game, but there are others (specifically Crysis and Warhead) where it'll probably pop up on loading screens regardless of mouse.

It's something about the combination of Corsair PSUs, nVidia cards and Logitech laser mice. It'll happen with other builds, but usually two out of the three are present. The bummer for me is that they're my three favorite companies lol...

 

[Tsavo]

I think you'll find if you replace the PSU with a non-corsair one it'll go away. If you RMA it (and they will accept it for RMA, I've done it twice for the same thing) you'll probably end up with the same problem.

Replacing the mouse may solve the problem for that particular game, but there are others (specifically Crysis and Warhead) where it'll probably pop up on loading screens regardless of mouse.

It's something about the combination of Corsair PSUs, nVidia cards and Logitech laser mice. It'll happen with other builds, but usually two out of the three are present. The bummer for me is that they're my three favorite companies lol...

Yeah, I could RMA it and chances are it'll get replaced with a CWT Corsair TX 650 which would solve the problem but likely add others. It's a great PSU and the volts are just about bang on even when I'm wringing its neck. If it made this noise in every 3D game, swapping it would be a no-brainer. As it is, it's only annoying in WoW and only when I o/c. The fix I am going to use is switch from BIOS o/c to Gigabyte's software tuner so I don't have to reboot every time I want to get my blood elf dirty.

Up until today, I've never heard of such a thing as a whining coil. I've heard them, but I haven't heard of them. :whiste:

 

[Throckmorton]

Ah wait it does seem like it's the PSU and not the video card. With the mouse moving it sounds like CPU load is what makes the noise happen. Open up task manager, move your mouse fast, and look at the CPU usage. I can easily get up to 41% load just from that, and I'm sure it helps that my G9 is set to 1000hz poll rate. Even moving my mouse slowly gets it up to 25% (it's a 2.1ghz C2D)

 

[Tsavo]

Ah wait it does seem like it's the PSU and not the video card. With the mouse moving it sounds like CPU load is what makes the noise happen. Open up task manager, move your mouse fast, and look at the CPU usage. I can easily get up to 41% load just from that, and I'm sure it helps that my G9 is set to 1000hz poll rate. Even moving my mouse slowly gets it up to 25% (it's a 2.1ghz C2D)

I'm unable to crack 3% by moving the mouse. The mouse only makes the PSU noisier when the system is heavily loaded, and even then only in two programs...WoW and Photoshop. Strange. It's a good thing I checked here first, otherwise I would have been poking around the video card all night.

I think I might just replace the darned thing after all. :|

 

[Tsavo]

Fixed. I looked up Corsair's PSU forum and they recommended disabling C1E and EIST. I did that...no dice. I did notice that EIST was still enabled even though I disabled it in the BIOS.

:hmm:

I was using a beta bios that had a fix for a random USB problem on startup that would leave my mouse undetected. Everything was fine until I went from ATI 4850 > GTX 460. I looked at Gigabyte's BIOS page and noted a new BIOS that "Improves Turbo Boost Compatibility."

:hmm:

I had a hunch what was up at this point, so I loaded the new BIOS. Their fix to improve turbo boost compatibility was to remove it while o/c ing. No more super jiggy turbo which the PSU wasn't too fond of when playing WoW. All is silent now, and a silent PSU is a happy PSU since it won't get beat into the concrete with a hammer. I no longer have turbo, but 60 FPS with turbo the the same as 60 FPS without turbo. The random mouse not being found on start is back...but also the PSU/Mouse whining is gone.

All this because I wanted to get my blood elf dirty. :|