Electrical Noise GPU & PSU

[GIGGLA]

Hi I just built a new pc and when I use ATITool or Folding at Home on my 280gtx I get this slightly high pitched electrical sound, and I have confirmed it is coming from both the graphics card and the power supply (pc power and cooling 750).

I also hooked up my other PSU a (610 PC Power&Cooling) and the same thing happens sound is coming from both GPU and PSU. It is very noticeable with those two programs I mentioned but much quieter with games.

PC Power and Cooling tech support told me to send the PSU in for RMA. But that was before I heard the video card and other PSU doing it also. I'm thinking maybe it is the card because it's making both of the PSU's do this along with the similar noise from the card at the same time? The noise is louder from the PSU's.

[newconroer]

Look at the FPS you're getting when ATi tools 3d window is open. Almost 2,000 right?

Go play an old game or even a new one, Crysis does it as well, without Vsync on, and when you're moving through the intro movies leading up to the main menu, you should hear it again. If you have FRAPS on, you'll see your FPS counter at about 2,000 or more.


Nothing to worry about.

[intel igent]

sound's like bad capacitor's to me, you may want to PM trodas and see what he think's

[newconroer]

Well if it's bad caps, I've had bad caps on four video cards in the past two years

Have you never run a game that's hitting almost 3000 frames per second? The GPUs whine like crazy.

[intel igent]

Originally Posted by newconroer

Well if it's bad caps, I've had bad caps on four video cards in the past two years

Have you never run a game that's hitting almost 3000 frames per second? The GPUs whine like crazy.

very possible you had bad cap's more than once manufacturer's usually try to skimp on them.

unfortunately i have never had a game render 3000fps, let alone 150fps.

especially considering most, if not all, games are capped at 60fps IIRC

O/P try and PM trodas and see what his thought's are....

[GIGGLA]

Some people's cards do it and some don't when (folding at home), some people say it's defective. I mean I can't really run Folding at Home on my card because the noise is really annoying though subtle, it would probably make a dog's ears hurt lol.

I just don't want to fry anything, although I'm not going to run Folding at Home either way on this new system because this is the last system I will buy for a very long time and don't want any extra wear and tear on it, so it will last long as I will be broke as a joke heh.

[newconroer]

I was always under the assumption, that at those speeds nearly all caps made that noise.

However, I can't imagine EVGA, XFX, Palit, Gainward and Sapphire have all sold me cards with bad caps.

[trodas]

Well, to understand what is going on there you need a lot of electrical measurments taken (what is the ripple on 12V when iddle and on load, for example) and mainly you need to know the frequency of PSU output 12V regulation transistors as well, s GFC card input ones. In short, you need a good electrician and a good scope.

The interference between these frequencies is what you hear.

Whinning is not produced by caps, but by chokes alone.

The fact you hear hi-pitch noise is only because there is excessive ripple in the voltages, and the fact that there is enough ripple alone itself clearly indicating that the voltage filtering caps are not up to the challenge.

Last time I heard that it it did not last more that 3 months. (Antec 480W Neo PSU - one of the most expensive PSUs at the time! - and DFI LP B mainboard) In the end the caps on mainboard exploded, taking the mobo into silicon heaven. The damage was so severe, that I was not been able to repair it even since.

However, I can't imagine EVGA, XFX, Palit, Gainward and Sapphire have all sold me cards with bad caps.

You are dead wrong. First at all, finding ANY piece of hardware with respectable caps that...
1) are not known bad ones
2) are not fake ones
3) are good ones from good brands
...is next to impossible job.

Except a Zippy server PSUs there is NO PSU EVER PRODUCED that did not come with bad caps inside, hence even if you have a good caps elsewhere, the bad caps in PSU kill them in time. The exploded caps in my Antec/DFI case was Chemi-con KZG 1500uF 16V one. A known good brand, even my beef is not with them, they are not known to fail like all bad caps do.

Recently a Enermax Liberty 620W in my friend machine that I build give up, producing like 1cm long spark when power-up and circuit breaker then cut the power to whole hausehold. VENT caps, known bad brand. Mine older Liberty run and fold just fine. Crap caps replaced by Samxon GD/RS caps.

The new Enermax Modu line seems to have good caps, but as usual, there can be fatal differences between the review PSUs and the ones sold to mases... So, use and step there with care. Still, other brands come up with known bad caps w/o shame.

No wonder these PSUs can't produce enough clean power, no wonder the HW whine.

Not to worry. This will get fixed soon. The polymer caps used todays (99,99% of them) are known fakes. They did not have a showball in hell chance to stand the excessive ripple, so, it will fix itself soon


Not what wou wanted to hear?

Then there is a possibility to save things. Recap the PSU from top to bottom, increase the value of the caps used there for 12V rails and do the same on your mainboard/GFX card. Remember that these caps already took huge beatings and not even replacing the PSU for a new one will fix that. What is broken is broken. You can't do things like that to poor caps, fake brands made in China from stolen folmulas, often having more tha 10x worser specs that their true cousins.

Don't like that? Well, then sell all your computers and move to Caribic or somewhere where is no electricity and no computers.

...

Just don't go around screaming how much I'm wrong and how I lie. I spendt last like 5 to 6 years replacing bad caps and fixing (sometimes only trying to fix) what they caused, so lecturing me about that is not necessary and I will happily ignore it

[intel igent]

thank you trodas for the clarification/explanation

[newconroer]

Originally Posted by trodas

Well, to understand what is going on there you need a lot of electrical measurments taken (what is the ripple on 12V when iddle and on load, for example) and mainly you need to know the frequency of PSU output 12V regulation transistors as well, s GFC card input ones. In short, you need a good electrician and a good scope.

The interference between these frequencies is what you hear.

Whinning is not produced by caps, but by chokes alone.

The fact you hear hi-pitch noise is only because there is excessive ripple in the voltages, and the fact that there is enough ripple alone itself clearly indicating that the voltage filtering caps are not up to the challenge.

Last time I heard that it it did not last more that 3 months. (Antec 480W Neo PSU - one of the most expensive PSUs at the time! - and DFI LP B mainboard) In the end the caps on mainboard exploded, taking the mobo into silicon heaven. The damage was so severe, that I was not been able to repair it even since.



You are dead wrong. First at all, finding ANY piece of hardware with respectable caps that...
1) are not known bad ones
2) are not fake ones
3) are good ones from good brands
...is next to impossible job.

Except a Zippy server PSUs there is NO PSU EVER PRODUCED that did not come with bad caps inside, hence even if you have a good caps elsewhere, the bad caps in PSU kill them in time. The exploded caps in my Antec/DFI case was Chemi-con KZG 1500uF 16V one. A known good brand, even my beef is not with them, they are not known to fail like all bad caps do.

Recently a Enermax Liberty 620W in my friend machine that I build give up, producing like 1cm long spark when power-up and circuit breaker then cut the power to whole hausehold. VENT caps, known bad brand. Mine older Liberty run and fold just fine. Crap caps replaced by Samxon GD/RS caps.

The new Enermax Modu line seems to have good caps, but as usual, there can be fatal differences between the review PSUs and the ones sold to mases... So, use and step there with care. Still, other brands come up with known bad caps w/o shame.

No wonder these PSUs can't produce enough clean power, no wonder the HW whine.

Not to worry. This will get fixed soon. The polymer caps used todays (99,99% of them) are known fakes. They did not have a showball in hell chance to stand the excessive ripple, so, it will fix itself soon


Not what wou wanted to hear?

Then there is a possibility to save things. Recap the PSU from top to bottom, increase the value of the caps used there for 12V rails and do the same on your mainboard/GFX card. Remember that these caps already took huge beatings and not even replacing the PSU for a new one will fix that. What is broken is broken. You can't do things like that to poor caps, fake brands made in China from stolen folmulas, often having more tha 10x worser specs that their true cousins.

Don't like that? Well, then sell all your computers and move to Caribic or somewhere where is no electricity and no computers.

...

Just don't go around screaming how much I'm wrong and how I lie. I spendt last like 5 to 6 years replacing bad caps and fixing (sometimes only trying to fix) what they caused, so lecturing me about that is not necessary and I will happily ignore it

Good, so you just basically gave him some vague but complicated suggestion on how to properly identify the situation, then proceeded to give him some 'insight' to what it MIGHT be, followed by unfounded 'proofs.'


So what's he going to do, start RMA left and right, or bust out some meters and try and prove it? And if he does, so what, he sends it back and gets another that does the same thing.


Under the conditions he's mentioned and the conditions I've described, it happens, plain and simple. You want to call it "bad caps?" Fine, that doesn't solve his problem, because as you said all the products come with them.


And I've been dealing in high end GPUs and PSUs for more than the past five years, and I don't need a half-assed wiki / lecture to tell me something I already know.

The point was that these companies do not hand out products with SUCH bad caps, that they are whining every moment of the day and have only 'three months to live' as you suggested in more or less words.


His components are fine, don't make him freak out for nothing.

[intel igent]

IF you read trodas' post you would see that it is the choke's causing the "hiss" not the cap's as i had mentioned/thought earlier.

there is no need for you to attack trodas that is totally uncalled for

[FreedomEclipse]

Interesting post - I myself have had the same porblem with my old GeCube X1800XT, it worried me but i never thought that much of it since the card was still kickin out the frames - anyhoo the matters out of my hands as i sold it to my dad :P

[DrPepper]

My 8800 Gt does it when FAH is on and when ati tool is on doesnt really bother me to much.

[Steevo]

I get a very minor amount of audio crosstalk on the PCI bus when F@H is running on my GPU.

[Nitro-Max]

I get audio noise if i have my leave my TV on standby.

[GIGGLA]

Hmm...

[Bundy]

Originally Posted by GIGGLA

Hmm...

I understand your predicament.....but pretty much all the advice above is relevant, whatever the disputes.

I think from what is written above is that you either should avoid ATI tool in the future or RMA your PSU and GPU in the hope you get a better combination.

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

Originally Posted by trodas

Don't like that? Well, then sell all your computers and move to Caribic or somewhere where is no electricity and no computers.

I have a computer and electricity

[Dixxhead]

Originally Posted by GIGGLA

Hmm...

Maybe it won't interest you, but 4 of the 5 PS3s I've seen do the same while folding. It might just be as trodas said, but you should not worry about it unless it totally distracts you/annoys you. On PS3 it is also the PSU and some chip (don't know wheter it is the Cell or the RSX), still it's been running since launch now, crunching numbers and playing games (where it won't do this) without any problem, besides running hot as I wrote in another thread

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

i have one of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16800997026

[trodas]

newconroer - Well, in case you missed my point, you should remember that the Antec NEO 480W PSU was the top-end at the time. I bought it. It last about year or so, and then it killed my board dead, exploding it's caps.
Fuhjyyu caps in the PSU was the culprit. Denying existance of bad caps, sup-par components and companies cheating out customers badly is like denying reality. Feel free to continue with it. There I opened this thread some time ago:
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=39327
So people like you can educate. Looks to me as almost wasted time, when I read you. But I can alwys hope that there are others who took the lesson...

i have one of these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16800997026

Holly...! Definitively nice way to filter the voltages! However... the electrolyte caps in the front of the polymers are missing! That is bad, because elytes have a bit different specs and to perfectly filter the voltages you have to utilize every there types of caps - elytes, polymers and ceramic ones
Add there some bigger elytes and in parallel some nice ceramic SMD caps too