RTX 2060 strange sound caused by MSI Afterburner fan curve

[Argyr]

Note: I'm not using MSI Afterburner for OC, only for custom fan profiles and temp monitoring

The sound can be described as a distinct HDD write sound, without the mechanical nature. It's a varying toned humming pitch. Sounds a little bit like a fan unnaturally changing speeds so fast that is mechanically impossible, like 3-4 different speeds in a second. Sometimes with 1 second pauses. All the while the fans run normally at an even speed and emit a natural sound.

This noise sounds like a second set of "phantom fans" running in a different realm. That's why I couldn't locate the sound for so long, because the fans emit a normal sound upon sticking my ears to them.

The sound is noticable in Windows, but under load it's quite loud.


I thought, what if a program is trying ot mess with the cards fan speeds? I closed Msi Afterburner and the sound vanished!

I ran Resident Evil 2 at almost max settings and didn't hear anything besides the usual faint(ish) buzz.

Ok, so MSI Afterburner is causing the sound. (I'm using the most recent beta)
What is happening here?

I unticked all the monitoring to no avail. No overclocking going on.
I don't have any installed monitoring software besides ASUS AI suite 3, but it has no conflicting GPU functions.

Any ideas why Afterburner is doing this?

 

[AsRock]

This will explain it for the most part.
https://lifehacker.com/this-video-explains-what-coil-whine-is-and-how-to-avoid-1669522880

Some times it can be solved by covering the coil that's whining, they used to back in the day wax but changed to other mean seen more so with video cards as they get hot. fFixing this your self will most likely void the warranty.

Best way is to get in touch with the manufacture about it and seek a RMA and hopefully you will get a new one without the issue.

AKA Coil whine, and if it's not RMA is still your best option.

 

[Argyr]

This will explain it for the most part.
https://lifehacker.com/this-video-explains-what-coil-whine-is-and-how-to-avoid-1669522880

Some times it can be solved by covering the coil that's whining, they used to back in the day wax but changed to other mean seen more so with video cards as they get hot. fFixing this your self will most likely void the warranty.

Best way is to get in touch with the manufacture about it and seek a RMA and hopefully you will get a new one without the issue.

AKA Coil whine, and if it's not RMA is still your best option.

I don't think it's coil whine. As I said, there were no issues in games without Afterburner

Or do you mean the coils responsible for the fan are doing this? Then why absolutely no sound in stock fan speeds?

 

[AsRock]

tried running afterburner with default fan settings and see if it does it ?, how i see it is that you should just get in touch with MSI, after all MSI application and video card.

maybe the fan controler is weak faulty or even a combination of a few things, i do not know.

 

[Argyr]

tried running afterburner with default fan settings and see if it does it ?, how i see it is that you should just get in touch with MSI, after all MSI application and video card.

maybe the fan controler is weak faulty or even a combination of a few things, i do not know.

Yep, tried it with default settings, it's still the same. I contacted MSI, still waiting for an answer but I have low expectations from support.

I'm still hopeful that it's not a hardware issue. The card new and there might be some software issues going on. The stable Afterburner doesn't even support my card, can't set user defined fan curves so the beta is all I have. I might try out EVGA's Precision tool hope it's compatible.
Thanks for your input

 

[notb]

Any ideas how to tweak Afterburner?

Remove it?

Honestly, do you really need to overclock this card at the moment? What's the point? You have a 1920x1200 screen.

 

[Argyr]

Remove it?

Honestly, do you really need to overclock this card at the moment? What's the point? You have a 1920x1200 screen.

Not overclocking it, I'm just using it for the fan settings. Running a game without Afterburner is something I haven't tried for 15 years

 

[John Naylor]

With regard to ... "What I noticed was that the fan speeds didn't seem to adjust to the temps, "

I don't know much about the fan control on the Ventus ... but MSI introduce semi-passive cooling back in 2008 (Last time I saw it mentioned, was called Zero-Frozr)n and the rest of the GFX catd folks started doing it with the 9xx series. What that does is turn off the fans until they are needed, which is usually around 60-65 C. If your temps are lower, then the fans don't turn. Also MSI, don't know if anyone else is going this, controls the fans separately ... one sensor for example is for GPU only and 2nd fresponds to some combination of GPU and PCB component temps.

Using AB, would defeat this control function. I dunno what MSI is doing with all the different 2xxx series cards, best question thm directly to see what's is going on; it may help diagnose your issue. BTW, if not overclocking, I would suggest not using AB.

 

[Argyr]

With regard to ... "What I noticed was that the fan speeds didn't seem to adjust to the temps, "

I don't know much about the fan control on the Ventus ... but MSI introduce semi-passive cooling back in 2008 (Last time I saw it mentioned, was called Zero-Frozr)n and the rest of the GFX catd folks started doing it with the 9xx series. What that does is turn off the fans until they are needed, which is usually around 60-65 C. If your temps are lower, then the fans don't turn. Also MSI, don't know if anyone else is going this, controls the fans separately ... one sensor for example is for GPU only and 2nd fresponds to some combination of GPU and PCB component temps.

Using AB, would defeat this control function. I dunno what MSI is doing with all the 2xx series cards, best question tham directly to see what's is going on; it may help diagnose your issue.

Ventus is a bit cheaper model so it doesn't have idle fan-stop.

I don't really trust support people (gotten too many stupid answers in the past) but i messaged them anyway. Still waiting.

 

[overvolted]

For what its worth, Afterburner seems to override the fan control of the card, even with the fan control set to auto on my ASUS Strix 2060.
So what you hear may very well be the PWM of the fans being controlled by two different sources being the card/driver and Afterburner.

My fans are supposed to completely stop when the card has little to no load on it and it never does.
The moment I close Afterburner it stops as it should.

So there is some merit to what John is saying.

 

[Argyr]

For what its worth, Afterburner seems to override the fan control of the card, even with the fan control set to auto on my ASUS Strix 2060.
So what you hear may very well be the PWM of the fans being controlled by two different sources being the card/driver and Afterburner.

My fans are supposed to completely stop when the card has little to no load on it and it never does.
The moment I close Afterburner it stops as it should.

So there is some merit to what John is saying.

thanks for your input, sounds about right. I had a 2 week long exchange of messages with MSI and as expected, they were clueless. I resorted to using the card without Afterburner fan profile, so far so good. Getting 72-73 C at almost maxed settings in Metro Exodus. I'm wondering how it would look with custom fan profiles, but I guess the game is demanding (had 48-50 C at high settings in Resident Evil 2 Remake)

I even tried ASUS GPU Tweaker and same result, the 2060 just doesn't like software fan curves, really strange.

 

[overvolted]

I think I figured it out....

Try this... when you go into "settings" in afterburner...click the fan tab and uncheck "enable software user defined automatic fan control".
That should turn fan control back over to the card. Works for me.

Make sure you hit "apply", or it wont change.

 

[Argyr]

Found the culprit:

Initially, I was convinced that the custom fan curves are causing it, since I only heard the noise with them applied. I ran a unigine benchmark and played through Resident Evil 2 remake without hearing the noise once (without user defined fan curves)

Then I started playing Metro Exodus which is a pretty demanding game and the noise returned. I realized the noise starts at about 40% fan speed and gets increasingly louder. I'm not very good with recording so I was happy to find an exact match to the sound:

It's faulty fan bearings..

The card otherwise performs extremely well, steady 73C in Metro Exodus on 1900x1200 high settings with DX12, RTX high + tessellation + hairworks.

I'm rather sad because I purchased the card on a heavily discounted price and RMA always results in money payback in my country

 

[overvolted]

Found the culprit:

Initially, I was convinced that the custom fan curves are causing it, since I only heard the noise with them applied. I ran a unigine benchmark and played through Resident Evil 2 remake without hearing the noise once (without user defined fan curves)

Then I started playing Metro Exodus which is a pretty demanding game and the noise returned. I realized the noise starts at about 40% fan speed and gets increasingly louder. I'm not very good with recording so I was happy to find an exact match to the sound:

It's faulty fan bearings..

The card otherwise performs extremely well, steady 73C in Metro Exodus on 1900x1200 high settings with DX12, RTX high + tessellation + hairworks.

I'm rather sad because I purchased the card on a heavily discounted price and RMA always results in money payback in my country

Pull out the fan and get the part number/manufacturer. Might be cheaper to just order the replacement fan.

 

[Argyr]

Pull out the fan and get the part number/manufacturer. Might be cheaper to just order the replacement fan.

haha, very creative idea. As a last resort though, I wouldn't want to loose warranty.

 

[overvolted]

haha, very creative idea. As a last resort though, I wouldn't want to loose warranty.

I've done it in the past. A few dollars for a fan directly from the manufacturer or distributor is way less hassle than dealing with the "middle man". And if it's the same part, how will they even know?
I mean, why bother shipping your card somewhere for someone else to do what you can do yourself a lot quicker... You have to be your own customer service anymore.

 

[eidairaman1]

Hysteresis

 

[Argyr]

I've done it in the past. A few dollars for a fan directly from the manufacturer or distributor is way less hassle than dealing with the "middle man". And if it's the same part, how will they even know?
I mean, why bother shipping your card somewhere for someone else to do what you can do yourself a lot quicker... You have to be your own customer service anymore.

This sounds like a very american thing, i mean, I'm not sure it's available in my country. I gotta ask MSI

Hysteresis

I'm afraid it's not. I can hear the noise as soon as I apply the default fan curve in afterburner (in idle), while temp remains the same.

 

[overvolted]

This sounds like a very american thing, i mean, I'm not sure it's available in my country. I gotta ask MSI

These fans arent made here...they're usually from somewhere in asia. Check ebay.