GPU doing pig squealing impressions when I run SL.

[Porky Gorky]

Got a new GPU, a 4GB GTX 670.

On the whole it is very quiet and is housed in an awesome cooling tower. When I run benchmark tests and play top end games I can hear the fans increase in intensity but that is to be expected and nothing to worry about. However when I log into SL the GPU suddenly starts squealing like a pig that's got it's testicles trapped in the sty door. I can literally minimize the viewer window and it stops, maximize it and it starts again, Firestorm produces the loudest squeal. V3 it's about half the volume. It doesn't matter what my graphics settings are in either viewer, changing them does not affect the squeal. 

I have tried to duplicate this squealing sound by running a multitude of programs to push my GPU and FPS to the max but nothing other than SL viewers cause the problem.

Last night I was involved in an epic battle in EVE, over 800 ships in the system and the GPU made no unexpected sounds as a result. An hour later I am standing 1000m in the air in SL with nothing to render other than myself and the prim I am sat on and it's non stop squealing.

So anyone have an idea as to why only SL causes this problem?

Thanks

[Eric Castanea]

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Porky Gorky wrote:

Got a new GPU, a 4GB GTX 670.

On the whole it is very quiet and is housed in an awesome cooling tower. When I run benchmark tests and play top end games I can hear the fans increase in intensity but that is to be expected and nothing to worry about. However when I log into SL the GPU suddenly starts squealing like a pig that's got it's testicles trapped in the sty door. I can literally minimize the viewer window and it stops, maximize it and it starts again, Firestorm produces the loudest squeal. V3 it's about half the volume. It doesn't matter what my graphics settings are in either viewer, changing them does not affect the squeal. 

I have tried to duplicate this squealing sound by running a multitude of programs to push my GPU and FPS to the max but nothing other than SL viewers cause the problem.

Last night I was involved in an epic battle in EVE, over 800 ships in the system and the GPU made no unexpected sounds as a result. An hour later I am standing 1000m in the air in SL with nothing to render other than myself and the prim I am sat on and it's non stop squealing.

So anyone have an idea as to why only SL causes this problem?

Thanks

I can be stood a 

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I would suspect a fan bearing, or a fan. Is it possible that a wire or any other object could possibly contact the fan when it's running at full speed?

[Ciaran Laval]

No idea what's causing the problem, but I have duelling banjos in my head now.

Do you get the same issue if you teleport elsewhere?

[Dillon Levenque]

That's really odd. Obviously it isn't a physical fault with the GPU or you would hear it if not all the time probably whenever you were taxing the cooling system. I wonder if  you've discovered some wierd bug/incompatibility thing.

If you can stand the noise, it might be interesting to log in and start damping down graphics and lighting settings one at a time to see if there's something in there that is causing the issue. Other than that, you might just have to wait until some other SL'er who uses the same GPU checks in here (which might take rather a long time).

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Try checking the GPU fan speed and temp while running SL. Most vendors have some kind of monitoring tool they ship with their GPU.

[Madelaine McMasters]

I'll guess this is an OpenGL driver issue. EVE runs on DirectX.

Maybe there's a newer driver available?

[Nyll Bergbahn]

It's possible this high pitched whine is due to a vibrating inductor. I read one complaint where the person said it was only occurring when folding and the clock speed was way above the set boost clock. Normal gaming was fine. Can also happen at high FPS apparently. Perhaps SL is also causing this.

Coil whine is another possible cause but I don't think this is what you describe.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer (or supplier) as you may have to RMA it.

[Dillon Levenque]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

I'll guess this is an OpenGL driver issue. EVE runs on DirectX.

Maybe there's a newer driver available?

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Oh yeah. I knew that, too. You're right: it's not really a direct comparison at all.

[Knutz Scorpio]

Maybe just a wild guess, but maybe the noise is coming from the computer's speakers?

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

It's possible this high pitched whine is due to a vibrating inductor. I read one complaint where the person said it was only occurring when folding and the clock speed was way above the set boost clock. Normal gaming was fine. Can also happen at high FPS apparently. Perhaps SL is also causing this.

Coil whine is another possible cause but I don't think this is what you describe.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer (or supplier) as you may have to RMA it.

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Oooh, this is interesting. I figured Porky was describing fan noise that was above and beyond what other games produce. So there are actually reports of GPU power supplies whining? That's just careless design.

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Dillon Levenque wrote:

 

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

I'll guess this is an OpenGL driver issue. EVE runs on DirectX.

Maybe there's a newer driver available?

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Oh yeah. I knew that, too. You're right: it's not really a direct comparison at all.

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SL seems to escape direct comparison with just about everything, doesn't it?!

;-)

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Oooh, this is interesting. I figured Porky was describing fan noise that was above and beyond what other games produce. So there are actually reports of GPU power supplies whining? That's just careless design.

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Maybe it is fan noise but the issues I mentioned occurred with a GTX 670 so a possibility too. I've sent Porky a couple of links to read..For those who don't know, folding is where you use spare time/capacity on your home computer(s) for medical research (some take it very seriously).

A monitoring program such as OpenHardwareMonitor will soon tell him if the fans are screaming at high revs!

 

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

Oooh, this is interesting. I figured Porky was describing fan noise that was above and beyond what other games produce. So there are actually reports of GPU power supplies whining? That's just careless design.

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Maybe it is fan noise but the issues I mentioned occurred with a GTX 670 so a possibility too. I've sent Porky a couple of links to read..For those who don't know, folding is where you use spare time/capacity on your home computer(s) for medical research (some take it very seriously).

A monitoring program such as OpenHardwareMonitor will soon tell him if the fans are screaming at high revs!

 

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I've run SETI@Home and Folding@Home. I believe both are worthwhile uses of your computer when you aren't using it, provided the energy costs are palatable to you. (It costs about USD$0.30/day to run Folding on my old iMac).

Here's a list of other @Home style distributed computing projects...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects

[Porky Gorky]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

It's possible this high pitched whine is due to a vibrating inductor. I read one complaint where the person said it was only occurring when folding and the clock speed was way above the set boost clock. Normal gaming was fine. Can also happen at high FPS apparently. Perhaps SL is also causing this.

Coil whine is another possible cause but I don't think this is what you describe.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer (or supplier) as you may have to RMA it.

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This is possible, the card is overclocked. Would a vibrating inducter cause any damage long term?

I agree that it's not a coil whine, i've experienced that issue before and this is quite different.

[Porky Gorky]

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Eric Castanea wrote:

I would suspect a fan bearing, or a fan. Is it possible that a wire or any other object could possibly contact the fan when it's running at full speed?

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I think a fan bearing issue would be present in applications outside of SL that are more graphic or equally graphic intensive, so don;t think this is it.

[Porky Gorky]

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Jenni Darkwatch wrote:

Try checking the GPU fan speed and temp while running SL. Most vendors have some kind of monitoring tool they ship with their GPU.

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Got a decent Asus Mobo and can monitor the GPU from there, temps are all norm in SL, low infact compared to my old machine as this new tower has water cooling and 7 fans.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

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Porky Gorky wrote:

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

It's possible this high pitched whine is due to a vibrating inductor. I read one complaint where the person said it was only occurring when folding and the clock speed was way above the set boost clock. Normal gaming was fine. Can also happen at high FPS apparently. Perhaps SL is also causing this.

Coil whine is another possible cause but I don't think this is what you describe.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer (or supplier) as you may have to RMA it.

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This is possible, the card is overclocked. Would a vibrating inducter cause any damage long term?

I agree that it's not a coil whine, i've experienced that issue before and this is quite different.

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According to the link I sent you via PM, no, it's not harmful to the card.

[Porky Gorky]

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Madelaine McMasters wrote:

I'll guess this is an OpenGL driver issue. EVE runs on DirectX.

Maybe there's a newer driver available?

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ooooh this I had not considered. In fact everythiing else I've tested it against has been DirectX. I am also using the latest driver.  I shall try rolling back on the driver when I get home and also test in other OpenGL applications,

[Porky Gorky]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

Maybe it is fan noise but the issues I mentioned occurred with a GTX 670 so a possibility too. I've sent Porky a couple of links to read..For those who don't know, folding is where you use spare time/capacity on your home computer(s) for medical research (some take it very seriously).

A monitoring program such as OpenHardwareMonitor will soon tell him if the fans are screaming at high revs!

 

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Thanks Nyll :smileyhappy:

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Porky Gorky wrote:

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

It's possible this high pitched whine is due to a vibrating inductor. I read one complaint where the person said it was only occurring when folding and the clock speed was way above the set boost clock. Normal gaming was fine. Can also happen at high FPS apparently. Perhaps SL is also causing this.

Coil whine is another possible cause but I don't think this is what you describe.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer (or supplier) as you may have to RMA it.

---

This is possible, the card is overclocked. Would a vibrating inducter cause any damage long term?

I agree that it's not a coil whine, i've experienced that issue before and this is quite different.

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I'm not sure how people are differentiating between inductor and coil whine, as inductors are generally coils. Sound can be made either by motion of wire in the coil or by "magnetostriction" of the inductor's core material as the magnetic field in the inductor changes over time. Good inductor design can minimize the amount of energy lost as sound and the power supply itself should be designed to minimize the shuttling of energy at audible frequencies (if you could hear like a bat, your PC would always be whining).

It's possible that your GPU is varying its power consumption wildly at a rate that's audible, and the power supply has no choice but to supply that demand for power, resulting in audible whine. I'd expect that whine to be affected by your instantaneous use of SL, unlike the fan noise which ramps up and down slowly as you increase/decrease load on the GPU.

While the whining itself won't cause damage, you may be hearing it because a power supply in your PC is at the edge of proper operation. If it's just a poorly constructed inductor, then no damage will result, other than perhaps to your sanity.

It's very hard for me to tell at this distance (about either your PC or your sanity ;-).

ETA: Heat is probably the greatest concern for the big chips in a PC. If you have a monitoring program, that should tell you what's going on. The OS should automatically run the fans and throttle the clocks to keep things safe.

ETA2: if the power supply was on the verge of falling over, I'd think you'd see evidence of that in erratic operation. Since you didn't complain about that, I'm gonna guess everything is fine. Noisy, but fine. And you still might want to check for a driver update, just in case they messed up something with OpenGL.

[Alicia Sautereau]

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Nyll Bergbahn wrote:

It's possible this high pitched whine is due to a vibrating inductor. I read one complaint where the person said it was only occurring when folding and the clock speed was way above the set boost clock. Normal gaming was fine. Can also happen at high FPS apparently. Perhaps SL is also causing this.

Coil whine is another possible cause but I don't think this is what you describe.

I suggest you contact the manufacturer (or supplier) as you may have to RMA it.

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It comes from the PSU, have had it a couple of systems ago and just threw a heavier PSU in it with a better performing v12 rail

[Porky Gorky]

I've got a 1000w PSU as I plan to stick a GTX 680 in there next month, so definitely enough juice. After sticking my head inside the tower I pinned the sound down to the GPU. I stuck my fingers into both GPU fans and stopped them for 2 seconds and that did not stop the sound so I guess the GPU fans are not the issue. 

In the last half hour I have tried running 4 simultaneous instances of Firestorm. To start with the squeal was loud/ but after about 10 mins  the sound consistently lessened. Possibly it just needs to be worn in? Only had the card for 3 days 

I hope running 4 instances of FS is not my permanent fix :matte-motes-big-grin:

[Alicia Sautereau]

If it`s 100% coming from the GPU, return it to the store (RMA) for replacement as it`s brand new

[Madelaine McMasters]

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Porky Gorky wrote:

I've got a 1000w PSU as I plan to stick a GTX 680 in there next month, so definitely enough juice. After sticking my head inside the tower I pinned the sound down to the GPU. I stuck my fingers into both GPU fans and stopped them for 2 seconds and that did not stop the sound so I guess the GPU fans are not the issue. 

In the last half hour I have tried running 4 simultaneous instances of Firestorm. To start with the squeal was loud/ but after about 10 mins  the sound consistently lessened. Possibly it just needs to be worn in? Only had the card for 3 days

 

I hope running 4 instances of FS is not my permanent fix :matte-motes-big-grin:

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There is no "wear in" for the GPU electronics, so that's not explaining the reduction in noise over 10 minutes. If launching an additional copy of FS were to immediately reduce the noise, I'd say that's because the second copy produces it's own whining, which is not correlated to that if the first instance. The more copies of FS you launch, the more the whining starts to sound like white noise, indistinguishable from the fan noise. But you said the noise level changed over time. I've no explanation for that.

So there you go, an entire paragraph to say "dunno"!

[Jenni Darkwatch]

IMO bottom line: If it's not the fans making the noise, the card has problems. Electronics should not make any noise. Not even transformers and the like.