As FPS gets higher, a squeaky noise is more apparent? - Hardware & Software

This isn't really that big of a problem, but it gets annoying in loading screens that are 5000+ fps (GTA IV). It seems whenever my GPU is under more stress, or it could be just when FPS gets higher, a really high pitched squeaky sound gets louder. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

I know what you mean, mine does the same. Nothing to worry about I guess. Unless it's constant it's probably something else.

It's coil whine from an inductor somewhere in the machine, likely in the PSU, but could also be on the video card near the power regulation MOSFETS. The phenomenon is annoying, but harmless. Inductors always resonate, but the frequency they resonate at is proportional to the load that runs through them. Sometimes if they aren't dampened properly, the resonation frequency will enter the range of human hearing and create an audible noise. If you can figure out which inductor is making noise, you can fix the problem. If the inductor is in the PSU and the PSU is under warranty, you can RMA it. If it's not under warranty, you can use some silicone caulk or epoxy and put a thin bead of it across the inductor to secure it. If the inductor is on the GPU, the same story, either RMA it or use a small dot of epoxy.

Also depending on what kind of card it is, some are known to have a slight squeak when the fans run at certain speeds I've noticed this on my GTX 480 and Nvidia directly mentions that they fixed it on the 500 series

That whine was caused because they had a shroud or ring on the squirrel blower that basically made it a giant whistle.

You mean leafblower

It could also just be the fan not liking operating at high speeds. And since there's no reason to render at 5000fps+, have you tried vsync?

For me it's actually the speakers that are doing this. If I turn the volume of the speakers all the way up, I can normally hear only some noise and crackling when I'm not doing anything, but as soon as I start moving the mouse, I can hear a faint beeping sound. Scrolling down a webpage sounds like tick-tick-tick-TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, as if a cracking sound is made every time a new frame gets drawn. When playing games, I hear this high pitched whine, the frequency of which seems to be directly proportional to the current framerate. But again, it's coming from the speakers. I guess it could be interference from other devices since the audio signal running through the cable is analog and the cables for all peripherals run very closely to each other the way I'm set up.

[QUOTE=pebkac;33716183]For me it's actually the speakers that are doing this. If I turn the volume of the speakers all the way up, I can normally hear only some noise and crackling when I'm not doing anything, but as soon as I start moving the mouse, I can hear a faint beeping sound. Scrolling down a webpage sounds like tick-tick-tick-TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, as if a cracking sound is made every time a new frame gets drawn. When playing games, I hear this high pitched whine, the frequency of which seems to be directly proportional to the current framerate. But again, it's coming from the speakers. I guess it could be interference from other devices since the audio signal running through the cable is analog and the cables for all peripherals run very closely to each other the way I'm set up.[/QUOTE] Move the speaker cables away from all the others, especially power cables

[QUOTE=pebkac;33716183]For me it's actually the speakers that are doing this. If I turn the volume of the speakers all the way up, I can normally hear only some noise and crackling when I'm not doing anything, but as soon as I start moving the mouse, I can hear a faint beeping sound. Scrolling down a webpage sounds like tick-tick-tick-TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, as if a cracking sound is made every time a new frame gets drawn. When playing games, I hear this high pitched whine, the frequency of which seems to be directly proportional to the current framerate. But again, it's coming from the speakers. I guess it could be interference from other devices since the audio signal running through the cable is analog and the cables for all peripherals run very closely to each other the way I'm set up.[/QUOTE] Sounds like your power-supply isn't grounded.

[QUOTE=pebkac;33716183]For me it's actually the speakers that are doing this. If I turn the volume of the speakers all the way up, I can normally hear only some noise and crackling when I'm not doing anything, but as soon as I start moving the mouse, I can hear a faint beeping sound. Scrolling down a webpage sounds like tick-tick-tick-TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, as if a cracking sound is made every time a new frame gets drawn. When playing games, I hear this high pitched whine, the frequency of which seems to be directly proportional to the current framerate. But again, it's coming from the speakers. I guess it could be interference from other devices since the audio signal running through the cable is analog and the cables for all peripherals run very closely to each other the way I'm set up.[/QUOTE] I get this occasionally, have you tried simply restarting? always fixes it for me

My laptop does this and it is SO FUCKING annoying. I can't seem to locate where the noise comes from but high IO from USB, WIFI or Ethernet usually makes it really loud. Especially gigabit Ethernet. Changing the speaker volume doesn't seem to have an effect. Too bad it only seems to get louder as my laptop grows older. :(

Thanks for the help guys. I am getting the same thing (only in steam browser) as you, pebkac. Like when you scroll the squeal turns into more of a ticking or alternating squeal but a deeper pitch? Anyways, bohb what you said is very helpful. I don't think I am going to be really messing with any interiors of my PC for right now, its not that big of a problem. Maybe when I have a bit more free time. And yes, I am Vsync'd on every game besides games that normally are under 60fps. [editline]14th December 2011[/editline] Also, I'm pretty sure it's the GPU because it only makes the sound when the GPU is under load.

[QUOTE=pebkac;33716183]For me it's actually the speakers that are doing this. If I turn the volume of the speakers all the way up, I can normally hear only some noise and crackling when I'm not doing anything, but as soon as I start moving the mouse, I can hear a faint beeping sound. Scrolling down a webpage sounds like tick-tick-tick-TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR, as if a cracking sound is made every time a new frame gets drawn. When playing games, I hear this high pitched whine, the frequency of which seems to be directly proportional to the current framerate. But again, it's coming from the speakers. I guess it could be interference from other devices since the audio signal running through the cable is analog and the cables for all peripherals run very closely to each other the way I'm set up.[/QUOTE] That's usually caused by crosstalk somewhere on the motherboard. If the motherboard engineers aren't careful to keep the various buses shielded properly and separate from each other, signals on the traces can interfere with one another and the most common problem is noise over the audio chip. There really isn't much you can do to fix that issue, other than replace the motherboard with a different model.

[QUOTE=bohb;33722958]That's usually caused by crosstalk somewhere on the motherboard. If the motherboard engineers aren't careful to keep the various buses shielded properly and separate from each other, signals on the traces can interfere with one another and the most common problem is noise over the audio chip. There really isn't much you can do to fix that issue, other than replace the motherboard with a different model.[/QUOTE] A dead simple thing to try that fixed my crosstalk was to try and move audio as far away from everything else as possible: for example, I moved my USB headset up to the topmost USB port from the lowest one and it completely eliminated the problem - for standard jack headphones, I would move USB up as far away as possible and try and route the headphone cable a different way to everything else to minimize cross-chatter in the cables.

[QUOTE=bohb;33722958]That's usually caused by crosstalk somewhere on the motherboard. If the motherboard engineers aren't careful to keep the various buses shielded properly and separate from each other, signals on the traces can interfere with one another and the most common problem is noise over the audio chip. There really isn't much you can do to fix that issue, other than replace the motherboard with a different model.[/QUOTE] That must be what my old laptop does. It inaudible with normal headphones but when I connect it to a TV it makes this soft shrill noise and a bit of "bzzz"ing when you use the mouse, the screen changes, or you start using wifi.

[QUOTE=bohb;33722958]That's usually caused by crosstalk somewhere on the motherboard. If the motherboard engineers aren't careful to keep the various buses shielded properly and separate from each other, signals on the traces can interfere with one another and the most common problem is noise over the audio chip. There really isn't much you can do to fix that issue, other than replace the motherboard with a different model.[/QUOTE] Can't he just buy a soundcard?

[QUOTE=1solidsnake2;33726037]Can't he just buy a soundcard?[/QUOTE] If the crosstalk is bad enough, it can affect ISA/PCI/PCIe sound cards and cause the same problem. The only way he'll know though is if he tries it.

[QUOTE=bohb;33726831]If the crosstalk is bad enough, it can affect ISA/PCI/PCIe sound cards and cause the same problem. The only way he'll know though is if he tries it.[/QUOTE] Not as much, because it will be digital going to the soundcard. The analogue output is further away from the motherboard and the interference. If it still causes problems with a sound card, then he must have a really shitty motherboard. And even then, there are USB soundcards available.

[QUOTE=1solidsnake2;33732338]Not as much, because it will be digital going to the soundcard. The analogue output is further away from the motherboard and the interference. If it still causes problems with a sound card, then he must have a really shitty motherboard. And even then, there are USB soundcards available.[/QUOTE] Agreed. I haven't heard of anyone with crosstalk issues with even the beastliest of systems. Plus if you really are sensitive to crosstalk, most likely you'll just go with a digital out and a preamp for your headphones if you're that much of a purist.

Does anyone engineer their motherboards well enough as to not have crosstalk? It would be nice if hardware reviewers actually reviewed this aspect. I want my next motherboard to be properly shielded.

I've been buying Gigabyte and MSI boards for 8+ years and have never had the problem. Though, it really depends on which price point board you buy. If you buy a cheap board (under $80) then you can expect to have problems. I always buy midrange boards ($80-130) and have only had one bizarre issue over the years, but it wasn't related to sound. It was a GA-P45-UD4P that had dual BIOS chips. It began to randomly spontaneously reboot one day, which I couldn't figure out why. I replaced every part and it still kept happening (eventually killing two hard drives from going into infinite reboot loops), so I sent it in for RMA twice, and they couldn't find a problem either. So as a last resort I re-flashed the BIOS and got a warning that the backup BIOS was somehow corrupted, and it flashed that one too. After that, the problem went away completely. Anyway, most of the terrible board manufacturers have gone out of business years ago, like Abit, Soltek, SOYO, iWill, AOPEN and a few more I can't quite remember. The only one that still exists is ASUS, which used to make quality products, but their quality has steadily slipped. The last good board I had from ASUS was a P4 board, everything I've worked on since then has had some strange problem.

ASUS still make quality motherboards, monitors and graphics cards :(

[QUOTE=bohb;33756863]I've been buying Gigabyte and MSI boards for 8+ years and have never had the problem. Though, it really depends on which price point board you buy. If you buy a cheap board (under $80) then you can expect to have problems. I always buy midrange boards ($80-130) and have only had one bizarre issue over the years, but it wasn't related to sound. It was a GA-P45-UD4P that had dual BIOS chips. It began to randomly spontaneously reboot one day, which I couldn't figure out why. I replaced every part and it still kept happening (eventually killing two hard drives from going into infinite reboot loops), so I sent it in for RMA twice, and they couldn't find a problem either. So as a last resort I re-flashed the BIOS and got a warning that the backup BIOS was somehow corrupted, and it flashed that one too. After that, the problem went away completely. Anyway, most of the terrible board manufacturers have gone out of business years ago, like Abit, Soltek, SOYO, iWill, AOPEN and a few more I can't quite remember. The only one that still exists is ASUS, which used to make quality products, but their quality has steadily slipped. The last good board I had from ASUS was a P4 board, everything I've worked on since then has had some strange problem.[/QUOTE] all I buy are ASUS boards and I've never had a single issue from them, using a Maximus II at the moment

[QUOTE=Odellus;33760060]all I buy are ASUS boards and I've never had a single issue from them, using a Maximus II at the moment[/QUOTE] I hear complaints about them being regularly DOA, having feature problems or being unstable all the time. One board I worked on board that had a well-known bug where Windows would constantly BSOD and spontaneously reboot unless you went into the BIOS and disabled either the parallel or serial port (this was an AM2 board, forgot the model.) And no BIOS update was able to fix the issue. Some of the recent complaints have been EFI not working properly, like not recognizing custom set options. But since EFI is still relatively new in the x86 PC market, I can't see those as flaws yet, unless they go unfixed.

funny, I had one of the highest constant overclocks ever with my Q9400 at 4GHz on this very motherboard guess I got lucky

[QUOTE=bohb;33760664]I hear complaints about them being regularly DOA, having feature problems or being unstable all the time. One board I worked on board that had a well-known bug where Windows would constantly BSOD and spontaneously reboot unless you went into the BIOS and disabled either the parallel or serial port (this was an AM2 board, forgot the model.) And no BIOS update was able to fix the issue. Some of the recent complaints have been EFI not working properly, like not recognizing custom set options. But since EFI is still relatively new in the x86 PC market, I can't see those as flaws yet, unless they go unfixed.[/QUOTE] I have a $60 ASUS mobo that works perfectly fine, and a few other people I know do too (well, not the same model or price). Its probably not as common of a problem as you may think. [editline]16th December 2011[/editline] Either that or they are problems with specific models.