noisy video card

[andrew_yaweb]

I've never had an overclocked video card. So, I thought to ask for anyone who has had one, are they noisy? When Civ4 graphics engine loads, a lot of clocking-like noise starts to be heard from the video card and it's not it's fan. The noise ceases when the game closes. Is this common to overclocked devices?

[Zydor]

I would suggest you check if its overheating (the card ), if it is, then you will have issues .... would need to sort it by stepping down the overclock a little. Cant directly attribute the clicking to the card - could be the drive for instance - but when you have a suspicion like this follow through, dont want to fry your card ....

Better safe than sorry by checking if it is overheating.

Regards
Zy

[Akhenaton]

Originally Posted by andrew_yaweb

I've never had an overclocked video card. So, I thought to ask for anyone who has had one, are they noisy? When Civ4 graphics engine loads, a lot of clocking-like noise starts to be heard from the video card and it's not it's fan. The noise ceases when the game closes. Is this common to overclocked devices?

What does "clocking-like" noise sound like? There are only two kinds of noises that could possibly come from the graphics card, fan noise and high pitched alternating squaking noise from the capacitors of the power feeding section. Generally, you get the capacitor noise in certain very peculiar circumstances when there is a high current draw accross the board (such as when in 3D mode and heavy GPU utilization). It might help to switch to an external power connector instead of the slot, because this gives more stable voltage, but if the card is already using external power there isn't much that can be done about the noise. It usually goes away as the caps settle (unless they fail, but I've had squeaking caps sometimes and they didn't fail, leaking and failing caps on the other hand never squeaked).

It's not alarming and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with overclocking and certainly nothign to do with overheating. However, any abnormal noise from the fan is usually a sign of impending failure, in which case thermal problems are obviously very likely when the fan finally stops working.

[andrew_yaweb]

It's a brand new video card. Trick is it's a chicken and egg thing. It could even just be hard-drive access noise. I had to install a new video card to get the game to run. Therefore, the only time I actually got to see how my system runs the game is with the new card. Therefore, if it's just harddrive access noise, there's nothing I can do about that. I don't think it's overheating as it start the instant the graphics engine initializes for the game and stops when the window shuts down.
The noise is soft and constant, almost like when you press and hold the keyboard. A soft, tap tap tap tap tap tap. I'd say the rate is about 30 hz. I degragged the hard drive so that it's nice and clean.
Oh well, who knows. I put on headphones and I don't worry about it too much.
I will read the manual more about controlling the over clocking. The quick start guides, of course, are very lightweight.

[Akhenaton]

Originally Posted by andrew_yaweb

The noise is soft and constant, almost like when you press and hold the keyboard. A soft, tap tap tap tap tap tap. I'd say the rate is about 30 hz. I degragged the hard drive so that it's nice and clean.
Oh well, who knows. I put on headphones and I don't worry about it too much.

From this description it seems most likely, that the sound is after all coming from the graphics card fan. HDs don't give off constant seek noise, it's always alternating somewhat, even when there is heavy paging load (in which case you would notice the game slowing down a lot too). The only thing inside a computer that gives off fairly constant noise within one order of that frequency band, is a fan (for full speed graphics card cooler fan it would be about 60Hz to be exact). Also, it matches exactly the pattern that the noise begins when the card enters 3D mode and stops when it returns to 2D mode (that's how modern graphics card coolers work, they don't operate in 2D mode at all or with much lower speed).

You could check the fan for obstruction and carefully rotate it by hand to see if it makes similar "tapping" noise per revolution. Another alternative is to test if the card supports SW fan speed adjustement with RivaTuner. If it does, you could manually change the speed in 2D mode to see if it simultaneously changes the sound. If the sound is coming from the fan, you might want to wait for the warranty period if it settles or ask around whether other cards of the same model give off that kind of noise without failing very soon.

What's the make and model of the card btw?

I will read the manual more about controlling the over clocking. The quick start guides, of course, are very lightweight.

Overclocking doesn't create measurably more noise with normal cooling solutions (a rare exception would be a temperature controlled fan that has voltage regulation steps, these are found mostly in laptops, and even then it's quite unlikely that one could achieve a high enough overclock to actually push over a threshold for the next speed grade, since more speed grades are usually not left at the high end of the temp range).