Motherboard making high-pitched noise during gaming

[bleakcabalist]

Hi,

I had a power outage recently, unfortunately it screwed up my PSU and damaged HDD. I dealt with those problems, however another thing I just recently noticed is a high-pitched buzzing noise my motherboard started to make. It happens only when GPU/CPU are stressed, for example during gaming. It's coming somewhere close from GPU but unfortunately I cannot pinpoint the exact location. It's definietly not my PSU or GPU (switched those and the sound was still there). It's very high frequency, sounds a bit like a whistle but with cracking electricity buzz added to it.

Interesting thing I noticed is that the noise reacts to me clicking my mouse. The frequency definietly changes when I click. Also the frequency depends on the game/program I run. There is no noise at all when I minimize the game to desktop. I noticed no performance drop at all. Everything is fine other than the irritating noise. My mobo is Asus M4A88T-V EVO.

Do you guys know what might be source of the noise, and whether or not I can somehow fix it?

 

[smorizio]

if it a nvidia card try msi afterburner...you can adjust the fan speed to see if it the gpu or the gpu fan..if the ps died it could have damaged the mb..so your hearing something on the mb that sending noise thought the sound card.

 

[Rockdpm]

wait what?, You confused me when you said its sending through the sound card.....


Anyways. i personally believe its you hard drive. the Disks in the hard drive can make a surging noise some times. My hard drive does it, but i havnt had a single issue with the hard drive... I used to think it was my Motherboard or processory. but i found its the disks in the drive. Also try checking your CPU Fan and see if its giving a buzz

 

[bleakcabalist]

if it a nvidia card try msi afterburner...you can adjust the fan speed to see if it the gpu or the gpu fan..if the ps died it could have damaged the mb..so your hearing something on the mb that sending noise thought the sound card.

I already wrote it's not GPU. I checked it. Also it has nothing to do with sound card, I don't really understand what do you mean by it.

wait what?, You confused me when you said its sending through the sound card.....


Anyways. i personally believe its you hard drive. the Disks in the hard drive can make a surging noise some times. My hard drive does it, but i havnt had a single issue with the hard drive... I used to think it was my Motherboard or processory. but i found its the disks in the drive. Also try checking your CPU Fan and see if its giving a buzz

Nope, it's coming from the mobo. Source of noise is definietly much closer to GPU than HDD.

 

[eloric]

Could be a capacitor, coil or even the Southbridge chipset.

Try this:

1) Roll up a piece of paper to make a small tube that fits in your ear.

2) Start a stress test to simulate a heavy load that produces the noise - or just have a friend play your game and click your mouse.

3) Move the other end of the tube over the individual components to isolate the culprit.

4) Optional - Take a picture and post it, because it will look funny with a paper tube sticking out of your ear.

When you find out what is wrong, touch the part to see if the noise goes away. If that works, hot glue or nail polish may fix the problem. If not and the board is not too old, consider an RMA. If all else fails, get bigger speakers and turn the sound up.

One more thing: is it safe to assume to assume you now have a UPS or some other means to protect your components from power surges?

 

[bleakcabalist]

Thank you for a helpful advice Eloric, I will try it.

And yeah, I'm in a process of buying myself an UPS. I might be bad at learning on other's mistakes but am pretty good at it when they are my own

 

[The3vilMonkey]

So I have somewhat of the same problem. The buzzing starts after about 20 minutes of Starcraft 2, it's intermittent at first and then turns into a constant high pitched buzz. I know for a fact that its coming from the on-board motherboad speaker. It sounded like it was coming from that and then I put my finger over the speaker and the buzz dampened. I removed the speaker and the buzzing stopped.

To me it seems like a graphics card issue, but i'm just speculating. Maybe under an intense load the graphics card starts outputting interference which gets into the small speaker.

Also worthwhile noting that the my desktop speakers work fine. I don't hear any buzz (low or high pitched) from them.

Anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

Thanks much!