New graphic card, psu making more noise and strange artifacts

[jmmv2005]

I have a 5-6 years old PC that I use regularly for work (programming) and casual gaming.
I always had some noise problems, but never bothered to look it up. Few months ago I had a lot of free time, so I looked opened the case and realized, that my PSU is making the noise. Googling it for a while, I probably neared it down to the usual whining problem that a lot of PSU seems to have. Since it's no longer in warranty, I cannot replace it for free.

My configuration:
CPU: i5 750, 2.67 GHz, LGA 1156
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3, Intel P55, LGA1156, CFX (ATX)
GFX: Sapphire NITRO R9 380X OC (UEFI)
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TXEU, 650W, SLI/CF, ATX2.2/EPS, 80Plus (650W)

To the problem:
I recently bought more ram (from 4GB to 20GB) and a new gfx card (from HD5770 to R9 380x). I have now the impression, that the whining of the PSU is worse, even when i scroll with the mouse a website, it whines. Playing games makes it do more noises.
Dirt rally has some lag, the GPU is at 100% all the time, I have the impression it got worse the last few days.

When I start my PC, I see strange artifacts for 3-4 seconds (since I bought the R9 380x) , then it's all normal:

Has someone else had such problems? Could it be a GFX problem?
I read that the PSU whining is mostly just an annoyance and should not make problems, I don't want to spend more money on a new PSU if this is not the problem.

thanks for any help

 

[rollgg]

As far as compatibility goes your PSU should be able to feed the 380x.
Is there any chance you can test the GPU on another system?

 

[jmmv2005]

Hi rollgg, unfortunately I only have an iMac as second system.
I could not find anyone having the same problems with the start image as I am having, ever saw something like this?

 

[rollgg]

Not exactly but artifacts generally point to a problems with the GPU card. In your case the issue can be more complex as the GPU might have been damaged by the PSU. Did you have artifacts right from the start? Do you get them within Windows?

I do have 750TX PSU (same as yours, bit higher wattage) in one of my systems and it's a solid PSU. R9 380x could be pushing it but it shouldn't be incompatible.
You have 2 lines of investigation:
1. Defective GPU. Artifacts on boot are almost always connected to that.
2. PSU. The noise by itself might not be much, but it's a candidate for the problem. If it's malfunctioning it might be providing inadequate power to your GPU.

Get MSI afterburner and check the temperatures of your card, overheating and 100% usage shouldn't happen with such powerful card unless you have pushed settings too far (such as draw distance). Does Dirt3 has an auto detect or similar function for settings?


I would:

Step 1: Place back the older GPU and remove the extra memory - go back to your "old" setup.
Step 2: check if any problems, if no, move to step 3.
Step 3: Place the new GPU in (don't change the memory).

If you get artifacts at this stage, I'd look to return the GPU as faulty.
As I mentioned in the worse case scenario you have a problematic PSU that might have caused damage to the GPU.

Lastly, I use a small cheap blower to clean my systems periodically and get rid of dust. It looks similar to this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W50063-Garage-Blower/dp/B00FJ5LBOA/ref=sr_1_22?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1458741796&sr=1-22&refinements=p_85%3A2470955011

You need to be careful with it near CPU and GPU fans, but you'd be amazed on the amount of dust that comes out of the PSUs...
Also have a read here:

http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=85166

 

[SkittishGaming]

You verry probably put the ram in wrongly

If i guess right you had 4GB and added 2 8GB sticks.

This cannot be done. Remove the 4GB stick of ram.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

2. PSU. The noise by itself might not be much, but it's a candidate for the problem. If it's malfunctioning it might be providing inadequate power to your GPU.

There is no such thing as providing inadequate power! power supply does not supply power, there is no such thing as supplying power. Power is not a substance, electric charge is a substance, and a power supply uses voltage to move the charge due to its potential difference across an electric field. Power does not exist, it is not a physical substance. Power is energy that is the resultant of some mathematical equations involving current, voltage and/or resistance. A 300W labelled power supply can technically create enough current to merit 1000W. It's just that the internal components will burn because the charge is moving too fast, and when resistance is taken into account, the wire burns. The higher labelled power supplies of quality have better rated components. But what is important is that power is not a substance, power does not exist, and there is no such thing as inadequate power. A power supply does not supply power, it pumps charge with voltage.

So, what's important here is how voltage stability is. This is the core foundation. If a power supply is not built to handle such large amounts of current, it'll burn or hopefully instead shut off from protections, but any wire can in theory carry a current of so much amperage to merit a huge amount of power.

 

[rollgg]

@turkey thanks for the terminology correction, substitute "inadequate power" with "unstable voltage" or the more general "your PSU might be doing bad stuff to your system"

 

[jmmv2005]

Ok so I tried what you suggested:
- I removed the 2x 2GB RAM, nothing changed
- When starting with the older GPU, instead of the strange artifacts, the BIOS shows a logo:

- Disabling this logo on the BIOS, there is no longer an artifact while starting

So I don't know if there is something wrong apart of the PSU whining that makes me angry.
The performance of the R9 380x is not so much as desired, especially thinking that I'm not even on FullHD (only a 22").

I just run dirt rally in benchmark mode, the CPU (every core) was <30%, the end result was:
Average FPS: 23.77
Min FPS: 17.58
Max FPS: 39.64

Here a Review of this card, where on dirt it had Min/Avg FPS around 58 / 64: http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Dirt-Rally-Spiel-55539/Specials/Benchmark-Test-1182995/

Tomshardware did not test this card with dirt, is there a way to test it with witcher the same as tomshardware did?

 

[rollgg]

So the artifacts are gone by disabling the boot logo even with R9 380?

Your GPU is a beast, the FPS you get is disappointing to say the least. Sapphire is considered by many top brand for ATI cards (they only make ATI, no NVIDIA).
Did you monitor GPU temps? Apparently Sapphire have their own application for monitoring and overclocking called Trixx. Use this to monitor your temps and let us know. Looking at this review: http://www.overclockers.com/sapphire-r9-380x-nitro-video-card-review/
it looks like you can view voltage, loads and temp - seems a pretty powerful tool.

Again I wouldn't dismiss the PSU noise as irrelevant. Do you have any hardware shop that can inspect it for you?
If the PSU is failing to deliver you're running the risk of damaging your system.
You haven't done any bad choices in hardware, Sapphire are a top quality brand, I can't praise Gigabyte motherboards enough, your PSU is good quality even if not Tier 1. I still think you either got a defective GPU or , what seems to me more likely, your PSU isn't working as it should.