Question Random plastic-ticking sound (not regularly happen, but randomly)?

[rugupiruvu]

My graphics card has basically enclosed in a plastic case. It has a plastic back plate. Anyway, when using the computer, there randomly is a sudden loud "tick" sound, as if you twist a flimsy plastic structure, like when you open a Seagate external HDD with a plastic opening tool and a latch gets unlocked. It does not seem to happen with specific condition, like high load. It happens once in an hour or two hours, randomly, so inspecting the cause is difficult (because I cannot reproduce the sound).

I am suspecting that maybe the heat is twisting the plastic case randomly, but I am not sure. If you have had a similar problem, please let me know.

 

[madmatt30]

What card?

I had a rx 580 where the rear fan would intermittently touch the shroud for some reason and create that same noise.

Whether the fan was slightly off balance or the shroud was deformed isn't clear.

It took weeks to figure out what it was because when it started I'd scrabble to remove the case side at which point it would tend to stop doing it.

 

[rugupiruvu]

What card?

This model, but a newer revision. It looks basically the same, but the HDMI port is aligned with other three DisplayPorts.

https://www.gigabyte.com/FileUpload/Global/KeyFeature/1098/img/vga/boom/08.jpg


By "rear fan", you mean the fan of the case? If so, my case has no fans running.

 

[madmatt30]

This model, but a newer revision. It looks basically the same, but the HDMI port is aligned with other three DisplayPorts.

https://www.gigabyte.com/FileUpload/Global/KeyFeature/1098/img/vga/boom/08.jpg


By "rear fan", you mean the fan of the case? If so, my case has no fans running.

No, I mean the back fan on the GPU itself, one of the blades was intermittently scraping on the plastic gpu shroud.

 

[rugupiruvu]

No, I mean the back fan on the GPU itself, one of the blades was intermittently scraping on the plastic gpu shroud.

Is this a common issue in modern GPU's across vendors? When it becomes winter, I could test if this is the problem by setting the GPU fan starting point (it has the "fan stop" mode below certain degrees) to a high value like 70 degrees Celsius and computer idling for an hour or two to see it still makes this sound.

 

[madmatt30]

Is this a common issue in modern GPU's across vendors? When it becomes winter, I could test if this is the problem by setting the GPU fan starting point (it has the "fan stop" mode below certain degrees) to a high value like 70 degrees Celsius and computer idling for an hour or two to see it still makes this sound.

Common? No not really but absolutely possible.

I actually just put some inward pressure on the fan blades (fairly soft rather than rigid plastic) one at a time and coaxed them inwards a little.

It stopped it ever happening again.