[SOLVED] Rapid clicking noise from motherboard ?

Angolmagyar

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Jul 8, 2014
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Hi all,

So I have this issue with my PC where I'm not sure if I should be concerned. It used to be that sometimes my PC would make this rapid clicking/crackling noise every once in a while for a few minutes, and I had always just assumed it was my 9 year old WD 1TB hard drive. Lately though it's been just constant - I turn on the PC, its silent for a while, then without me even noticing at some point this noise just starts and doesn't end until I shut down the computer.

The PC itself works 100%, I have zero problems with it at all, even the 9 year old WD hard drive still reads and writes at good speeds, no bad sectors. Now when I finally decided its time to investigate, because this is a relatively newly built PC (about 1 year old) and I don't want it dying on me, I opened up the 2 side panels and tried to pinpoint the source. It is definitely not the hard drives, as when I open the back to get to the HDD cage, its near silent (with the mobo backplate blocking the sound), so it must be coming from the "front". Honestly, to me it sounds like its coming from the south bridge, or thereabouts.

Before I go any further, here is a demo:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD3gmSuaen8


Please ignore the dust, I haven't clead this PC in a few months now and my room is quite dusty. I don't think its the GPU making that noise, its definitely not any fans and I cannot find anything that would be vibrating. With nearly all moving parts eliminated I have no idea what else it could be, so maybe someone here could tell me something I hadn't thought of, or where I may be wrong? When I point the camera towards the back of the case, its to point the microphone at (first) the hard drive cage, then I move it further towards the back, so the mic points at the south bridge, which is when the noise gets louder, hence why I suspect that as the source location.

If you need any more info/recorinding of specific locations, let me know and I'll get them.

Thanks!

P.S.: It couldn't be the NVMe drive, could it? This exact noise I've heard coming from my work laptop before, which has no hard drive, just an NVMe SSD and the noise happens occasionally when reading/writing lots of small files - but my PC produces this noise constantly, even when the PC has been idle for hour(s).
 
Solution
So what happens with modern gpu's is they heat up during use, the plastic cowlings can become heated and expand/bend/ change shape. I would bet its just the fan/s tapping the cowling. You can find the fan thats making the noise and while its running move the cowling a little around it to see if it stops.
Hi all,

So I have this issue with my PC where I'm not sure if I should be concerned. It used to be that sometimes my PC would make this rapid clicking/crackling noise every once in a ....
Hard to tell...does that happen to be an X570 board? If so, I'd also suspect some little bit of something is caught up in the chipset fan.

You can safely put a finger on fans to stop them and listen for changes in sounds like that to isolate the source.
 
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Vic 40

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Sounds like one of your gpu fans might be hitting the cowling or the ball bearings are making noise? Just touch each fan to slow it and see if the noise changes at all to rule out the fans.
Look particulary at that fan just above the chipset cooler, it shouldn't touch it but in the video does it look like it (almost) does.

IdeY11c.png



b2fzujI.png
 
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Hard to tell...does that happen to be an X570 board? If so, I'd also suspect some little bit of something is caught up in the chipset fan.

You can safely put a finger on fans to stop them and listen for changes in sounds like that to isolate the source.
Yes good call it does sound like it could be a smaller fan.
Look particulary at that fan just above the chipset cooler, it shouldn't touch it but in the video does it look like it (almost) does.

IdeY11c.png



b2fzujI.png
good eye!
 

Angolmagyar

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Jul 8, 2014
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18,540
Sounds like one of your gpu fans might be hitting the cowling or the ball bearings are making noise? Just touch each fan to slow it and see if the noise changes at all to rule out the fans.

You might be right! As soon as I accidentally touched the GPU fan, the noise stopped.

Look particulary at that fan just above the chipset cooler, it shouldn't touch it but in the video does it look like it (almost) does.

IdeY11c.png



b2fzujI.png

I'm not actually aware of any fans inside the chipset cooler, I think its passively cooled.

Yes good call it does sound like it could be a smaller fan.

good eye!

So yea, good call on the fans, I had honestly ruled them out, because it simply didn't make sense; here is why: my girlfriend's PC is having this weird issue where it freezes but doesn't crash to BSOD and leaves no trace in the event viewer, so I have replaced each component, individually, with the only excpetion of the PSU at this point. Funny thing is, I swapped her GPU for my own (we both have the same one) just a few days ago, and my own noise issue has been a thing for months now - swapping the GPUs did not change a thing about it.

But as you can see in this video I just recorded:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78aJ4ODiyiA

it clearly is something to do with the GPU fans. As soon as I touch the fan the noise stops. Must be something with this specific GPU?

Also, I should have listed my specs in my original post, my apologies.

Motherboard: Aorus Z390 Pro
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 2060 Super OC Windforce
CPU: Intel Core i7 9700k
RAM: Corsair Vengeance Pro 4x 8GB (‎CMW16GX4M2C3200C16 )
PSU: Corsair HX750i
Boot drive: Sabrent Rocket 1TB NVMe
Cooler: Corsair H100i RGB Platinum
HDD: 3tb Seagate BarraCuda & 1TB WD (I forget which excactly, its nearly 10 years old)

The rest I don't think are a factor, but if you're interested, let me know and I'll list those as well.


I'll keep an eye on both of these GPUs, to see if they both make this same noise and let you all know. Its weird though, because they are only about a year old, I wouldn't think the bearings are about to give up.

Thanks for the suggestions though! I appreciate the help.
 
So what happens with modern gpu's is they heat up during use, the plastic cowlings can become heated and expand/bend/ change shape. I would bet its just the fan/s tapping the cowling. You can find the fan thats making the noise and while its running move the cowling a little around it to see if it stops.
 
Solution