Ok, I've been trying to find out the solution to my issue for this whole day and I am exhausted will no results. It's quite convoluted so bear with me.
So I was first playing a game and I started to hear this sort of scratchy/kinda grindy sound. I could only hear this when I took off my headset. I was confused since i've had my PC for a year and halfish and have not heard this sound before. It also only happens at high FPS which is why I thought it could be GPU whine.
Anyways it went on for two days when playing this game, so i decided today was the day I would solve the mystery. At first I thought it could be GPU whine but the reason I don't think it is GPU whine is because it doesn't really sound like a whine noise but more of a scratchy/grindy noise and also i've had gpu whine before and it didn't really sound like that. I also managed to fix my GPU whine by undervolted my GPU which basically got rid of it in 8/10 games.
Due to the sound and also the fact that the sound wasn't constant e.g it would come for 2 seconds stop, then start again after 2 secs leads be to believe it was a fan. At this point I was trying to see which fan it was the GPU fan or my Case fans. So i loaded up the game in which the sound was appear it, took off my tempered glass so i could get closer and to be honest i couldn't properly distinguish if it was my GPU fan or case fan, which takes me into my next test.
So i thought, let me open msi afterburner and the game in which the sound appears when i play and when I start to hear the sound, I will look at the fan speed of the GPU, once I get the fan speed I can close the game and through msi afterburner I can set my GPU fan speed to that exact same speed and see if I could hear it. I thought this would narrow it down because doing it this way would mean out of game my GPU utilisation would be basically 0 so if i heard the sound here I would know it wouldn't be GPU whine because that only happens when GPU utilisation goes up and thus the voltage goes up and causes the noise, also since I wasnt playing a game my case fans wouldn't be spinning as fast (e.g the normal default speed) therefore if I heard the sound when I turned my GPU fan speed up via msi afterburner it would deffo be the gpu case fan.
Anyways I did the test and set my GPU fan speed to 70 (the speed at which I heard the noise when I was gaming), after 15 seconds I heard the noise, but then 10 seconds later it disappeared and I kept my fans running at this speed for 10 minutes and didn't hear it again. This confused me because although I heard the sound at the beginning, it was only for 10 seconds to which I never heard it again even after running the fans for a good period of time. So then I decided to go to my next test.
In this test I decided to see if it was whine, how I did this is that I loaded up the game which i heard the noise in, when I started to hear the noise I turned my GPU fans off via MSI afterburner to see if the sound disappeared and the sound did disappear when I turned off my fans. Obviously this won't affect my GPU utilisation which would cause the GPU whine. This confused me more. Because if it was the GPU fan causing the noise, then in my previous test I should have heard it when running the GPU fan speed at the same speed in which I heard the noise. And if it was GPU whine then I would still heard the noise if I turned off the GPU fans because it has to do with utilisation and voltage and not the GPU fans.
Also, I only noticed this sound in one game, I thought it was an isolated incident, so to test this I decided to play a game at the same FPS in which I experienced the weird sounds and also I made sure the game I picked that i knew that i didn't encounter the issue im facing now. I decided to play GTA 5, it played at the same FPS and I never had encountered the weird sound in this game. After 10 minutes of playing GTA I started to hear this sound, so obviously this is a new issue. Which makes me think it can't be GPU whine since GPU whine can't develop over time, its either there when you get your GPU or not there at all. I already narrowed this down since since I undervolted my card I didn't think it could be GPU whine anyway.
So I think it has to do with my GPU since the sound occurs or disappears when i tweak my GPU settings
I have the latest Nvidia driver and I reinstalled it to make sure it wasn't faulty.
I also opened up task manager when I heard the sound and the only thing that was taking up GPU resources was my game.
I was hoping it was only a case fan, since I could order one for 10 dollars with next day delivery and install it in 5 minutes, whereas to RMA a GPU would take longer I feel. It would take 1 week for me to get in contact with them, take a 1 week to ship it to them, take another week for them to look at it to which they might say its only a weird sound and doesn't affect performance so were not gonna fix it and then take another week for them to ship it back to me. Basically I'd be a month or more without a PC.
So what should I do now?
I have a 3070 btw. If you need any other specs ask.
So I was first playing a game and I started to hear this sort of scratchy/kinda grindy sound. I could only hear this when I took off my headset. I was confused since i've had my PC for a year and halfish and have not heard this sound before. It also only happens at high FPS which is why I thought it could be GPU whine.
Anyways it went on for two days when playing this game, so i decided today was the day I would solve the mystery. At first I thought it could be GPU whine but the reason I don't think it is GPU whine is because it doesn't really sound like a whine noise but more of a scratchy/grindy noise and also i've had gpu whine before and it didn't really sound like that. I also managed to fix my GPU whine by undervolted my GPU which basically got rid of it in 8/10 games.
Due to the sound and also the fact that the sound wasn't constant e.g it would come for 2 seconds stop, then start again after 2 secs leads be to believe it was a fan. At this point I was trying to see which fan it was the GPU fan or my Case fans. So i loaded up the game in which the sound was appear it, took off my tempered glass so i could get closer and to be honest i couldn't properly distinguish if it was my GPU fan or case fan, which takes me into my next test.
So i thought, let me open msi afterburner and the game in which the sound appears when i play and when I start to hear the sound, I will look at the fan speed of the GPU, once I get the fan speed I can close the game and through msi afterburner I can set my GPU fan speed to that exact same speed and see if I could hear it. I thought this would narrow it down because doing it this way would mean out of game my GPU utilisation would be basically 0 so if i heard the sound here I would know it wouldn't be GPU whine because that only happens when GPU utilisation goes up and thus the voltage goes up and causes the noise, also since I wasnt playing a game my case fans wouldn't be spinning as fast (e.g the normal default speed) therefore if I heard the sound when I turned my GPU fan speed up via msi afterburner it would deffo be the gpu case fan.
Anyways I did the test and set my GPU fan speed to 70 (the speed at which I heard the noise when I was gaming), after 15 seconds I heard the noise, but then 10 seconds later it disappeared and I kept my fans running at this speed for 10 minutes and didn't hear it again. This confused me because although I heard the sound at the beginning, it was only for 10 seconds to which I never heard it again even after running the fans for a good period of time. So then I decided to go to my next test.
In this test I decided to see if it was whine, how I did this is that I loaded up the game which i heard the noise in, when I started to hear the noise I turned my GPU fans off via MSI afterburner to see if the sound disappeared and the sound did disappear when I turned off my fans. Obviously this won't affect my GPU utilisation which would cause the GPU whine. This confused me more. Because if it was the GPU fan causing the noise, then in my previous test I should have heard it when running the GPU fan speed at the same speed in which I heard the noise. And if it was GPU whine then I would still heard the noise if I turned off the GPU fans because it has to do with utilisation and voltage and not the GPU fans.
Also, I only noticed this sound in one game, I thought it was an isolated incident, so to test this I decided to play a game at the same FPS in which I experienced the weird sounds and also I made sure the game I picked that i knew that i didn't encounter the issue im facing now. I decided to play GTA 5, it played at the same FPS and I never had encountered the weird sound in this game. After 10 minutes of playing GTA I started to hear this sound, so obviously this is a new issue. Which makes me think it can't be GPU whine since GPU whine can't develop over time, its either there when you get your GPU or not there at all. I already narrowed this down since since I undervolted my card I didn't think it could be GPU whine anyway.
So I think it has to do with my GPU since the sound occurs or disappears when i tweak my GPU settings
I have the latest Nvidia driver and I reinstalled it to make sure it wasn't faulty.
I also opened up task manager when I heard the sound and the only thing that was taking up GPU resources was my game.
I was hoping it was only a case fan, since I could order one for 10 dollars with next day delivery and install it in 5 minutes, whereas to RMA a GPU would take longer I feel. It would take 1 week for me to get in contact with them, take a 1 week to ship it to them, take another week for them to look at it to which they might say its only a weird sound and doesn't affect performance so were not gonna fix it and then take another week for them to ship it back to me. Basically I'd be a month or more without a PC.
So what should I do now?
I have a 3070 btw. If you need any other specs ask.
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