Lol...so for the longest time I couldn't figure out what in my computer case was making little noises.

When I load Gmail and the names for all the chat folks on the left loads I get the faintest little "tikka tikka tikka" sound...and I can make it happen by mousing over the names. I also get faint little beeps here and there that are not coming from the little onboard piezo speaker on the motherboard.

Today on a whim I ran that old "pc pitstop" utility that was posted on these forums eons ago. Lo and behold when the utility ran the 3d video test and the little cubes rotate around the screen my video card began emitting alternating squeee sounds that would change every time the cubes on screen would change. Not super loud but not exactly quiet either.

So all along it's been my video card making these strange little squeaks and ticks based on what is being displayed on the screen.

Any idea what this might indicate? I've never heard of this and the searches I've made either refer to fan noise, or static...of which this is neither.

***EDIT*** Actually, I found a video that shows the same sound my computer makes, and it turns out this guy has the same brand of PSU that I do (corsair) and has an ATI card, which I do, (5850)His power supply was the component making the Squee ***

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

The only moving component on the video card is your fan, which wouldn't care. Are you certain the noises are not coming from your PSU? If your configuration is riding a configured power-demand threshold (just barely above or below the point where the PSU turns up the juice a bit), you could be rapidly shifting demand on and off to a section that still uses those cylindrical electrolytic capacitors -- which, very late in their lives, will swell until the top casing ruptures. Normally that's fatal, but if the rupture is small enough you get air rushing in and out as the temperature fluctuates inside the capacitor core. They whistle very, very short tunes. They don't live very long after that -- it's rare that they survive the rupture at all.

+1

aaaaaahhhh right now I wish there was a working +rep mod for phpbb.

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Yeah I should have bolded my edit textin the original post. That video I found on youtube that described the issue precisely I agree it's got to be my PSU. Not sure, however, if that portends something bad or if this is something that simply happens on various PSU's lol...a first for me.

I realize that the fan is the only moving part on the video card, but doesn't that hold true for the PSU as well? What the heck on it can be making noise that oscillates with the same frequency/speed of whatever is rotating around on the screen or when I mouse over the gmail chat text?

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Areas of your PSU's circuitry are on-demand flow -- which means they're dormant except in peak demand conditions (playing F.E.A.R. 2 under SLI takes more power than running Excel, for example). Your video card won't have any components that are likely to expand significantly from waste heat under high load, which is one reason they're so expensive. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the inductive transformer turning your AC wall power into DC for delivery to subsystems inside the case. The increased need for heat tolerance causes some manufacturers to stick with electrolytic capacitors, even though longer-lived components exist but with lower heat tolerance figures.

This means that if you put one of those power supplies on a really high-end video solution with several physical disks and two monitors, you can subject the internal parts of the power supply to wildly fluctuating levels of demand, which will thrash the hell out of the peak-load components in your PSU. When they start making terrible noises, you have about a month to replace them -- and if you don't, and they die on their own, nobody's warranty covers any of the other components it kills when it dies.

Hrmm. I'll have to keep an ear out then. It's pretty much been doing this for the 2 years that I've owned it. Never had the squee as loud or consistent as I did with the pcpitstop 3d test, but I've also ran WoW, SC2, EQII on max settings for hours on end without so much as a squeak.

As for caps burning out, they stink quite a bit even before they bust their tops from what I've seen working with car audio and pyxis stations. I've not smelled any electrical stinkyness yet, but I suppose if/when I do it's already too late for that.

We'll see how it does on D3 lol...Guess I should have stuck with the PC Power and Cooling rather than Corsair.

_________________
Larreth Wolfsong (long retired)
Lanys T'vyl, Everquest

Zinky, Lvl 60 Warlock
Thunderhorn, WoW

Thermaltake and Antec make fully functional power supplies too, and go for less $$$ than PC Power and Cooling.

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

I agree! Find it!

_________________
"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cakvala

If only we could move to SMF. *cough*

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Okay, if it's been going on for 2 years, either your PSU is a candidate for the Guiness World Record for longest period spent on a deathbed, or your problem is something else. Whatever it is, I still bet it's your PSU.