9800 GT Crazy Noises

[cakemonster]

I have a similar setup to you all, and am experiencing the squealing noise as well. I can confirm that it's not related to the fan, though- I recently replaced my stock PNY 9800 GT 1GB heatsink with a passive Arctic S1, and am still getting the sound.

For me it seems to be related to processor load somehow... I've read similar reports from others with i7s elsewhere on the web. Anybody have any more thoughts on what's going on here?

Hmm, I am sending mine back for an identical replacement, but I have a feeling it will recur. Is it just happening on hacks with this driver/video card? I don't boot to windows, do you get it there too? It is really soft, barely audible, but I do hear it.

The only time I hear it is moving widgets in a an Open GL dependent 3D program. There should be no moving parts other than the fan. The fact that we are hearing it on cards from different manufacturers is interesting as well.

 

[Lnx2Mac]

I was about to write "No issues with my 9800...", but then I opened my case...

With my case open, I can now hear the high pitch noise you are mentioning...
Tried on glxgears, and other OpenGL apps, but it's most noticeable when running the 'Word of the Day' screensaver...

As for loading the system, I ran 20 parallel (time-shifted) 'find / -type f -exec md5 {} \; > /dev/null' and geekbench...

Strange though, it's enough to have one instance of the 'find' running to make the noise completely disappear... When 'find' finishes its run, the noise is back...

Could it be somehow related to speedstep/Turbo ?

It could be interesting to run some Cuda/OpenCL apps and see it it has any effect...

 

[nonagon]

After lots of searching and experimenting, I've successfully eliminated the squealing sound!

On my system, there were two things that fixed it:

1) Disabling all CPU power saving options in BIOS (all C-states). This increased my CPU temperatures at idle and disabled Turbo, but eliminated the noise completely.

2) Undervolting the CPU. This is where I'm at now, and I'm very pleased with the results. Based on some users' experiences in another forum (non-Hackintosh related), I set my CPU core voltage to 1.1V in BIOS. At this setting, I'm able to run with all CPU features enabled and zero noise!

I've come to believe that the loud sound I was hearing might not have been from the GPU at all- it might have been coming from the motherboard. Other users were able to eliminate the sound by upgrading their power supplies, or undervolting their CPUs. I find it quite odd that this would be necessary since I'm running an i7-860 (95W TDP), an "energy efficient" video card (~75W max) and one HD with an OCZ 500W power supply, but there you have it. I'll need to do some more experimenting to find the edge between squeal and no-squeal in BIOS settings, but I'm pretty pleased with my current setup now!

In short, if you're suffering from this problem, try setting your CPU voltage to something < 1.2V in BIOS and see how you do.

 

[Lnx2Mac]

Hey nonagon !

This is cool !

I guess your CPU runs cooler too...
Mind to post your BIOS voltage section ?

Thx,
Lnx2Mac

 

[cakemonster]

Interesting. I never sounded like the fan to me (and your experience confirms it), but I could not think of other moving parts that would make the sound.

I am a little OC, but at stock voltage (1.18), except a slight bump in vtt (1.14). I will play with things un-OC and see if that helps. Mine is barely audible like linux to mac so I might leave it as is, but it is peculiar.

I am running a 700 W power supply certified for I7, so that is peculiar. And it just seems to happen with 9800GTs? Strange. Have you been able to localize the noise further?

I max all cores for minutes at a time and never hear it. I only hear it with OpenGL dependent widgets in one program. It only happens when the graphics gets loaded, not the CPU.

I really like my 9800 GT, can't think of an easier card to setup. Don't really want to give up my OC. Anyone getting the noise with 250/260 GT?

This is the same price as my 9800 GT!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130514&cm_re=GTS_250-_-14-130-514-_-Product

 

[Lnx2Mac]

Does anyone have any idea what is actually making the noise? Anyone tried in Windows or Linux with the MB/9800GT?

Spoke with a friend, and he remembers reading about it in insanely...
Said that "this is not from the PSU, and it's apparently fixable by BIOS settings"...
He forgot the exact post, though...
So I guess we'll have to google for it with site:insanelymac.com

 

[Coadey]

Re: CPU Crazy Noises

It sounds like you're describing the Intel "dog whistle" whine. It's caused by the CPU, so you can swap out the MB/Video/PSU and it'll still be there.

You can confirm this on a freshly booted, idle Snow Leopard system by doing this:

1. Open the Desktop & Screen Saver system preference.
2. Under "Screen Saver", choose "Spectrum". You should hear the sound now.
3. Keep it open, then open a Terminal window to the side, and type "yes > /dev/null" to max out a CPU core.

From what I've read it's related to SpeedStep frequencies. As soon as your CPU reaches its regular (highest) clock rate, you usually won't hear anything, but it really depends on exactly what the CPU is doing (as you can see from the Screen Saver test).

As far as fixes, this varies, but can usually be done in the BIOS by tweaking or disabling features, especially those related to frequency scaling. Good luck!

 

[cakemonster]

That does it, but it is barely audible unless I put my ear to the case, not a dog whistle. Softer than CPU fan under any load. Interesting...

I like the features I have, speedstep, Turbo, OC..but will play with them...

Any ideas why it only does it with OpenGL/graphics? That part does not make sense to me...

This sounds closer to what I have...

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/show ... p?t=600330

But I could be wrong...

 

[Coadey]

I built a second system with completely different parts (P55M-UD4 vs P55M-UD2 MB, GTX275 vs GTS250 GPU, 650W vs 500W PSU) and the only thing that was the same was the i5 650 CPU. Both make the exact same high pitch squeal during certain events.

For me it even happens during some downloads using Firefox, and a short while at boot, but most often with graphics-related activity. I haven't been able to solve it myself, except by running something to keep one of the CPU cores busy ("yes > /dev/null"). Does that quiet it down for you too?

By the way Cakemonster and lnx2mac thanks for the DSDT posts for the UD4 boards. The Multibeast 1.1.0 DSDT for this board wouldn't boot, but replacing it with the one mentioned here works great:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?p=13501#p13501

 

[MacMan]

I built a second system with completely different parts (P55M-UD4 vs P55M-UD2 MB, GTX275 vs GTS250 GPU, 650W vs 500W PSU) and the only thing that was the same was the i5 650 CPU. Both make the exact same high pitch squeal during certain events.

For me it even happens during some downloads using Firefox, and a short while at boot, but most often with graphics-related activity. I haven't been able to solve it myself, except by running something to keep one of the CPU cores busy ("yes > /dev/null"). Does that quiet it down for you too?

By the way Cakemonster and lnx2mac thanks for the DSDT posts for the UD4 boards. The Multibeast 1.1.0 DSDT for this board wouldn't boot, but replacing it with the one mentioned here works great:

http://www.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?p=13501#p13501

What was the problem with the MultiBeast 1.1.0 DSDT? We need to know of all problems so we can fix them.