Wrymn

It was indeed a virus. I had it almost for year, making my life for worse. Not even avast detected it when I scanned that folder (it was disguised as Realtek HD Audio in AppData folder tree) Finally removed it manually, restarted PC, didnt show in task manager so far, hope its gone for good. Ty anyway.

Yes it does.

Nah, I tried every possible solution. Uninstalling, disabling, updating, nothing, it just eats CPU when left running and I was fool I didnt notice it earlier (I use hibernate so I have to check it once in a few weeks)

I had cracked the problem. Every time PC starts, Realtek Audio HD application process is started as well. This 'virus' makes your CPU usage go to 50%+ and lags your entire computer until you terminate it. After terminating this background process, the noise from GPU stops (I think its running some code in GPU, thus the high usage). Sadly Realtek Audio HD cannot be removed from PC or disabled, it always appears after restart.

I have disabled the fans, the noise doesnt stop. The GPU Core load is 95%+ when doing nothing. Is this normal?

Hi, what do you mean by RMAing it? Edit: didnt know the shortcut, I feared the only option was to return it....

I had this card for months, but last weeks I started to notice strange noise coming out of the card. - when windows starts up (logic screen shows), the noise starts. The sound is constant, doesnt change with gaming or in idle mode. - sound doesnt change even when no monitors are plugged in - even when power cables are unplugged, the noise persist, it stops only when entire card is unplugged from PCI slot Here is the sound from GPU: Is my only choice to return the card? Thanks.