Decom

Update: after playing some games under higher load, once the fans jump up around over 50%, the speeds will normalise out at least (they're still going to be higher than the other fans even if the percentage says they're the same but they're no longer jumping around). Edit: to clarify - they're stable while under load - the fan's RPM still jump while under low load/idle

Hi guys! So a while ago one of the fans in my ROG Strix 2080 TI broke (the bearing inside gave up and that fan would start to wobble and make a scraping/rattling noise when running). I replaced the fan with an original ASUS Strix fan intended for 20XX cards. When the fan got here, I swapped out the faulty fan for the new one but since then a new phenomenon has popped up: that fan will now continuously jump around 5-600rpm on average in a continuous up/down cycle. As in, while the other fans run at a continuous percentage and RPM, that fan will keep jumping from say 800 to 1400~ RPM in 1-2 second intervals (as you can see in the attachment below). If I raise the RPM of all fans, it will just repeat this "leap" at higher RPMs (ie if I increase the percentage to 50%, it will just keep jumping between 1400-2400~) while still showing the same % in GPU Tweak. Any idea as to what could cause this? I read in other forums that it might be that the GPU just needs to have its thermal paste replaced as the sensor might be off and that one fan keeps thinking it's running to hot so it defaults to spinning up, realises the temp is fine and drops down again? I've considered RMA'ing it (I still have warranty for another few months) but quite honestly given the current GPU shortage, I'm pretty worried what may or may not happen. For one, I'd probably be out of a GPU for 1-2 months given what ASUS has told me (prior to swapping out the fan when I considered sending it in at first). Second, they're no longer actually producing 20XX series cards so if they can't fix it, them swapping it for another 2080 TI seems unlikely. When asked about this, I got a fairly ambiguous answer along the lines of "We will swap it out for a card of equal or higher value" but given the inflated price of cards, I worry they'll just send me a 3060 TI, argue that price wise they would be about the same and that'd be the end of that. Another CS Agent mentioned they may reimburse me but couldn't tell me if it was at current value or what the card cost when I bought it (I've heard horror stories of people being reimbursed a % of what they paid for hardware (not ASUS, specifically) with the justification that the price of the tech had deprecated). Another option would be to just remove the heatsink & fans entirely and watercool the entire system but that's a hefty investment I'd rather not spend right now if it can be at all avoided... Anyway, if anybody has any idea what could cause that fan to go nuts, I'd highly appreciate the input! Cheers!

Update: HDD got RMA'd and sent back to Seagate. Replacement was sent out and received within the week (earlier today). Tested out the new drive with Optane and yet again, the same noise popped up. However After experimenting a bit, it turns out (at least with my setup), the odd repeating audio from the HDD actually came from the Intel Rapid Storage Software. I had Link Power Management enabled (which is supposed to save power during idle time) but I guess it put the drive into some kind of loop. After disabling it, no more noise in the last 6+ hours of usage. Hopefully that did it! Edit: Also disabled Windows Power Saving trying to disable drives after 20 minute idle time (figured that might also be butting heads with Optane)

Well, I recorded this to give you an idea of what it sounds like when the drive is not currently used by any application. This doesn't happen all the time, either. But if I'm working and the 10TB drive is idle for a while, it will start to make this noise until the drive is accessed again (either by me or by an application installed on the drive itself). I listened to the majority of the drive noises that were listed on the site you provided but it didn't sound like any of those specifically. As it's still within warranty (running in an entirely new system assembled last month), would I be better off just RMAing it and trying it with a different drive?

Hey, I'm having this same issue, just wondering if it was a faulty drive or actually caused by the Optane module? I'm noticing this whenever the system is idle for a while - as soon as I access the secondary drive in the system (either through Task Manager or Explorer or by starting an application on said drive), the odd noise will cease instantly.