Isolating noise source in a build with GPU under load ? (GPU cooler or PSU fan..)

[mfny]

Hi all,

 

After using MSI Afterburner and MSI Kombustor to attempt to fine tune the fan curve on the video card after having noticed a distracting change/increase in fan noise when the GPU is under load I am unsure as to if the fan noise in question is indeed coming from the video card cooler at all.

 

The reason I am unsure is during testing I found that while yes the speed of the GPU cooler fans did in part correspond to the increase in fan noise I am hearing from the system, something seems somewhat off..

 

I can clearly hear a very notable change in fan noise beyond around 1500rpm that seems to be clearly from the GPU cooler however under GPU load there appears to be another "layer" of noise which seems to happen before this 1500 RPM mark. Given the fan in the PSU is automatically controlled from the PSU itself, and there is no way to manually control this I am unsure as to how to isolate the PSU as being the cause of this noise when the GPU is under load and not just the GPU cooler noise.

 

I do suspect for various reasons this "extra layer" of noise may be the PSU fan spinning up, perhaps to its maximum speed given it may be slightly under speced for the RTX 3060 (?) which is why I am wondering how I may isolate and confirm this ?

 

System components:

 

AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Cooled by a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo v2

MSI B450M A-Pro MAX Motherboard

Inno3D RTX 3060 Twin X2

16 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200mhz DDR4 Ram 

Kingston A2000 512GB SSD

1TB Seagate HD

Aerocool Integrator 500w PSU

Lian-Li Lancool 205 Mesh Case

Windows 11, Latest Nvidia drivers, MSI Afterburner and Kombustor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brennan Price]

I first want to address the fact that the PSU that you have in your system is a cheap PSU (please get a better one based on your rig) but it does have a smart thermal fan speed control circuit to which would likely mean that it is spinning up higher under load. I do not believe the fan on this unit ever turns off though. 

I'd suggest stress test CPU and GPU separately to each other. If the noise is not there when just single tested on their own then move onto both at the same time, you'll then likely figure out if it is PSU fan or not that is making the noise. You will want the side panel off when testing under load to hear any changes in noise and to figure out which components are louder than others. 

 

I'd recommend a good 600W PSU really for your build. 500W bronze cert is pushing it a bit if you want your machine to last. 

[Poinkachu]

50 minutes ago, mfny said:

Hi all,

 

After using MSI Afterburner and MSI Kombustor to attempt to fine tune the fan curve on the video card after having noticed a distracting change/increase in fan noise when the GPU is under load I am unsure as to if the fan noise in question is indeed coming from the video card cooler at all.

 

The reason I am unsure is during testing I found that while yes the speed of the GPU cooler fans did in part correspond to the increase in fan noise I am hearing from the system, something seems somewhat off..

 

I can clearly hear a very notable change in fan noise beyond around 1500rpm that seems to be clearly from the GPU cooler however under GPU load there appears to be another "layer" of noise which seems to happen before this 1500 RPM mark. Given the fan in the PSU is automatically controlled from the PSU itself, and there is no way to manually control this I am unsure as to how to isolate the PSU as being the cause of this noise when the GPU is under load and not just the GPU cooler noise.

 

I do suspect for various reasons this "extra layer" of noise may be the PSU fan spinning up, perhaps to its maximum speed given it may be slightly under speced for the RTX 3060 (?) which is why I am wondering how I may isolate and confirm this ?

 

System components:

 

AMD Ryzen 5 3600, Cooled by a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo v2

MSI B450M A-Pro MAX Motherboard

Inno3D RTX 3060 Twin X2

16 GB Corsair Vengeance 3200mhz DDR4 Ram 

Kingston A2000 512GB SSD

1TB Seagate HD

Aerocool Integrator 500w PSU

Lian-Li Lancool 205 Mesh Case

Windows 11, Latest Nvidia drivers, MSI Afterburner and Kombustor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Try lowering the GPU fan max rpm.
Lower case fans & cpu fans rpm as well.
Then put the PSU on the usual load and see(hear) if the noise exist.

[mfny]

47 minutes ago, Brennan Price said:

I first want to address the fact that the PSU that you have in your system is a cheap PSU (please get a better one based on your rig) but it does have a smart thermal fan speed control circuit to which would likely mean that it is spinning up higher under load. I do not believe the fan on this unit ever turns off though. 

I'd suggest stress test CPU and GPU separately to each other. If the noise is not there when just single tested on their own then move onto both at the same time, you'll then likely figure out if it is PSU fan or not that is making the noise. You will want the side panel off when testing under load to hear any changes in noise and to figure out which components are louder than others. 

 

I'd recommend a good 600W PSU really for your build. 500W bronze cert is pushing it a bit if you want your machine to last. 

This PSU was a transfer from my secondary system that I parted out and sold recently, its served me well for a few years, and was bought due to reviews at the time suggesting it was one of the better options available at the budget at the time. It also ran in my main system with the prior GPU (RX 570) with no issues for a year and a half.

 

I do take the point that it may well be the issue here in terms of being underspeced, as my op said.

 

I dont have another suitable system to stress test the GPU on its own, and my testing has all but eliminated the CPU cooler as the cause.

 

I was already looking into a better PSU in the next few weeks or so would be looking at a 600W - 750 W Gold, but just wanted to check if I was missing something..

[mfny]

19 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

Try lowering the GPU fan max rpm.
Lower case fans & cpu fans rpm as well.
Then put the PSU on the usual load and see(hear) if the noise exist.

Its hard to explain exactly but I feel that this issue is perhaps not the GPU cooler precisely because of my experience when spending some time tuning the fan curve on the GPU as I explained in the op, the relationship between GPU fan speed and noise did not seem 100% certain.

[Poinkachu]

16 minutes ago, mfny said:

Its hard to explain exactly but I feel that this issue is perhaps not the GPU cooler precisely because of my experience when spending some time tuning the fan curve on the GPU as I explained in the op, the relationship between GPU fan speed and noise did not seem 100% certain.

I mean, if you want to try isolating the noise you want to pinpoint, it'll be easier if everything else is making less noise, no ?

[mfny]

6 minutes ago, Poinkachu said:

I mean, if you want to try isolating the noise you want to pinpoint, it'll be easier if everything else is making less noise, no ?

Yes,and I have adjusted the GPU fan speed already to attempt to work out where the noise is coming from, but the results were inconclusive, will try further adjustments and also try disabling case fans as well, CPU Fan was already low due to Kombustor barely touching CPU (CPU fan remained bellow 1000 RPM and CPU usage no more then 5%)

[mfny]

So after some further investigation today I think its very likely that the issue is indeed the PSU, so figure I would ask here for some recommendations of a PSU ?

 

Semi modular, 80+ Bronze/Gold and 650w+, and not more then around £65 ?

[mfny]

An update on this, ended up buying a Corsair RM750 (2021 version) and this appears to have addressed a lot of the unwanted noise when GPU is working/loaded.

 

However the fans on my particular RTX 3060 (Inno3D RTX 3060 Twin X2) appear to not be the best it would seem, during my tweaking of fan curve on the GPU I am noticing a somewhat a distracting oscillating/resonating nature to the fan noise above around 1300 RPM or so. I have spent some time minimizing this with a fan curve that lets the GPU hit near 80c during a 10 min run of Kombustor with fan speed maxing out at around 1300 RPM. The default fan curve on the video card lets it ramp all the way up to 2000rpm in this scenario but keeps the temps just below 70c but was just far to loud.