GTX 980 rapid clicking noise when fan speed increases.

[EnSabahNur]

I have a Alienware A51 (new model) that's only about a year old that was always very quiet when it ran regardless of the game I ran on it. However, I recently noticed an audible , rapid clicking noise (similar to the sound that old PC HD's would make when watching the HDD activity lights) whenever I begin to run a game and the GPU fan/temp increases; the moment I exit the game the sound goes away.

 

I am almost certain that the source of the sound is coming from the GTX 980's GPU fan and only when the RPMs go up on it. I have already taken the GPU out, cleaned/inspected it and the GPU is in perfect condition as far as I can tell. Does anyone have experience with this that can tell me what is going on and how to alleviate this situation? Thanks so much in advance for any assistance you can provide.

[Enderman]

its either

1) a bad bearing and you cant do anything about it other than RMA

or

2) a cable touching the fan blades (could be the fan's cable itself, the one in the GPU) which you might be able to fix by removing the cooler and moving the cable out of the way, maybe using a bit of tape

[Vengeance_K1ng]

28 minutes ago, Enderman said:

its either

1) a bad bearing and you cant do anything about it other than RMA

or

2) a cable touching the fan blades (could be the fan's cable itself, the one in the GPU) which you might be able to fix by removing the cooler and moving the cable out of the way, maybe using a bit of tape

OR, which is super unlikely, is a lot of dust build up.

[Enderman]

10 minutes ago, Vengeance_K1ng said:

OR, which is super unlikely, is a lot of dust build up.

that would not create a ticking noise though

[Vengeance_K1ng]

1 minute ago, Enderman said:

that would not create a ticking noise thouhg

If the dust is thick enough, it will, well in my case it did on my 212 evo running on my i3 NAS.