Allan964 Posted July 21, 2012 Report Share Posted July 21, 2012 (edited) So my graphics card (GTX 280) makes an electrical squealing noise when playing RF and after a bit googling i figured out it was due to my card producing extremely high FPS, roughly around 260 in the pits and 180 on track. I think a lot higher in the menus as the squeal is extremely annoying. Turning Vysnc on fixed this instantly in game and vastly lowered the noise in menus, as some will know, vsync limits your FPS to your monitors refresh rate, in my case 60. Now, you would say to yourself, just leave vsync on? I went in for a practice with vsync on and my car handled completely different. I thought i had to be making it up in my head so i turned it back off, practiced, car went fine. Turned it on and the car felt less responsive to the throttle and steering once again. Anyone else had anything like this or even heard of this problem? Some people wouldn't even notice to be honest but i am so fussy with things that i noticed straight away. Anyway, the solution for the moment is leaving vsync on and putting up with the daft noise, its only in RF it does it! Edited July 21, 2012 by Allan964 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bristolstokie Posted July 22, 2012 Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 Is the noise coming from the card or through your speakers? Is it the fans or something on the card itself? I have 3 of the same card in but mine are water cooled and running in a 3 way sli setup so do not use the stock fans/heatsink. I got similar results with fps but realised that actually my other components could not keeps up when I was getting over 200 fps so I decided to go 3way and triple monitor. Yes I am crazy but it was all second hand and now performs better than 1 monitor single card (after hours of playing with settings and building it). The vsync should help your cards like you say by reducing fps and so fan noise because of reduced heat. If you update drivers there should now be an option for adaptive vsync which would be worth trying. I'm not sure why your card struggles more with vsync on but I would guess it is to do with other settings. If you are using the adaptive half refresh rate vsync then I found similar problems with poor game performance but I found rfactors vsync to be better and set nvidia to use the application vsync settings. If your problem is with the fan I have an unopened Zalman VF3000N I would be willing to let go for a bit less than I paid for it. That has a variable fan speed so you can reduce noise manually when you don't need the cooling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan964 Posted July 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 Is the noise coming from the card or through your speakers? Is it the fans or something on the card itself? I have 3 of the same card in but mine are water cooled and running in a 3 way sli setup so do not use the stock fans/heatsink. I got similar results with fps but realised that actually my other components could not keeps up when I was getting over 200 fps so I decided to go 3way and triple monitor. Yes I am crazy but it was all second hand and now performs better than 1 monitor single card (after hours of playing with settings and building it). The vsync should help your cards like you say by reducing fps and so fan noise because of reduced heat. If you update drivers there should now be an option for adaptive vsync which would be worth trying. I'm not sure why your card struggles more with vsync on but I would guess it is to do with other settings. If you are using the adaptive half refresh rate vsync then I found similar problems with poor game performance but I found rfactors vsync to be better and set nvidia to use the application vsync settings. If your problem is with the fan I have an unopened Zalman VF3000N I would be willing to let go for a bit less than I paid for it. That has a variable fan speed so you can reduce noise manually when you don't need the cooling. Hi mate. It's not the fan, i run a huge arctic cooler on my card rather than the standard cooler. It's definitely electrical noise, i run EVGA precision to manually control the fan speed on my card. When i googled it, apparently it's electrical noise coming directly from the card which i have never heard before, its the weirdest thing. For example, when your in game and you click between monitor, garage and settings, the pitch of the whine changes, its crazy. I might download an FPS limiter and limit my FPS to 110, that way the noise will reduce as its directly in proportion with the FPS you get. On all the latest drivers etc. It was Rfactors vsync i had turned on, i probably should have mentioned that, i didn't force it on via nvidias control panel, that is set to let the application decide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan964 Posted July 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 Made a wee recording so you could hear it. This is me holding my microphone beside my GFX card while on the rFactor front screen looking at my car: http://soundcloud.com/allan-obrien/nvidia-electrical-noise Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bristolstokie Posted July 22, 2012 Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 (edited) Just had a read into it and it looks like a few cards have been reported to have similar issues and a couple of people said the power supply was the cause. What is the spec of the supply you are using? The recommended supply for a decent setup using a single 280 is about 550w http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-review-test/11 I found that 200fps was too much for my system so like you say messing with the fps might be the best solution but if it doesn't solve the problem then the supply might have something to do with it. Edited July 22, 2012 by bristolstokie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan964 Posted July 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted July 22, 2012 Just had a read into it and it looks like a few cards have been reported to have similar issues and a couple of people said the power supply was the cause. What is the spec of the supply you are using? The recommended supply for a decent setup using a single 280 is about 550w http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-review-test/11 I found that 200fps was too much for my system so like you say messing with the fps might be the best solution but if it doesn't solve the problem then the supply might have something to do with it. 600w Seasonic mate. I will try an FPS limiter as i am definitely not going back to vsync as the game felt horrible ! Strange problem eh? In my 10+ years of gaming i've never heard of such a problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drumbstick Posted July 23, 2012 Report Share Posted July 23, 2012 (edited) Just had a read into it and it looks like a few cards have been reported to have similar issues and a couple of people said the power supply was the cause. What is the spec of the supply you are using? The recommended supply for a decent setup using a single 280 is about 550w http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-280-review-test/11 I found that 200fps was too much for my system so like you say messing with the fps might be the best solution but if it doesn't solve the problem then the supply might have something to do with it. 600w Seasonic mate. I will try an FPS limiter as i am definitely not going back to vsync as the game felt horrible ! Strange problem eh? In my 10+ years of gaming i've never heard of such a problem. Input lag is a know issue on most games when using Vsync Edited July 23, 2012 by drumbstick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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