Tick noise from graphics card

i am hearing a very faint tick noise (like a watch) from my new p150em with the 675m whenever a temperature/usage monitor such as HWMONITOR or MSI Afterburner is on. when i turn it off, it goes away. also the frequency of this noise is the same as the monitor rate, for example if the refresh rate of afterburner is set to 1sec, the frequency of the tick is once per second. if the refresh rate is set to 9sec, the frequency of the tick noise is once per 9 seconds. anyone have this kind of problem? Thanks

forgot to mention that this is at stock clock, no overclocks. also its not coming from the fans

after some more testing, i find that it goes away when the card is underload, for example when i open kombustor with afterburner running, but once i close kombustor and after a few seconds, the ticking is back again

when the refresh rate of hardware monitor tool is below 1 second, the tick sound goes away, but when its above 1, it comes back

 

Could it be comming from the speakers?
What if you plug-in earphones, do you hear the tick through your earphones?
Does your HDD light flicker at the same time by any chance?

Otherwise, it could be a form of coil noise...??

 

no HDD doesnt flash, and nothing in earphones. it might be coil noise, but its weird why when i decrease the refresh rate of hardware monitor for afterburner, it goes away

 

It could be because the power load conditions change specifically when the programs are polling various sensors. Either they cause a burst of activity, or actually cause a short drop in activity (a hardware activity micro stutter if you will). Both conditions could cause an instantaneous power draw to be such that the frequency of the supply circuits and/or burst of currents falls into the audible range momentarily (or mechanical resonant frequency of the coils). Sometimes the way certain sensors need to be polled, they tend to hog resources for a bit (e.g. monitor Clevo EC sensors with HWinfo64).

Maybe try HWinfo64 and see if it ticks also when you set the sampling at 1sec, etc... If not, then set HWinfo64 to 100ms sampling rate (with Clevo EC sensors monitoring disabled) and display your clock sensors, CPU activity, etc. on graphs. Run your other monitoring programs as before and if you still hear the tick try to notice if HWinfo64 displays tend to stutter as the ticks happen. Also, you might see if their's any spikes or dips in CPU/GPU/Bus activity by plotting various sensors (power, voltage, memory...). This might be a way to troubleshoot and give you a window to understand what factors the "tick" may be related to.

 

I tried hwinfo64 with clevo sensor off, tree both 100 ms and 1000 ms, while afterburners interval is still at 1 second, the tick is still there. Also I don't see spikes on the graphs nor stutter on the graph display. The sound of the tick kind of sounds like when you get a small static shock

I left the card running with this tick sound overnight, still here in the morning, but it doesn't seem to have an effect on performance. When I start something intensive like a game or kombustor, it goes away even though everything is still being monitored

 

bump, anyone with similar problem?

 

Its about to explode. You probably angered it by playing very slow games or maybe you overclocked it. So now it have enabled the kamikaze sequence. Honor is everything you know, especially since its made in Asia. Live by the sword, die by the sword. Even graphic cards live by the rules of the Samurai

 

I heard that noise in LOADS of machines, i think they all do that.
It´s very simple, it happens when it turns your GTX 675 on / off.
Yeap it´s that simple... if you put your hear close to keyboard and you start anything 3D you will notice the click, close the app and re-open, you will listen to it again, it´s kinda boring in NVIDIA cards because NVIDIA switches ON/OFF way more times then the 7970M, but rest assure because it happens in any GTX or AMD HD in all EM models (well the exception is the P370EM )

I´m currently using a P151EM and i manage to get rid of that doing something simple, my HD 7970M is always ON (not very good if you use battery)

 

how did you get rid of it? when it monitor temperature it has to turn the card on? if this is normal then i am more assured . when i switch to battery, the sound does go away

 

You can´t get rid of it... just get used to it, you barely can listen to it anyway

 

i got rid of it by lowering hardware monitoring refresh time, but still, i just need to make sure nothing major is wrong with it

 

i dont know if anyone else noticed this, but whilst playing a game i sometimes hear a buzzing noise, i assumed it was my gpu, but it turns out it was my battery. try removing the battery and see if thats whats causing the noise.

 

when i unplug the power supply and run on battery the sound goes away, because i assume the graphics card isnt being utilized. the sound is coming from the graphics card i am sure, i opened it up and put my ear close to it to listen

 

Probably the capacitors. Mine use to make a clicking sound on my 5870M while under heavy load or when in use and this would go away when sat at idle.

 

Personally, if it's still under warranty, I would swap it. Electronics should be silent! I have a zero-tolerance policy for noisy electronics. You can get a bad batch once in a while. If you're really annoyed by the noise, it might be worth a try.

 

problem is warranty replacement would cost me shipping right? that be like close to $100

 

I'm having the same problem and I am definitely sure it's the GPU that is ticking. When using throttle stop if I turn on the option to monitor my gpu temp the GPU ticks. I get a single tick when I open on close Nvidia control panel. Also when I right-click to open a shortcut or any .exe files I get a delay and single tick, but I managed to solve this problem by deleting some registry files.

I managed to get rid of the noise temporary when I launch an application that uses Nvidia GPU. While the application is running opening or closing Nvidia control panel does not make the ticking noise and using throttle stop to monitor gpu temp also works without the noise. However if I close the application the noise returns.

I know it is related to nvidia GPU and its drivers, but I have had my P151EM for a year and I haven't had this problem until recently. Does anyone know how to stop the ticking noise?

 

The same issue was being discussed here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/715926-sager-np9150-optimus-clicking-noise-3.html

We arrived on the conclusion that it was harmless and caused by switching from the HD4000 to the discrete nvidia GPU. Upon opening programs, the Nvidia GPU checks to see if the software requires the discrete or integrated graphics thus causing the click. When you have the nvidia software open or are monitoring it's temperature, the Nvidia card stays on thus you only hear the initial click. As soon as you close these programs, the GPU will shut off again.

This is all part of Optimus and shouldn't cause any problems or issues. But be aware of it when using battery power as attempting to monitor the Nvidia GPU temperatures will actually cause it to turn on and drain battery instead of just using the HD4000.

 

Don't bother with it... Sound comes from DC-DC switching coils, replacement won't remove it (after several tries you can get one that is slightly better, but it could start doing it again anyway).
Just sort out continuous switching of GPU on-off, because doing this every several seconds stresses out the power supply components. You don't need to monitor GPU temps when you are not using it, trying to check its temps will just needlessly switch it on and off (making it hotter due to continuous re-initialization).

 

Depends where you got it from? I paid an extra £5 in the UK (from PCSpecialist) and they extend the 12 month warranty to include collect and return, and for £70 they double it to 2 years warranty with 2 years collect and return...... worth every penny in my eyes, especially with the higher end kit, not because its more expensive but I find they're more likely to have problems.....

 

Thanks for the info.

For me the ticking noise just started just to become audible recently (not sure if it was there to begin with). It was driving me crazy trying to figure out the source of the noise. I thought it was coming from the HDD. Now that I know that it's not an isolated case, what's causing the noise, and a way to stop it gives me a little relieve.

Can anyone explain why the ticking noise just started to become audible after a year of owning my computer?

 

Because if you keep GPU switch on and off every second, after thousands of cycles the switching coil becomes more "loose", so it becomes more audible.
Though I doubt its always completely inaudible, its always *somewhat* chirping, but it should be normally very quiet - enough to not hear it if fans are on.

 

An update for anyone who is having this problem.

I ended up learning to live with the noise, since Ingvarr kindly explained the problem and basically said nothing can be done to fix it. However I've recently updated my GPU driver to 320.49 and I couldn't get my third-party plugin to work in Photoshop Lightroom so I had to revert back to the previous driver that I was using. Although this time I couldn't get rid of the noise and the delay that happen every time when I right click trying to run a program.

I ended up going through many drivers trying to find one that lets me use my plugin in Lightroom and at the same time allows me get rid of the noise that occasionally emanate from the laptop. In the end I unexpectedly found that version 304.48 completely got rid of the noise for me. Now there is no noise even when I launch and close Nvidia control panel or when I run an application that uses of the graphic switching. I don't know what exactly was causing it the noise to appear and disappear, but I tried pretty hard to listen for the noise and I couldn't hear anything when the switch was happening. I am happy about this finding and I'd like to share with anyone else who might be having to same problem with the noise.