Pc too loud?

[vlatko]

hy all!!
i recently bought myself a new pc, after succesfully saving up for almost 5 years :approve: , and i'm quite pleased with it.

my specs are the following:
abit an8 sli
amd sempron 3500+ (venice core)
1Gb DDRAM
Gainward GeForce 6600 GT 128 MB 128 Bit high-speed DDR 3 memory "Golden Sample"

i'm actually a newbie in "high end" pc's, i'm not even sure if my pc qualifies as a "high end" pc. what i'd like to know is this. i noticed when i start up the pc it's not loud at all, it's pretty silent, i can do everything it's still silent. but when i load up a game, the noise becomes much louder. it's like it shifted into 7th gear. and when i exit the game it's still loud. if i shut down or restart it's once again back to being silent.

as i said i'm pretty new with this so i'd like to know if that's normal? i'm afraid that there's something wrong with my new baby...

 

[DonNagual]

It's hard to say without hearing it for myself, but you may have a faulty fan somewhere in your computer. Can you open up your case and try to identify where the noise is coming from? Does the extra noise you are hearing sound like it could be a fan?

Another possibility would be your optical drive (cd drive or dvd drive)....

 

[Jaquio]

mmm... it could be the Optical Drive... if its loading stuff from a dIsc... (not a full installed game)...

it coulde be dusty fans too...

 

[0blivious]

if the hard drive isn't secured it may make a big fuss when something loads

 

[vlatko]

Well it's not the optical drive as all games are played directly from the hard drive.

I think I may have found the reason of the noise. I have installed the "uGuru" utility that cam along with my motherboard cd. I opened the "OC guru" for overclocking and looked around. I found there are 7 presets to choose from.
I didn't mess with anything as I really don't get these things. default was turned on and the settings are these, look attachments.

and when I turn on any of the predefined settings, normal, quiet, turbo, the pc becomes a lot quiter!! here are the pics of all the "predefined" settings. is it safe to use any of them? if so which do you suggest?

 

[DonNagual]

I think it is safe to assume it is one of your fans. Could be your CPU fan, or chipset fan (if you have one) or a case fan.

It is hard to say if the level of noise you are getting is normal or not, as we can't hear it (obviously). Sometimes fans do go bad though, and when this happens they can be extremely loud. If your noise is being caused by a bad fan as I suspect, then you need to find out which one it is and replace it. It could be a sign that the fan is dying, and if that happens, it could lead to overheating and potentially frying some of your system.

Using those presets above changes your systems speed which causes your system to produce less/more heat depending on the setting. This will also affect the fan speeds (this is why the noise level is changing), but will not fix the fan. If you are unable to find which fan it is, you may want to consider taking it in to a pro before it's too late.

 

[vlatko]

well i doubt anything's broken as it is a completely new pc, less than 10 days. i used the uGuru utility to enable "FanEQ" and set it to normal. now everything is fine and really quiet. by default that option was disabled, and the CPU fan could be heard, now it's practically noiseless. is it safe for this option to be enabled? bare with me, i'm really new to this stuff.

this is what the uGuru manual says: "the FanEQ intelligently and automatically adjusts CPU fan speed according to system load and temperature. It lowers fan speed when CPU and chipset temperature is decreased due to lighter system load, ensuring a quiet computing enviroment. Accompanied with the almost noiseless enviroment is the eager for more power saving, performance increasing, and easing off CPU loading."

so can i leave it on?

 

[DonNagual]

I don't think this changes anything from my post above. As I can not hear the noise you are talking about, I don't know how loud the noise is and whether or not it is an acceptable level.

But my hunch is, if it is enough to make you complain, then you have a dying fan on your motherboard/case/video card/cpu.... somewhere. REGARDLESS of the fact that it is a new computer. My chipset fan on my motherboard died 2 weeks after I bought it. These things happen.

Either

a) you are oversensitive to the noise and there is actually no problem, or
b) you have a fan somewhere that is dying. If it stops completely your system will be at risk of overheating.


........... or "c", none of the above without actually hearing your system, I can only guess from what you have said. But the fact that it gets loud when your system is stressed and quiet again when your system is idle sounds like a fan issue. The question is, is the level of noise acceptable, or is it a dead fan. Without hearing for myself, I can only guess.

Turning on the FanEQ will help if the problem above is "a", and it will temporarily fix the problem if it is "b".

 

[vegasgmc]

Most 6600GT fans are extremely loud. I put a Zalman cooler on one and its completely silent now and runs almost 10*c cooler.

 

[vlatko]

well thanks for all your trouble donNagual, and all the others of course, a techie came early this morning and said there is no problem at all, that is the normal sound. and i can use to the FanEQ to lessen the noise.

so i guess it was option "a" all along. once again sorry for your trouble, i guess i am a little oversensitive with my new pc.

 

[DonNagual]

You do have some options to quiet things down. I too am quite sensitive to noise and like a quiet system. You can buy third party fans to quiet things down (like vegasgmc has mentioned above) or you can buy cases that have sound dampeners built into them, like this one for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811129154