Strange noise coming from pc tower!

Every time i run a standalone .exe file that i create with unity3d i hear a strange noise/buzz coming from the pc tower and not the speakers.. I have not experienced this with any other game or application..

I am using unity 3 and this happens in either full screen or windowed.

Anyone have an idea of what might be wrong ?

 

This will be the fan on your CPU or graphics card running. It's probably broken or faulty, and I would guess the reason you're hearing it is because your game is thrashing the CPU or graphics card more than it should be.

 

hey man thnx for reply.
i play lots of games and this doesnt happen in any of them.. just in unity and its just a test scene with only a cube inside...
when i compile the game in web player this doesnt happen.. only in standalone
also the pc is new.. isnt there anything else ?

 

Sounds crazy to me. Try opening task manager and looking at the CPU usage, or using an app to monitor CPU/GPU temperature and fan speeds. Nothing should be making a noise like that in your computer, and the only thing that would is fans. Fans tend to speed up when the thing they're cooling is under a heavy load. Try running a benchmarking program like 3dmark (or whatever people use these days) that stresses the computer and graphics card and see if that also causes the problem.

 

its not a fan.. i used speedfan and maxed out all fans... they were making normal noise.. not a buzz like i have told u..
weird indeed...

 

Then I'm out of ideas. Unplug your speakers (from both the computer and the power source) and see if that helps. Try downloading some games written in Unity and see if they do the same.

If Unity really is capable of making strange noises emanate from inside your computer then I'm impressed, and I wish I could make it do that.

 

Hi, porvas20,

I bet the sound comes from your graphics card. With such a simple scene the GPU can draw a very big amount of images in little time, there's nothing it must wait for; this causes a lot of stress on it, and a buzz from some component working too hard (I'm not sure if that could be the fan, I think it's some other component).

Try reducing the image drawing speed of the GPU, and see if the noise is reduced or disappears. You can do it in many ways, for example:

- Activate "Sync To VBL", from "Edit --> Project Settings --> Quality" (inside each one of the quality presets). With this option the images per second will match the vertical refresh rate of your monitor, so if it is, for example, 75 hz, the GPU will be limited to drawing 75 images each second (that's the maximum, will be much lower if the graphics are too complex).

- Use a more complex world. Instead of the cube, use a model with more triangles (or, much better, many models), or use some image effects in the camera (I think the "Screen Space Ambient Occlusion" is the most demanding). This way, the graphics card will be more busy with the geometry or effects, lowering the drawing speed.


What I'm not sure is why in the web player it does not happen. Maybe it's limited by default?


As an anecdote, there was a bug in Starcraft II related to this: the game didn't limit the images per second in the menus (which are very simple to draw), and some graphics cards (with insufficient cooling) overheat and died after drawing the images too fast: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/is-starcraft-ii-bad-for-your-graphics-card/3454.

Looks like it's a good idea to limit the images per second in graphically simple games or screens.

 

Indeed it certainly could be the GPU. Those fans are loud when they want to be.

 

ok thnx i ll check it out..

 

If we don't hear back from this guy, my money is on it being deadly Computer Bees.

He will be missed.

 

i run 3d mark and i again didnt hear that sound i am telling u about.. dont know what else to do. anws i ll live with it..

 

using deferred rendering and no vsync, the gpu can in theory get hotter than if it was under stress, it all depends since it isn't capped by the cpu.

 

I've had this with a few random games I was testing. First time it happened we spent hours trying to find the source of it - turns out my headphone's cord was touching my desk, which caused the sound via computer vibrations. GPU is likely the cause. GTX260

Solution : Complex the scene more. Add unnecessary commands (high batch count attached to camera, so they're always rendered). You don' hear it in most games as they either limit framerate, or too complex to reach the FPS high enough.

 

guys... the sound he talking about is not the fan or anything like that.
it's simply because he has no VSync enabled, this causing the GPU to draw 1500-2000fps and the components on the GPU are making this noise.
More exactly the voltage controller.
I had this same exact issue on my GTX560 and by simply turning on Vsync, the sound is gone.
The better your GPU is, the louder the sound will be without Vsync and it's also not healthy for the GPU, because it's a lot more stressed.

 

Was just having this problem. Turning on vsync fixed the problem for me.

 

I had the same problem and solved it by adding the below line in the Start of a script.
Application.targetFrameRate = 60;

It tells Unity to aim for 60 FPS (and is overriden by the VSync if you set it in the Quality Settings).
The default is of -1 which means go as fast as you can.

Why Unity would think it is a good idea to draw more than 60 FPS (alright 75 for some screens) and risk burning graphic cards is beyond me.

 

Because Unity cannot dictate what customers might want.

 

If your graphics card gets damaged by being used normally, it was faulty to begin with. Replace it with a unit that's not defective. Anyway, Unity is used for developing games; artificially limiting the framerate can make it harder to profile properly. Also newer monitors do 120fps and higher.

--Eric

 

Just got a new pc with a Geforce GTX 970, and the noise is quite high, the noise is almost gone if I set the game to max 500 fps.. but the more fps after that, the higher the noise is..

Do you guys think I should send it back and complain and get a new one? or will all newer gfx cards just make the same noise.. ?

 

I will reactivate this thread now. I have the exact same behaviour, that there come strange noises from the pc and from the speakers (the speakers may support the pc's noises).
I also have the feeling, that the more models I have rendered in scene the more silent the pc is. But adding random 3D models seems not like a good solution.

I tried different pcs/laptops and had the same behaviour. Some machines more louder than others.

So how do I supress this noises?

Framerate Settings, Quallity Settings?

 

My problem was "coil whine" directly from my graphic card (google it) - it is in many high-end graphic cards, normally you cant hear it because your games fps is capped at 60 fps, and theres is "alot" to render.. but games like World of Warcraft Coil Whine all the time with my card.. luckely it seems that I can get it refunded.. its a Asus Strix 970 GTX.. - Ill probably get the same card again, hopefully without coil whine..

 

Had the same problem. Turning on V-sync fixed it instantly. Cant believe that this happens on my RTX 2070 Super....

 

Oh the necroposting.

Anyway if you guys hear your CPU/GPU fans speed up, you're probably making it do lots of extra work. It happened to me when I was learning a few years ago. I had made this gorgeous scene in 2D with lighting. I started the game and went grab some coffee. When I came back, the GPU sounded like a freaking plane, even though the framerate was perfectly fine. That's when I learned about draw calls. I had at least 100 trees with double-sided illumination, which resulted in ~2500 draw calls.
Something similar could be happening in your case, Adam! I'm guessing you have too many draw calls that the GPU has no problem rendering, but the extra work makes it overheat. Limitting your framerate (with V-sync) reduces the workload on the GPU, which fixes the problem. To verify this, open the profiler (Ctrl + 7) and scroll down to "Rendering".

Games are probably the hardest piece of software you can make in terms of performance.

 

Draw calls are CPU, not GPU, and have no effect on GPU workload. Also 2500 isn't really that much. As for "I can't believe this happens on my RTX 2070", huh? Any card that's rendering an excessive number of fps is obviously going to heat up, or possibly be subject to coil whine, unless you limit the framerate in some way.

--Eric

 

It's probably related to overdraw and not draw calls. Excessive overdraw can really make your graphics card cry.

Your graphics card should not be overheating even in such extreme circumstances. The fan may spin up and turn into a jet engine, but the GPU should be kept within reasonable temperatures. This may not apply to some laptops, which can't sustain max performance and will throttle.

You are more likely to get coil whine (buzzing noise from the case) and electrical interference (buzzing noise from headphones/speakers) from higher-end cards than lower end cards, as the switching converters are passing much more current than on a lower end card.

 

Wow...Thank you. That actually solved by whining.

 

People talk about coil wine on here regarding this issue and mention sound coming from the PC or the video card -- the coils causing interference may be the issue from incredibly high refresh rates if they aren't capped, but I get no buzzing or whining sounds coming from the card itself. I *do*, however, get a very annoying buzzing whine through my amplified speakers when interacting with a scene or hitting play on a scene. This doesn't happen when I run other modern game engines-- only when I am developing in Unity. Setting the interaction mode to "Monitor Refresh Rate" in Preferences->General kills the noise for me (again which only came through my speakers, no sound at the vid card itself). I suspect Unity's scene view is just crazy fast compared to other game engine IDE's while interacting with it allowing the card to push enough interference through the system that the audio out or the audio cable picks it up.

 

Man I can't thank you enough for this reply. I was searching for hours how can I make the loudness go away. Sending big love

 

Thank you very much

 

Just doing this fixed my problem. Turn VSync on Game Window

 

yeah, it worked. Thanks. Btw, what's the deal behind this solution?

 

search for coil-whine, when v-sync is not enabled the hardware works hard and makes a weird noise called coil whine.