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I recently built a computer and everything works fine, the only issue I have is with one of the fans. One of the fans is super "bursty" every 2 seconds or so it will "burst" and rev way up and then back down. this happens, a lot. I can't tell whether its the CPU fan or the gfx card fan but, I've done no overclocking, and all the stuff is at stock settings. Anyone able to help, this is kinda irritating.

The easiest way to tell which one it is is to take a look inside the case & see which one it is. The other way is to get some fan monitoring utility & keep an eye on it. You could even just go into your BIOS & the hardware monitoriong section should have a listing of the speed of your fans that are plugged in.

I initially read this topic as "Busty fan". I cannot begin to explain to you the disappointment I felt when I realized I had misread the first word.

It's not uncommon for gfx cards to exhibit this kind of behavior. I'm assuming that you might be exaggerating a bit by saying 2 seconds, but because of the short time it takes for heat to build up it's certainly possible it's just doing it's job. Setting it to a higher fixed speed is the common fix at the sacrifice of comfort to those that like silence.

2 seconds might be an exaggeration, 5 seconds is not it's an extremely cyclical thing that repeats very frequently . I'm inclined to believe its the graphics card, because when I play a game or something, there is no stopping and starting of the fan rather just a constant "whirr". Really I wouldn't care so much if it were constantly on high or something, its just the slowing down and speeding up again that's quite irritating. Typically only is an issue when I boot up the computer, then after playing a game or something graphically intensive its gone.

What graphics card do you have? I'm not sure but iirc current CCC allows you to set the fan higher. If not there are plenty of workarounds. You can explore rivatuner, and other software options. You can also just remove the power plug for the fan from the graphics card and plug it directly to the power supply although you'll need to have the proper fitting adapter.

I have a radeon 4890, speaking of issues, for some reason on the front panel of my case the audio jack has a very noticable hiss/crackle. It's not apparent on audio port on the motherboard. It's incredibly irritating as everytime I scroll with my mouse I hear some bizarre crackling sound, I've read that it might be caused by electromagnetic interference, but I didn't see any easy way to resolve it. For reference my case is an antec 300, thanks if you can help

rkb2948 wrote:

I have a radeon 4890, speaking of issues, for some reason on the front panel of my case the audio jack has a very noticable hiss/crackle. It's not apparent on audio port on the motherboard. It's incredibly irritating as everytime I scroll with my mouse I hear some bizarre crackling sound, I've read that it might be caused by electromagnetic interference, but I didn't see any easy way to resolve it. For reference my case is an antec 300, thanks if you can help

My solution to potential problems like that was to use a splitter right out of my sound card that goes to headphones and to my speakers. I just turn down the headphones when i'm not using them to prevent wear. The effects on sound quality are very small.

I was looking for something more of a permanent fix; what you had suggested would definitely work, though it is kind of avoiding the problem. I read somewhere that a ferrite core might around the cable might help, any thoughts?

The induction may not be around the cord, it's possible that it is even in the board. I remember someones statement that motheboards are many less layers than they used to be.

Scrotos wrote:

I initially read this topic as "Busty fan". I cannot begin to explain to you the disappointment I felt when I realized I had misread the first word.

This thread seriously needs, at the very VERY least, a link to a nice looking busty woman. With cleavage.... When I say nice I don't mean Church nice.

In plugging my headphones into the back there is still static to be had when nothing is playing. Although its significantly less than what I was hearing on the front. Is this indicative of a bad motherboard? By the way it's a P55-CD53.

Gerbil Jedidiah wrote:

Scrotos wrote:

I initially read this topic as "Busty fan". I cannot begin to explain to you the disappointment I felt when I realized I had misread the first word.

This thread seriously needs, at the very VERY least, a link to a nice looking busty woman. With cleavage.... When I say nice I don't mean Church nice.

LMFAO..... Don't make me whip out the photoshop..... a busty woman with a gfx card in her cleavage, would be fitting in this case ahaha.

Anyhow...... the 48XX's were known to be very loud and annoying. Your best bet is to use the CCC to change your fan speed to manual... then find a speed % you find comfortable to your ears (60% or whatever). Then run Furmark to see how hot your GFX card gets, if its top temp is within reasonable ranges then just leave it as is. The only time you will hear the fan do the variable speed thing is when your booting up, it will do that a few times, this is normal. The other possiblity is that you have a sensor on that card that is reporting erroneously to the speed controller, so it can't make up its mind whether its hot or not.

As for your audio, what motherboard are you using? I'd doubt its really the motherboard if you don't notice it from the rear ports although the board itself could be made cheaply enough not to add another layer to prevent electromagnetic interference. More than likely its a poorly shielded cable that runs to your front ports. You can look around to see if you can find that same cable for sale (unless the end with the audio ports are soldered on instead of plugged in). If you find them for sale look for one that appears to be much thicker and if it says anything about the type of shielding it has, go for some nice ones if you want to eliminate it. AND if you can't find one, the cheap fix and the first thing you should try... run the cable a different route through the case trying to keep it away from some of the heavy duty items like Video card, processor, ect... these devices put off the most electrical "noise". In fact for your system to attempt to generate random numbers it will actually use a Pseudo Random Number Generator on the board that reads this type of noise to come up with "random numbers" that are needed for certain purposes, since a computer cannot technically be completely random.... interesting stuff.

Welch wrote:

... these devices put off the most electrical "noise". In fact for your system to attempt to generate random numbers it will actually use a Pseudo Random Number Generator on the board that reads this type of noise to come up with "random numbers" that are needed for certain purposes, since a computer cannot technically be completely random.... interesting stuff.

Not quite right. Systems that use noise can produce true random numbers. Most computers do not read, store, and use this data; instead, their programs rely on PRNGs, which are purely deterministic algorithms that generate a list of different-seeming numbers, once initialized with a seed number (typically the time). Via's CPUs have special-purpose hardware for reading and storing noise.

Computers are only deterministic within the theoretical model of computation, but the noise comes from their physical implementation, which is outside this model.


As for the problem of the bursty fan, the problem is the thermal thresholds. I don't know how to change them, but basically, you have to set the "high speed" threshold higher. If I were you, I would just RMA the part as defective. If you open the case and watch it should be pretty obvious which fan is cycling. For all you know this could be caused by bad contact between a chip and heatsink that will ultimately lead to thermal failure.

Saber Cherry wrote:

Welch wrote:

... these devices put off the most electrical "noise". In fact for your system to attempt to generate random numbers it will actually use a Pseudo Random Number Generator on the board that reads this type of noise to come up with "random numbers" that are needed for certain purposes, since a computer cannot technically be completely random.... interesting stuff.

Not quite right. Systems that use noise can produce true random numbers. Most computers do not read, store, and use this data; instead, their programs rely on PRNGs, which are purely deterministic algorithms that generate a list of different-seeming numbers, once initialized with a seed number (typically the time). Via's CPUs have special-purpose hardware for reading and storing noise.

Computers are only deterministic within the theoretical model of computation, but the noise comes from their physical implementation, which is outside this model.


As for the problem of the bursty fan, the problem is the thermal thresholds. I don't know how to change them, but basically, you have to set the "high speed" threshold higher. If I were you, I would just RMA the part as defective. If you open the case and watch it should be pretty obvious which fan is cycling. For all you know this could be caused by bad contact between a chip and heatsink that will ultimately lead to thermal failure.

PRNGs are not completely random because they do, as you said yourself, use a seed number. In addition to the fact that these random noise readings can come from a repetitive electromagnetic sources. I'd have to cite the exact chapter/page of the book but you can find this information in "Silence on the Wire" by Michal Zalewski. Something tells me you've already read this though

Welch wrote:

Gerbil Jedidiah wrote:

Scrotos wrote:

I initially read this topic as "Busty fan". I cannot begin to explain to you the disappointment I felt when I realized I had misread the first word.

This thread seriously needs, at the very VERY least, a link to a nice looking busty woman. With cleavage.... When I say nice I don't mean Church nice.

LMFAO..... Don't make me whip out the photoshop..... a busty woman with a gfx card in her cleavage, would be fitting in this case ahaha.

You could always just watch the video with the chick in it from this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=69858

That's a quick fix, at least!

Jesus... I don't get the big deal about the video... yes she has got some knockers... what about it ..... There are knockers everywhere *shrug* what makes hers anymore amazing than the next... with the exception of my girlfriends

His hormones are probably running too high. I'm not a chest guy anyway. Show me the rest, particularly useful orifices.

Heiwashin wrote:

His hormones are probably running too high.

Now why would you think someone named Scrotos is over-testosteronated? :lol:

LMFAO........ You know we are pushing the envelope of the TR posting rules..... Still yet, not crossing over the line but merely standing on it proves to be quite hilarious (until border control starts shooting live rounds at you).

You never answered back Saber... Have you read the book? If not it sounds like something you would really enjoy.

Right... so, in messing with ATI CCC panel thing it's definitely the graphics card. I was watching it, it cycles from about 52% fan speed, then drops to zero, then back to 52%, then to zero, and so on. I used the auto tune feature and overclocked it (10 MHZ on the GPU and 75 MHZ on the Memory Clock) it set the fan speed at 62% which is fine to me just so long as it isn't whirling up and down. Though once the computer goes to sleep, the fan gets back to its usual up and down action. At idle its 42C, is that high or low for merely idling with just about nothing graphically intensive going on?


And with reference to the audio, I have some slight static on the back panel, though not nearly as much as the front panel. I thought about rerouting the cable for the audio, but it is just barely long enough as it is, I go from one corner of the case the the opposite corner, there is very little slack on it.

Welch wrote:

You never answered back Saber... Have you read the book? If not it sounds like something you would really enjoy.

Nope, I have not, I just do a lot of work with random number generators. Maybe I'll look at it.

Saber Cherry wrote:

Welch wrote:

You never answered back Saber... Have you read the book? If not it sounds like something you would really enjoy.

Nope, I have not, I just do a lot of work with random number generators. Maybe I'll look at it.

You should, its a great book and from the sounds of it something you would enjoy. I will warn you... at some point the author does go almost too much into detail, something i love but some seem to say they just want him to "GET TO THE POINT"... GL

Now, this is what I think of when I see "bursty fan":



From my Fortron FSP530 PSU. Fan exploded when it ramped up to a higher speed during a game. *CRACK*