Radeon 6970 loud

[G-sus]

I built a rig for my girlfriend a while ago, I put a 6970 in it, worked fine for couple months, then started making a lot more noise than it used to. It's now louder than my 5970. I've disassembled it, cleaned it all out, changed the thermal compound and everything, but it didn't change a thing, it's still just as loud.

Full system specs are as follow:

AMD FX-8350 @ stock cooled by a Arctic Freezer A30
Asus Sabertooth 990fx r2.0
2x8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz
Sapphire Radeon 6970 BFBC2 Edition
OCZ ZT 750W PSU
OCZ Vertex 4 128GB SSD
WD Black 500GB HDD
Fractal Define R4 White Window case

I have 2 140mm intake fans in the front, doesn't matter if they're at 5V or 12V, doesn't make a blind bit of difference to the card. I'm a bit puzzled as to why it's getting louder when it worked fine just a while back.

 

[Dicehunter]

Is the card overclocked ?
Maybe the fan profile needs setting ?

 

[G-sus]

The card has not been overclocked, I'm using afterburner to control my fans and the profile is set to the same as before when it wasn't as loud.

 

[Dicehunter]

The only 2 other things I can think of at the moment are an increase in voltage or the airflow to the card is getting restricted somehow

 

[alienware]

Sounds like the bearing is on its way out.

 

[Xenomorphical]

Is it loud right away when you turn on the pc or does it start after some time (the card heating up)?

Have you tried manually messing with the fan speed in afterburner to see if you can get the sound normal again or doesnt it even respond to that?

Have you tried uninstalling afterburner and reinstalling it? (with reboots in between).

Mayebe a windows, videocard or afterburner update borked the fan control settings see.

 

[Kei]

It sounds just like me 6950. (which ironically is a sapphire too) It used to idle at about 50 and max out around 80. This changed at some point and for no apparent reason it idled in the 70's (no gpu usage) and under load it was at 93. (cleaning and reseating the cooler more than once made no difference) Since changing to watercooling, it now idles around 38 and maxes out at 57.

 

[G-sus]

Sounds like the bearing is on its way out.

It's not a bearing noise, it just spins faster to keep it cool.
Airflow is fine, tried without side panel.

 

[jamesriley94]

Could be filled with dust I suppose?

Maybe take the cooler off and give it a clean.

 

[Dicehunter]

Could get a 3rd party cooler ?

 

[G-sus]

Could be filled with dust I suppose?

Maybe take the cooler off and give it a clean.

I cleaned it, took it all apart, cleaned every single bit.
The problem is that the fan spins up to keep the temps down, it's getting hotter for some reason. Idles just fine at around 45, just like before. It's only under load.

 

[Dicehunter]

Could always get the Gelid Solutions Icy Vision Graphics Card Cooler, a friend of mine has it on both of his 6970's and swears by it.

 

[G-sus]

I would probably rather upgrade the card altogether, but I'm still puzzled as to what caused the card to get hotter.

 

[alienware]

I would probably rather upgrade the card altogether, but I'm still puzzled as to what caused the card to get hotter.

Have you scanned for mining viruses? looked at the load it's under with a monitoring app?

 

[G-sus]

Have you scanned for mining viruses? looked at the load it's under with a monitoring app?

Haven't scanned, but it's under normal load, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[FTR.4500MHz]

Maybe a thermal paste problem ??? (too much, not enough)

 

[alienware]

If this isn't down to something like drivers or something in Windows using the card then the only other thing I can possibly think of is that the PCB has warped and it's making poor contact with the heatsink.

 

[G-sus]

It's getting worse, I removed the cooler again, seems to be good contact, but it's still getting hot. I don't think this has anything to do with the cooler itself. Any way the pcb could have warped if it never overheated?