PC makes hissing sound under load...

[davidm71]

When I overclock and raise the voltage beyond 1.40v I start to hear a hiss coming from my board. This has limited my overclock in that I have settled on a mild OC at 1.365v where I would really like to take my e6600 to 3150 mhz at 1.42v though thats when I hear that hiss when stress testing. Is the sound anything of concern?

Thanks.

[Pengwin]

maybe a fan? i've never heard of capacitors making hissing sounds...only moving parts are HDD's or fans so its one of those things.

[davidm71]

Its not the fan. It happens under load when priming when the cpu vcore is over 1.40v. Anyone else experience this?

[Pengwin]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=po ... gle+Search

try that, only other place where hissing can come from.

[davidm71]

Someone suggested recently that its the capacitors that hiss when the voltage regulation on some particular boards isn't that great. Some have suggested its the ferrite chokes. Not sure what those are. Anyhow thats whats hissing. I just was wondering should I be concerned? Is that a normal by product of the overclocking experience and not to worry? Any hardcore overclockers out there that could shed some light?

Thanks.

[smack323]

I have never heard that hissing is a by product of overclocking. my opinion is that isnt a good thing.

[Pengwin]

Someone suggested recently that its the capacitors that hiss when the voltage regulation on some particular boards isn't that great. Some have suggested its the ferrite chokes. Not sure what those are. Anyhow thats whats hissing. I just was wondering should I be concerned? Is that a normal by product of the overclocking experience and not to worry? Any hardcore overclockers out there that could shed some light?

Thanks.

no. there should be no hissing...some wirring of the fans but no hissing. Capacitors are essentially batteries, i've never head of a battery hissing, maybe a "hummmmmm" from the amount of electricity but no hiss.

[davidm71]

Its not a hiss but more like an 'ssss' sound when the cpu is working or when an app is loading. Maybe its normal but who the hell knows...
I read a review a while back on my motherboard and the reviewer noticed the same thing. So lets put this up to a vote. Should I push
my cpu to 3150 mhz (350x9) from 2800mhz (350x8) overclock where the norm is 2400mhz (266x9)?

Thanks.

[Skippman]

This sounds like a long shot but does your board have heat pipes?

[davidm71]

I believe it does. Its an Abit IN9-32X board. I'm already running at 350mhz fsb easy, just my multiplier is lowered to protect the cpu from the high volts it would need
which is approx 1.42 volts to get it stable. I have a Thermalright ultra 120 heatsink on it and temps are good. Its just that ssss sound that scares me...

Thanks.

[Pengwin]

Its not a hiss but more like an 'ssss' sound when the cpu is working or when an app is loading. Maybe its normal but who the hell knows...
I read a review a while back on my motherboard and the reviewer noticed the same thing. So lets put this up to a vote. Should I push
my cpu to 3150 mhz (350x9) from 2800mhz (350x8) overclock where the norm is 2400mhz (266x9)?

Thanks.

gonna say its the hard drive.

my final word on overclocking. Will it really make that big of a difference? Will things load 10x faster? Will it even be noticeable? Is it worth rising short term or long term reliability/durability? For me, the answers to all of these are a resounding "NO", that said a mild overclock is harmless but also doesnt do anything for performance.

[Skippman]

I believe it does. Its an Abit IN9-32X board. I'm already running at 350mhz fsb easy, just my multiplier is lowered to protect the cpu from the high volts it would need
which is approx 1.42 volts to get it stable. I have a Thermalright ultra 120 heatsink on it and temps are good. Its just that ssss sound that scares me...

Thanks.

If it does try listening to the heat pipes themselves. Maybe you're hearing the liquid expanding or moving through the pipes. When you start overclocking it might be heading up the liquid enough that it makes noise. Thats my WAG.

[Bio-Hazard]

I had to RMA a XFX 680 board for exactly the same reason, it was determined by the XFX techs to be bad caps.

[stev]

My MSI LGA-775 board died at the end of last year. The caps were hissing for a few months while under load doing F@H for weeks on end.

While away, my son mentioned that the hissing stopped suddenly one night and in moments he heard a big pop. Next, a burning electrical smell filled the room. My son power everything down quickly.

If you do a google search about motherboard caps, you would be surprised to learn a good deal.

[davidm71]

That pretty much blows. I don't want my caps blowing up on me thats for sure. But as far as the performance increase from
this mild overclock I think its enough at 2800mhz 350fsb to make a difference. I'm pretty sure I've helped loosen the SLI
CPU constriction a little and my benches are up probably 10 percent. I've looked at Tom's hardware vga charts and compared
a cpu at 266mhz fsb to 333 fsb at the same frequency and there is a ten percent increase in fps. To me thats substantial.
But I'm already window shopping for a new board.

I think the i7 950 D0 stepping cpu paired with a quality motherboard along with my 8800gtx's should open up some performance.
I like the rampage extreme boards and the i7 Asus workstation boards. Also like the layout of the evga classified board but it
kind of looks like a toy. I want to make sure that this time round my next board is all quality....

Thanks.

[cardnyl]

I didn't see any mention of it but I can say from experience that I've seen PSU's make noise when an app is running that causes hard drive activity. The sound is timed perfectly to the seek noises the drive makes. Another thing I've seen is PSU's that make noise when the system is powered off but still plugged into a wall but this noise is usually a high pitch whine rather than a hiss noise.

[davidm71]

With my particular case my hard drives are in another time zone so I can kind of hear it coming from the cpu area. So in my case I can tell you its not the hard drives and I'm pretty sure its not the psu...

Doesn't matter - not going to risk a super overclock anyhow.

Thanks.

[martini161]

good luck getting any support or an RMA from abit. me and skier have tried to tried, and its better not to even go there.

[werty316]

I get a hissing sound from my board when I auto fan control is enabled regardless if there is a fan installed on a fan header. Turning off auto fan control made the hissing noise vanish.