I think I have a lazy video card. Issue: I hear a high pitched electricity-like noise (possibly capacitor issue?) coming from the second GPU of the XFX 7990 video card. The noise is directly related to the amount of stress on the second GPU (or around that area). During moments of low frame rates, the noise pulses with every line . frame the card needs to render. Need to know what I can do to fix it. Things I know so far: 1) It's 100% not anything related to the fans / cooling. Noise completely goes away the moment you stop running 3dMark or go into the menu of any game. Noise immediately starts again when you leave the menu. I can actually make music from going in and out of menus. 2) It's not temperature related. Both GPU's are around 69*C idle and 90*c max load for 4 hours. Messing with fan speeds has no relation. 3) It's not a PSU issue since card does the same exact thing on another PSU I tried. I have a 1000W PSU (Cooler Master Gold) powering it so it has definitely enough juice and the PSU handled my friend's Titan with ease. 4) Swapping out the card with another one eliminates the issue completely so it's not the mobo, CPU or any other component. 5) Taking off the cooler revealed nothing. All capacitors are where they should be, nothing is broken / fried, GPU's have good thermal paste applied and good contact is made with the heatsink. 6) Changing the PCI Exp slot does nothing as well. Even tried running it at PCI-E gen 1 4x, no difference. 7) The card was never OC'd, the entire system is running on stock speeds. 8) There is no noise when only stressing the first GPU. It's 100% in the second GPU area (furthest from the display connectors). 9) ULPS is already disabled and am running the latest drivers. Also, the card performs flawlessly in all tests. No BSODs, crashes or otherwise. Since the card is an XFX, I still have the manufacturer warranty on it so I can send it in to them. Would like to try all other alternatives before I do that.
