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xXtjaXx2000's avatar
xXtjaXx2000
7 years ago

My GPU makes weird noises while The Sims 3 is running

Hi there.

I recently felt the need to play The Sims 3 again. I haven't played the game for 2 years. The first two days were just fine. On the third one, my GPU started making some high pitched noises and the fan went crazy.

Since then, I observed the temperatures of my PC via MSI Afterburner and the RPM of the GPU's fan via Radeon Overlay. The GPU was always being used at around 80%, the CPU just around 30%. The fan's RPM is going hardmode everytime I start the game. It increases up to 2150 RPM + and the temperature was always around 65°C. I stopped right there since I am not an expert and I would love keeping my PC for a few years longer. 

I started changing the settings of the GPU but still no changes to the noise. I also recorded the noise which will be

uploaded here: https://vocaroo.com/i/s183zgh15tNb . (The background noise is the fan going nuts)

My Specs are:

GPU: Radeon RX 580

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600X Six-Core Processor

If there are more things you need to help me, please let me know. The PC is running just fine, as long as I am not playing The Sims 3. Even other games are no problem to play.

Edit: Tried opening the game again to try out more and it just happened to work without giving my ears a tinnitus. Not sure what I actually did. I would still be glad if someone else had actually knowingly solved this problem and would be kind enough to share his/her/"Insert your own custom gender pronoun right here" to help me out here. Thanks

pc
technical issues

2 Replies

  • puzzlezaddict's avatar
    puzzlezaddict
    Hero+
    7 years ago

    @xXtjaXx2000  My guess would be that your graphics card was overworking itself generating excessively high frame rates.  TS3's fps limiter doesn't work, or at least I've never heard of it working, and powerful cards like yours can throw rates well into the hundreds if not manually capped.  You can see your in-game rates by bringing up the cheats console (crtl-shift-c) and entering "fps on" without quotes; a number will appear in the upper right corner of your screen.  ("fps off" makes it go away.)  That number should never go above the refresh rate of your monitor.

    If you're seeing higher rates, you'll need to cap them to protect your card.  I believe that MSI Afterburner has a built-in fps limiter, although I use RivaTuner Statistics Server myself.  (I also have an AMD card.)  If you're not sure what the refresh rate of your monitor is, you can always cap fps at 60, and you won't notice a difference, at least with TS3.  When setting up the profile for the game, use TS3.exe for an Origin install, or TS3w.exe (with the "w") for a disc or Steam install.

    If the issue isn't your fps, please run a dxdiag and attach the results to a post here (use the Browse button).

    https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/pc/how-to-gather-dxdiag-information/

  • roberta591's avatar
    roberta591
    Hero (Retired)
    7 years ago

    @xXtjaXx2000    If you haven't used the computer for some time for gaming there may be dust in the video card fan. You really need to check the computer for dust in all the fans. If the fans seem to be working make sure they are able to turn at proper speeds. The fans should turn free (while the computer is powered down). If there is the slightest resistance either replace the fan or access the shaft bearing and give it a small amount of sewing machine oil (light grade machine oil). Sleeve bearing do this over time when the oil gets contaminated and gums up. While oiling the bearing may work for a while I recommend replacing the fan. The fans are usually cheap and must are usually easy to replace. A can of air would be good to blow the dust out of the heat sinks. Make sure there is nothing touching the fan blade.

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