City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

PC Fan Noisy but ONLY when Running CoH

Call Me Awesome

By Call Me Awesome,
Posted on: 2010-09-03 14:15 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs

 

Posted

Okay so here is a doozy that I need guidance on so any help will be gratefully received.

I recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit on my PC and I am really happy with it however since I have changed the OS (from XP 32 bit) when I play CoH my fans are really noisy.

I do not have this problem with any other games and can run the likes of LOTRO, Disciples 3 and Left 4 Dead 2 with maxed out graphic settings and it runs smoothly and quietly. I ONLY get this issue with CoH I do run it in Ultra mode but it is not maxed. I have tried reducing the settings to the lowest and it still is very noisy.

The spec of my machine is Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, DX11, Intel Core Duo CPU @3.00Ghz (2 CPUs), 4GB RAM, 400 GB Hard Drive, Nvidia GTS 250 1 GB RAM, a Sharkoon box with a large side panel fan, water cooling system and a couple of internal fans. I have checked temperatures and it runs between 38-45 degrees tops.

Any ideas?



 

Posted

Exactly which fans are noisy? GPU or CPU, and which is 38-45?

 

Posted

  • Both CPU's average at 38-45 degrees each with core #1 fractionally lower.
  • Hard drive is a little lower at 35-37 degrees.
  • GPU runs on average at 45-50 degrees.

It is very difficult to tell which fan is making the loudest noise - when I have taken the side off it is definitely not the side panel fan. So am sure it is one of the internal fans - if I had to name one I would say the CPU fan.



 

Posted

Well, first off I'd suggest the following:

Get a can of compressed air
Turn off the machine
Open the side panel

Using something to prevent the fan from spinning (finger, pencil or whatnot blow out the dust bunnies from the CPU heat sink.

Repeat the above on the GPU heat sink making sure not to let the fan spin.

Check and make sure no wires are touching any fans.

*Note - make sure you hold the can upright or you'll get some VERY cold liquid spraying out*

That's good preventive maintenance in any case; I'd guess that COH is pushing the machine a bit and it's having to ramp up the RPM's on the fans. If the problem continues you'll need to figure out which fan is the loud one and replace it. Fortunately fans are pretty cheap.

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

CoX has always run extremely hot for me and stressed the hardware 100% across my various computers. :< Sad, but nothing you can do.

This game is just a poorly-optimized sack of Hardware Killer(TM).

Sadly, I cannot give examples of other things I've played over the years at max settings without maxing hardware usage or close to maxing operating temperature because of the new forum rules.

Oh! This runs as bad as the Sega MMOs for PC.

 

Posted

Yeah, that's about my only gripe with this game. For the visual quality level, hardware gets taxed far harder than any other, much higher visual quality game I play.

I will say that my vid card rarely gets 100% usage in the game since the coding doesn't take full advantage of said hardware, nor does it max my CPU due to quad core, but there's relatively few games on the market that are that multi-threaded at this point.

To the OP - until you can find what actual fan is spinning up, not much can be done. I purposely ramp up my vid card to about 65% fan speed and have my case fans/CPU fan ramp up on their own. With 4 120mm fans, 2 140mm fans, and a triple 40mm setup on my ram, I rarely if ever hear any fan other than that of my GPU.

You could also use whatever hardware monitoring software came with your mainboard and see which fan is ramping up, and maybe change it's settings (At full blast, I only allow my fans 10.0V as I'm never hot enough to need them at 100%).

Pinnacle server

just another random dude

 

Posted

This game shouldn't be killing a quad-core, but it will eat any mobile GPU at high settings. Tear into its soul. :<

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Coming_Storm View Post
This game shouldn't be killing a quad-core, but it will eat any mobile GPU at high settings. Tear into its soul. :<
No problems so far with my old workstation laptop with a Core2Duo and 7950M. Over 3 years now and it still runs like a top... it's a beast to lug around though (10lbs of laptop & 5lbs of power supply)

Obviously it doesn't give the results of my QuadCore desktop running a 275GTX on dual 24" monitors but it's nice on the road... once it's sitting on the desk anyway

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

 

Posted

Thanks for the advice I had a feeling it was the optimisation issue for an old game

I am generally pretty house proud and clean the PC regularly of dust. Will pay special attention around the CPU. But I might play around with some fan settings and see if that produces any tangible benefit. Will keep you posted!

Thanks again.



 

Posted

Just chiming in: I get incredible GPU fan spin-up on my new XPS Studio 8100 when I'm zoned in COH. (ATI 5770 1gb, i7 proc, 8GB RAM on Win7 64-bit). There's a nice ATI core monitor you can get as a widget that I used to watch my fan spin up. Goes from around 1350rpm idle to almost double that when actually zoned in.