Audible noises from ga-x79-ud7 MOSFETs, is my board damaged?

[charlweed]

With the F6 and F7 BIOS, my Gigabyte ga-x79-ud7 made clearly audible sounds. I have F8 now, and I'm going to test again with my stethoscope.

 

The sounds came from the two rows of black cubes in-between the CPU and the heat-pipe riser. The sounds were loudest with heavy graphics card use, but are noticeable with any significant IO load, including USB devices. The sounds are as loud as conversation, (30-60db at one meter on my sound level meter). The sounds are similar to hisses, squeals, squeaks, scratches and ticks.

 

My question now is if I should just RMA or return the board. I want to overclock it, but I don't expect to ever have a stable system if the power regulators are fried.

[Hondacity]

The loud squeaking sound is from the chokes. It should squeak if the phase doubler is controlling it incorrectly. This squeaking noise is normal behavior on some video cards because of bad vrm design of yesteryears lol.

[Massman]

If you're sure it's the board, just return it.

 

I tested the UD7 with F8 release at high-volt high-load and found no issue whatsoever regarding stability (http://hwbot.org/forum/showpost.php?p=145651&postcount=100). All I heard of was one guy putting a board to fire, but IIRC the same guy retested with F7 bios and the board went through testing just fine.

 

Maybe you're just unlucky. It happens.

[Hondacity]

+1,000 return it:D