It sounds like a motorbike throttling up and down. very very annoying. I’ve scanned with MalwareBytes, nothing. I’ve updated my drivers and this is still happening. I’ve even underclocked and undervolted my graphics card and set it into a low power mode to try and stifle the usage but to no avail.
is there any way I can literally force the 3D usage down while my computer is idle? My computer isn’t running any program that uses 3D models right now. but it’s like my GPU thinks it’s running some 3D game. hella weird
edit it’s not the fan making the noise either, I’ve manually activated the fan to see if the fan is causing the noise, and it’s a separate nose to the one annoying me. the noise I’m hearing is a more grind-y noise like a motorbike or propeller airplane that keeps going in and out
3D doesn’t necessarily mean 3D. Web browsers and video players (including those inside web browsers) will often use the 3D pipeline to write 2D rectangles to the screen. Other software may do the same sorts of thing.
And even if you’re not actually viewing anything in particular, software might be loading things that don’t show obvious on-screen changes but which still might pre-calculate via the GPU.
As for how to reconfigure GPU behaviour, that’s heavily dependent on the software. I know Firefox has things in about:config for it. Can’t speak to Chrome or other browsers, but I assume something similar exists. Other programs may or may not have any settings for it.
Given the only moving parts on a graphics card tend to be the fan, maybe there’s another fan on there you haven’t accounted for?
At your own risk you could try gently stopping fans - on the graphics card and otherwise - with your finger. On the hub, preferably. Most will handle this and spin right back up again. If not give it a flick in the right direction. If the grinding noise continues, the noise probably isn’t coming from the fan you’re stopping. (FWIW, I have an old NVIDIA card whose fan sometimes makes noise at low speeds, which is kind of the opposite problem. I manually ‘reset’ that fan at least a hundred times with no issues, but I imagine it hasn’t been great for the motor.)
Obviously, don’t hold a fan stopped for any significant length of time. It’s there for a reason.
Another possibility is sympathetic vibration to a fan or fans at certain speeds. My last PC case loved to sing along with the CPU fan during moderate use. I cured that with shims of cardboard and a few bits of old packing sponge in the most vibrational parts. (Not enough to hamper airflow though.)