Vibration and Rattling sounds in my Acer Predator Orion (PO3-600)

Ronnie911

I have a three year old Orion PO3-600 (i7 8700, RTX 2070, one SSD and one HDD) and past six months it's been plagued by a bad vibrating noise.

To begin with it used to have some issues where it does not recognize my USB keyboard or mouse when it boots up and gives and error - display is also blank during this time. As long as it's connected to power, it does not occur - even if shut down. It only happens when i unplug power.

The problem got worse when i went for a long holiday and shutdown the system for about 3.5 weeks. When i came back home and turned the system on it was giving a very loud rattle (see the attached audio clip) and not finding the mouse and keyboard. Also the display was blank. I thought the fans were acting up and opened it up, and gave it a good cleaning from the dust with compressed air can. Eventually after a few unscucessful attempts it started working fine.

But now anytime i load the GPU - like running an AI model or playing a game it just makes a horrible vibrating noise (attached audio) for sometime and then it dies down. While there's no stutter or lag, PC is pratically unusuable for gaming due to this.

I did the following:

• checked the GPU fan, also cleaned the fans with compressed air.
• Used MSI Afterburner to check if this was a problem with fans. Even when GPU fans are running at 100%, it does not cause rattles like this. Sure it's loud, but it's more of a hushed fan noise than something like a chainsaw cutting through metal that i hear otherwise.
• checked the GPU for any loose connections, tightened it and also added a clip to make sure the hold is fine.

The noise happens everytime (1) i cold boot the computer after unplugging the power cord. The power button turns on and off at least 3-4 times while it starts looking for keybaord and mouse, and eventually it finds it and boots up. During this time the same loud noises happen. (2) Anytime i play a game or do a GPU intensive task - such as play a game or run Premiere Pro or an AI model trianing.

The computer is very hushed otherwise.

What could be the issue? How can i debug this? Grateful for any suggesitons.

Recorded Vibration.mp3.zip

Puraw

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/692464/vibration-and-rattling-sounds-in-my-acer-predator-orion-po3-600

Don't use compressed air or vacuum cleaners on PC fan blades/impellers. Bring the desktop to Acer Services in your country to check it and possibly to replace a bad cooling fan.