980 Strix ticking noise coming from heatsink?

[JackSparrow]

a week or 2 after i bought the 980 Strix i noticed this sharp metallic tick noise suddenly coming from the heatsink, its like when you scrape your fingertip on a heatsink fin, it only starts when the card gets warmer (40C+) and its doing it on idle too when the fans arent spinning, its not constant but every 10-20secs, am i the only one experiencing this?

ive built my new system to be as silent as possible so this sound is quite annoying to be honest

[michele.miele1991]

make sure you've removed all the protection from the card to the material level , and also be sure that the wiring on the ad that the fan is to be clear in the special cable clips so as not to cause irregular noises , if the card is new and you have doubt you can always let it get replaced let me know

[Korth]

Is something (a loose wire, piece of plastic or whatnot) intermittently contacting the fan blades while they spin?

Are the fans securely mounted? The card firmly seated in its slot and properly screwed into place? The chassis itself solid? Other things might be oscillating, vibrating, and wobbling.

Do they seem kind of imbalanced, especially at lower speeds? Can this "click" be heard or felt when the blades are manually rotated? You might have bad (or dry) bearings.

[JackSparrow]

i can rule out the fans making the noise, kept an eye on it and while they were not spinning i keep getting this loud tick, the card is properly mounted and secured (took it out and put it back in again to make sure, turning the fans myself did not produce any noise), the fan cables on it are not touching anything nor the fans being obstructed as you can see here: http://i.imgur.com/jmpsHkl.jpg

not sure if this a reason to rma it? hard to tell where exactly it is making the noise without disassembling it, which i wont do to not void my warranty