Can a failing variocam make a noise

[itsnotanova]

I have a noise I'm trying to track down and haven't had any luck finding out what is causing it. It only happens at idle after the car has warmed up and goes away above 1000rpm. It goes away instantly if you hit the gas. Sometimes the noise comes back right away and sometimes the noise kind of creeps in after a few minutes. To me it sounds like a metallic scrapping noise. I pulled the pan and oil filter and there's no metal in the oil, but there was about 5-6 little green particles in the oil filter. That's a sign the vario cam unit is going out. I don't have a way to measure cam deviation but the green particles are a sure sign of a bad adjuster. I guess my question is has anyone with a bad variocam adjuster also had a noise go along with it? I'm wondering if I have one or two problems?

I'll post a video of my car running as soon as it gets done downloading.