MF1652,
The relief valve is on your FEL valve, and 3pt valve, and dumps the fluid when the cyl meet a certain resistance. In order to keep something from breaking, a relief valve is used to relieve the hyd pressure, and this is set at the factory, but can be adjusted.
The sound it makes relieving is like a screech or whine. It is not hard to hear it, like when you fully extend or retract the cyl. When you hear that sound, that will let you know that the hyd system pressure is at least operating up to the set pressure. The relief valve will go off until you remove the resistance to the pressure.
No matter how hard you push the levers after the valve is relieving, you will not do any more work other than what you are currently doing. However, some of those relief valves are adjustable and some of the guys squeeze out a little more power. More pressure equals more force.