the gtx 970/980 coil whine thread.

[MrGoat]

I was worried about coil whine. I just installed my new EVGA SC gtx 980 and it is completely silent. Tried out a lot of different games, even some with insanely high frame rates. All is well.

[AstralFridgeMagnet]

I owned an Asus Strix GTX970 OC, which promotes itself with special alloy parts to reduce electrical noise by 30%, it had such an insane buzzing sound that it was audible 5 meters away from a closed case.

 

It got worse in the next couple of days, it only happened when the GPU was at full load and the VRAM was accessed. So, I returned it. It was deemed faulty and I got a replacement card, which sadly is even louder... Will be returning that as well.

Coil whine IS a reason to return your card if its audible from 2 meters away in a closed computer case. 

 

I recorded my HD6870, which has a LOUD fan, but that's constant, the GTX970 is clearly more silent, only to be replaced by this rather aggravating sound!

 

https://soundcloud.com/astralfridgemagnet/sets/gtx970-and-hd6870-comparison-in-coil-whine

I replaced the PSU, TaganBZ700, with a Corsair 750CX, and it still had the buzzing. Even at 30FPS lock in Shadow of Mordor, it still buzzes.

[TPeezy]

I got two Gigabyte 970 G1s a couple days ago. There is minor coil whine when I test each card on its own which I can tolerate, but when I run them in SLI there is a buzz not a whine when GPU usage is near 100% with high fps. Borderlands 2 and Batman Origins is where its very noticeable. Its not the fan speeds I've tested that already. I'm still undecided on to RMA these or not. It can be filtered out when gaming with headphones, but I shouldn't have to use headphones full time.

[XzzDSA]

I will correct my self.. I CAN hear it... when i stick my head inside my kabinet. It is NOT noticable at all though.. You have to really try and listen for it before you can hear it.

[Kowalski Point]

My gigabyte 970 has a little coil whine under load.

[I/O]

Why does everyone freak out over coil whine,performance is imp not whine

Cause it sounds like nails on a chalk board and could indicate low quality.

[WolfDeville]

Reference EVGA GTX 980 SC with no coil whine.

[Bhav]

Ok so I thought mine were whining, turns out they arent and are completely silent.

 

I hadnt put all my ornaments back on top of my Corsair Carbide Air 540 and the mesh was vibrating against the plastic beams ... I totally forgot about that and went through the hastle of testing each GPU separately lol.

 

And to make it worse, with the case tilted on the side, the mesh doesnt vibrate so both GPUs tested fine, then I install it all up again and ... bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz .... THE HELL IS GOING ON .... Oh waitaminute ... my case makes that noise when I havnt put stuff on top it /doh.

[tobben]

I got two Gigabyte 970 G1s a couple days ago. There is minor coil whine when I test each card on its own which I can tolerate, but when I run them in SLI there is a buzz not a whine when GPU usage is near 100% with high fps. Borderlands 2 and Batman Origins is where its very noticeable. Its not the fan speeds I've tested that already. I'm still undecided on to RMA these or not. It can be filtered out when gaming with headphones, but I shouldn't have to use headphones full time.

well.. you migh be likely to receive new ones with even more noise, so you might be better off as is. If only i could escape the screaming through headphones.. the whine is almost amplified when i put on my headphones.. there is no escape  it sounds like you might have something more along the lines of power noise which probably isn't a big issue.

 

 

I will correct my self.. I CAN hear it... when i stick my head inside my kabinet. It is NOT noticable at all though.. You have to really try and listen for it before you can hear it.

Probably not much of an issue then, good thing you got a nice card.

 

 

Why does everyone freak out over coil whine,performance is imp not whine

you got me abit confused with "imp" i now realized it's probably a lazy way to say "important"

 

why does everyone freak out about it? because it is incredibly annoying, deteriorates a gaming experience and your life in general. I practically life my life sounding like i am in a wind turbine, however, my headphones can cancel about 50-60% of that noise depending on the frequency. I do NOT need a constant screaming high pitched noise ontop of that, which not only pierces through the headphones but also courses throughout whatever audio delivery setup i have.

 

yes an external usb solution would likely atleast solve the whine being outputted by the speakers/headphones etc, but i don't want to buy one or make space for more crap . And it doesn't solve the core issue, only alleviates it.

 

 

Ok so I thought mine were whining, turns out they arent and are completely silent.

 

I hadnt put all my ornaments back on top of my Corsair Carbide Air 540 and the mesh was vibrating against the plastic beams ... I totally forgot about that and went through the hastle of testing each GPU separately lol.

 

And to make it worse, with the case tilted on the side, the mesh doesnt vibrate so both GPUs tested fine, then I install it all up again and ... bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz .... THE HELL IS GOING ON .... Oh waitaminute ... my case makes that noise when I havnt put stuff on top it /doh.

haha, well glad you got it sorted out and have some nice gpu's .

 

i have put piles of heavy books and whatnot ontop of cases in the past to try and reduce vibration.. should be mandatory when doing case reviews to try and get a picture of how it will deal with vibrations of hdd's, fans pumps etc.. going throughout the case.

[tobben]

It seems the poll is starting to turn the other way around, the yes exceeded the no at first. There are 2 possibilities. A: the variables have started to be watered down by the more accurate average introduced by more votes. Or! we have option B: i smell a conspiracy  

[fir3wulf]

well, i'm somewhat "glad" it's not just my card

[TheGrapeEscape]

Got my Gigiabyte GTX 970 G1 yesterday and it has coil whine. My case doesn't have the best sound dampening, but it only starts getting noticeable around the 140fps mark. Running FTL without the frame limiter or vsync on produces loud coil whine.

 

So far it's only been slightly annoying, mostly because I wear headphones and vsync is almost always on capping the framerate in games.

[MountainDrew]

It seems the poll is starting to turn the other way around, the yes exceeded the no at first. There are 2 possibilities. A: the variables have started to be watered down by the more accurate average introduced by more votes. Or! we have option B: i smell a conspiracy  

I put my ear right next to my case to listen for the coil whine so mine is sincere.

 

My second 970 arrives tomorrow (sorry for the wait, they are out of stock everywhere  ) and I will see if that has coil whine.

[MountainDrew]

My second 970 has slight coil whine.

 

Only audible at idle though.

[Real_PhillBert]

I have only done some quick benchmark runs on my Strix 980 so far, but it does get some audible coil whine at framerates over about 120. Once framerates drop below that the whine goes away.

[alvez]

i ewally want the gigabyte g1 gaming but im afraid to get a faulty one...just cant decide to wait till they fix the damn thing or just buy it and hope its good, i can return it with easbut you know..thats kinda shit..

[yangsx]

ASUS did some work to avoid coil whine, and it is indeed better than MSI on my 970s. 

It is really hard to find a 970 without any coil whine.

[Real_PhillBert]

Its a bit odd, my Strix 980 didnt whine a lot, but after I overclocked it, the whine completely went away...

[rockmassif]

Poll options could be better I guess, it seems like you have to answer the same question 3-4 times. Maybe you thought that as a safety mechanism but when you check it, it doesn't actually add up.

[tobben]

Poll options could be better I guess, it seems like you have to answer the same question 3-4 times. Maybe you thought that as a safety mechanism but when you check it, it doesn't actually add up.

it doesn't need to add up, multiple choice is allowed on the various brands incase people own of have experience with more than one card. The last option in every poll is essentially to be ignored. It has to be there because you can't submit your answers without answering every single poll, so there has to be a throwaway answer to not bork up the poll and force people to answer that they have a card that doesn't whine, or does whine etc etc. That's just how the integrated poll functions on this forum.

 

And there is probably a few miss-clicks or miss-reads here and there that put's the numbers off. I don't think that has a big impact on the overall result now that we are starting to rack up some votes.

 

 

ASUS did some work to avoid coil whine, and it is indeed better than MSI on my 970s. 

It is really hard to find a 970 without any coil whine.

yah, doesn't seem all that easy..

The discrepancy between your Asus gpu and msi gpu is entirely up to chance though, i wouldn't really make a judgement based on your two cards.

[Faa]

@tobben, have a GTX 970 Strix coming tomorrow, I'll let you know if it whines.

[tobben]

have a GTX 970 Strix coming tomorrow, I'll let you know if it whines.

thankee, good luck. New hardware is always fun.

[Faa]

thankee, good luck. New hardware is always fun.

Just installed it, when folding the whining is extremely bad but just when gaming it's okay but its there.

[Olaroll]

I bought an ASUS 980 Strix and it started whining quite loudly in a few days. I also got a few BSOD's and game crashes after it started to whine, is that unusual?

[tobben]

I bought an ASUS 980 Strix and it started whining quite loudly in a few days. I also got a few BSOD's and game crashes after it started to whine, is that unusual?

games crashing and BSOD's are unusual, yes. it isn't entirely certain that the gpu is the culprit though. I would make a new thread in troubleshooting to get some troubleshooting advice.