the gtx 970/980 coil whine thread.

[EternalSeeker]

I have the g1 gtx 970. No audible coil whine. I got videos on my thread i recorded. Not great quality but there is some proof if you guys like. 

 

As far as it goes for me, gigabyte doesn't seem to have coil whine. Atleast the batch I got mines from. 

[bobtherock]

I think people might be reporting different whines. My Zotac amp! extreme 970 only whines on a couple of kombuster stress tests, specific ones like furry. As soon as the stress test is stopped it disapears instantly which to me indicates a power thing.

Unigine valley extreme HD AND Firestrike = no whine

I know I have the type of hearing that means when I was younger I couldn't stand in electronics showrooms with CRTs because of the high pitch whine they gave off.

 

Why don't we change the pole slightly by adding a question about pin connectors. My 970 has 2x8 pins, which is unlike other 970s.This could be the reason why I only hear it under specfic loads? People with less pins might hear it at different points? 

[tobben]

I think people might be reporting different whines. My Zotac amp! extreme 970 only whines on a couple of kombuster stress tests, specific ones like furry. As soon as the stress test is stopped it disapears instantly which to me indicates a power thing.

Unigine valley extreme HD AND Firestrike = no whine

I know I have the type of hearing that means when I was younger I couldn't stand in electronics showrooms with CRTs because of the high pitch whine they gave off.

 

Why don't we change the pole slightly by adding a question about pin connectors. My 970 has 2x8 pins, which is unlike other 970s.This could be the reason why I only hear it under specfic loads? People with less pins might hear it at different points? 

i think the poll is as sophisticated as this site will allow.

 

No i don't think the whine will vary with the number of pins.

However, the whine can vary with the overclock/power consumption.

8+8 pin as opposed to 6+8 pin connectors does indeed allow more power and overclocking potential.

This is almost covered by the manufacturer option.

Though many manufacturers have one "normal" and one "super/overclocked" version.

 

Coil whine is how the power surges through the coils and chokes on the card.

Coil whine will inherently always vary with the load of the card,

as the power consumption varies with the load, and furmark is pretty intense.

That is unless your card is utterly broken and always running at 100% tdp.

In which case you would have a serious issue .

 

I think adding either specific card from manufacturer or overclock or specific software would create wee bit too much clutter. 

[13thNemesis]

ASUS Strix gtx 970, no whine whatsoever

[Snadzies]

I think people might be reporting different whines. My Zotac amp! extreme 970 only whines on a couple of kombuster stress tests, specific ones like furry. As soon as the stress test is stopped it disapears instantly which to me indicates a power thing.

Unigine valley extreme HD AND Firestrike = no whine

 

Same with my MSI 4G 980.

During games, no whine, but if I do the Windows Index Test there is a slight whine or if I play a game where the framerate jumps to several hundred FPS in a menu (Crysis splash screen) then there is some whine.

In the last two instances I mentioned I haven't had a single card that didn't whine a little in those situations.

[Kerplex]

All good over here.

[roberrrtz]

Coil whine on one of my 970 g1 gaming, only audible during benching or gaming with 250+ fps.

Also, it only sounds like one if them.

Was bummed at first but then I realised Im gonna play with headphones anyway, so it won't matter that much.

[AstralFridgeMagnet]

I returned 2 Asus Strix GTX970 cards with coil whine, second time it was a "product specification" so it didnt got RMA'd, got a replacement MSI, same coil whine... 3 times in a row here...

[roberrrtz]

No/inaudible coilwhine in fire strike extreme today

[Olaroll]

That is unless your card is utterly broken and always running at 100% tdp.

In which case you would have a serious issue .

Is that bad? because my 980 strix seems to be doing just that! D: (in FurMark)

 

EDIT: Also I just saw that my GPU isnt even reaching its default clock!!!

[tobben]

Is that bad? because my 980 strix seems to be doing just that! D: (in FurMark)

 

EDIT: Also I just saw that my GPU isnt even reaching its default clock!!!

that quote is taken out of context

i was saying that it's natural for coil whine to go away as the gpu is under less load.

It makes sense for coil whine to go away when you exit furmark. 

 

as for the clockspeeds i don't know.. have a google about it.

Probably a software thing of some kind.

make sure you are using the right procedure when checking.

[mcoops82]

My Asus GTX 970 has "the whine", but it's definitely more of an electrical buzz and not my understanding of a coil whine.

 

It's definitely unrelated to the fans because the buzz is there even before the fans spin up beyond 60 degrees.

 

I've read enough complaints on this subject to know it's not attributable to any specific power supply or motherboard.

 

At first I thought the buzz only appeared in certain games/applications which clock the card up past a certain speed:

 

Witcher 2 @1304mhz 

3d Mark Firestrike @1265mhz

Buzzing

 

Darksiders @1114mhz

Hearthstone @670mhz

No buzzing

 

However:

Dark Souls 2 @1114mhz (same as Darksiders above)

Faint buzzing

 

Witcher 2 title screen @1304mhz with V-sync Off 1900fps

The buzz intensifies to a higher pitch far more noticeable and annoying.

 

By the way, it's a very consistent buzz whether high (v-sync off) or lower (on) pitch. It doesn't whine up or down, it's just either buzzing or it's not.

 

Also, this is my second card. Both were more or less an identical noise.

[OhhTee]

Hm, so I noticed my GPU whining for the first time today. I've had it for like 4 weeks or so.. It doesn't always whine. Only sometimes.

[Faa]

My Asus GTX 970 has "the whine", but it's definitely more of an electrical buzz and not my understanding of a coil whine.

Buzzing/High Pitch/Squeeking, Stratching sound is coil whine. I've provided some fixes in this thread awhile ago but I'll just say it again. The higher the GPU load is, the louder the whining is. What you can do is; if you have lets say 130 fps at 99% load with ultra settings, change your settings to low which would give you lets say 230 FPS at 99% load, enable Vsync so the GPU load drops down to 30-40%. You'll sacrifice quality settings for noise. If you don't want to sacrifice quality at all; get yourself a 2nd card so that each GPU would be at 50% load at 60 FPS with Vsync enabled. If you'd disable Vsync it would take both GPU's to 99% load and give you 120 FPS.

In my experience no gpu whines at 50% load unless you have 5000 fps.

[Lays]

Buzzing/High Pitch/Squeeking, Stratching sound is coil whine. I've provided some fixes in this thread awhile ago but I'll just say it again. The higher the GPU load is, the louder the whining is. What you can do is; if you have lets say 130 fps at 99% load with ultra settings, change your settings to low which would give you lets say 230 FPS at 99% load, enable Vsync so the GPU load drops down to 30-40%. You'll sacrifice quality settings for noise. If you don't want to sacrifice quality at all; get yourself a 2nd card so that each GPU would be at 50% load at 60 FPS with Vsync enabled. If you'd disable Vsync it would take both GPU's to 99% load and give you 120 FPS.

In my experience no gpu whines at 50% load unless you have 5000 fps.

 

Listen to this man, he is smurt.

 

Sometimes with my old 780's I'd have whining, but the only time it ever did was during heavy benchmarks, mostly other normal gaming experience didn't do it.

[yangsx]

Buzzing/High Pitch/Squeeking, Stratching sound is coil whine. I've provided some fixes in this thread awhile ago but I'll just say it again. The higher the GPU load is, the louder the whining is. What you can do is; if you have lets say 130 fps at 99% load with ultra settings, change your settings to low which would give you lets say 230 FPS at 99% load, enable Vsync so the GPU load drops down to 30-40%. You'll sacrifice quality settings for noise. If you don't want to sacrifice quality at all; get yourself a 2nd card so that each GPU would be at 50% load at 60 FPS with Vsync enabled. If you'd disable Vsync it would take both GPU's to 99% load and give you 120 FPS.

In my experience no gpu whines at 50% load unless you have 5000 fps.

This method means you can only use 50% of the 970 performance to get rid of coil whine. Why not just get a gtx 760 which is exactly 50% performance and price of a 970 and there will be no whine at all.

[tobben]

This method means you can only use 50% of the 970 performance to get rid of coil whine. Why not just get a gtx 760 which is exactly 50% performance and price of a 970 and there will be no whine at all.

well, it isn't necessarily guaranteed that you will have zero whine,

just because you buy a gtx 760 instead.

but yeah that solution is very radical..

[mcoops82]

Buzzing/High Pitch/Squeeking, Stratching sound is coil whine. I've provided some fixes in this thread awhile ago but I'll just say it again. The higher the GPU load is, the louder the whining is. What you can do is; if you have lets say 130 fps at 99% load with ultra settings, change your settings to low which would give you lets say 230 FPS at 99% load, enable Vsync so the GPU load drops down to 30-40%. You'll sacrifice quality settings for noise. If you don't want to sacrifice quality at all; get yourself a 2nd card so that each GPU would be at 50% load at 60 FPS with Vsync enabled. If you'd disable Vsync it would take both GPU's to 99% load and give you 120 FPS.

In my experience no gpu whines at 50% load unless you have 5000 fps.

Appreciate the suggestions.

 

1) I didn't spend £300 on a new graphics card to play games on low quality.

 

2) I tried an SLI configuration before returning the original card, with V-sync enabled. The buzzing was still there.

 

The noise isn't even that irritating for me. I guess I'm 'lucky' (???) in that regard as I can only hear the noise in one or two games and even then only when I'm not wearing headphones.

 

What I'm really trying to decide is whether this is an issue with all 970 cards - worse for some than others and most people never even noticed it - or whether I'm just unlucky and ended up with two faulty cards.

[Faa]

Appreciate the suggestions.

 

1) I didn't spend £300 on a new graphics card to play games on low quality.

 

2) I tried an SLI configuration before returning the original card, with V-sync enabled. The buzzing was still there.

 

The noise isn't even that irritating for me. I guess I'm 'lucky' (???) in that regard as I can only hear the noise in one or two games and even then only when I'm not wearing headphones.

 

What I'm really trying to decide is whether this is an issue with all 970 cards - worse for some than others and most people never even noticed it - or whether I'm just unlucky and ended up with two faulty cards.

2) Buzzing won't go away if the GPU loads are above 50%.

[timo39]

Got the same coil whine with my GTX 980 MSI GAMING 4G :'(

[Yaroslav]

My GTX 980 runs dead-silent.

No coil whine, no nothing. Not even when I put my head against it, even when overclocked.

For the most part it seems like it's like the OC lottery, when it comes to coil whine - some have a great OC'er, some have a terrible OC'er.

Also, I've never heard of any RMA case because of coil whine - Never seen a warrenty cover it either.. sooo yeaahhh

I have returned my GTX 970 because coil whine... Wasn't a problem!

[Godrick]

Hi Guys,

 

I got the Gigabyte G1 GTX970 today and it's fairly loud, heres a clip; http://clyp.it/nf35a3al.

 

Can i return it? I bought from http://www.msy.com.au/home.php

 

It's just to loud and ear piecing 

[tobben]

Hi Guys,

 

I got the Gigabyte G1 GTX970 today and it's fairly loud, heres a clip; http://clyp.it/nf35a3al.

 

Can i return it? I bought from http://www.msy.com.au/home.php

 

It's just to loud and ear piecing 

It depends, they might, they might not. I don't think they will unless it's really really bad.

 

Just try and contact them, if they decline, you can try again by going directly to gigabyte 

instead of going through the store. sadly i am not familiar with how gigabyte handles rma's. 

Actually, you might be better off going directly to gigabyte.

[Godrick]

It depends, they might, they might not. I don't think they will unless it's really really bad.

 

Just try and contact them, if they decline, you can try again by going directly to gigabyte 

instead of going through the store. sadly i am not familiar with how gigabyte handles rma's. 

Actually, you might be better off going directly to gigabyte.

 

Thank you for the reply.

I've contacted Gigabyte i'll see and let thread know their response.

I also have white dots flickering on my monitor, i did a clean install of the nvidia drivers and is still appearing, never was before on my 6950 and i have no idea what could be causing it

[Godrick]

Seems like my coil whining has stopped, so weird.

 

I've been on today trying to push it playing games at max and low settings but it seems to have gone, i have no idea why