Getting coil whine from both GPU and PSU

[OoferWoofer]

So I've recently just built a computer with the specifications down below.

 

CPU: i3 8100

CPU Cooler: Cryorig H7 Plus

GPU: Gigabyte Gaming G1 GTX 1080

Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B360-g 

Ram: 2x8gb Viper Elite DDR4 2400

PSU: Corsair CX750M (old version)

Case: Corsair Crystal 280x

HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda

SSD: Sandisk 120gb, 500gb Samsung 950 evo

 

So everything worked fine until I did a 3D mark test where I hear the coil whine/buzzing on graphics test 1 and 2. It begins and stops at the same time as the test which made me believe it was a GPU thing.II used MSI afterburner to undervolt the GPU and lower the power limit which did lower the noise of the coil whine. I opened both sides of the case to listen whether it was either the GPU or the PSU but both are generating coil whine. I've put the same gtx 1080 into my dad's PC which has a h110 motherboard and an EVGA 600W WI (100W10600) and I still got the coil whine. I'm sure it's not the GPU because I took it out of an SLI configuration of 2x gtx 1080 the day before and they were working fine with no coil whine before even as a single GPU. But getting coil whine from another PSU makes me think that maybe it is my GPU causing coil whine? Unless I was unlucky and both PSU's are bad and were the culprits for causing coil whine

 

. Please advise me. I'm thinking of buying a new PSU 

 

[MS-DOS Guy]

    Frankly, I usually don't care about coil whines but your best bet would be to buy a new power supply if it's THAT bothersome. And that's a big maybe. It may not even change, sometimes it will, other times it won't. Usually, once you have coil whine you can't really do anything about it. But like I said before, getting a new power supply as it may change the power delivery to the GPU in some way or another resulting in no coil whine or just making it worse. So your kind of in a pickle there. 

[Stefan Payne]

Coil Whine from the GPU is only solved by replacing the GPU. PSU can make that whine stronger but its always gonna be there.

The CX750 is an older design, so you might want to replace it with a higher quality PSU.

 

~550W is more than enough. Don't need no 750W for that System!

[Guest]

Nvidia sucks.  They know what is whining on their graphics cards but they refuse to spend the extra 15 cents to fix it.

 

As for the PSU:  You used two cheap, double forward power supplies (EVGA W1 and Corsair CX750M) with a 1080 graphics card.  Yeah.  You're going to get coil whine.

 

Why are you so opposed to buying a good PSU?

 

It's not bad for the PSU or graphics card, but if it bothers you, you need to suck it up and just buy a decent power supply.

 

[Ankerson]

17 hours ago, OoferWoofer said:

So I've recently just built a computer with the specifications down below.

 

CPU: i3 8100

CPU Cooler: Cryorig H7 Plus

GPU: Gigabyte Gaming G1 GTX 1080

Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix B360-g 

Ram: 2x8gb Viper Elite DDR4 2400

PSU: Corsair CX750M (old version)

Case: Corsair Crystal 280x

HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda

SSD: Sandisk 120gb, 500gb Samsung 950 evo

 

So everything worked fine until I did a 3D mark test where I hear the coil whine/buzzing on graphics test 1 and 2. It begins and stops at the same time as the test which made me believe it was a GPU thing.II used MSI afterburner to undervolt the GPU and lower the power limit which did lower the noise of the coil whine. I opened both sides of the case to listen whether it was either the GPU or the PSU but both are generating coil whine. I've put the same gtx 1080 into my dad's PC which has a h110 motherboard and an EVGA 600W WI (100W10600) and I still got the coil whine. I'm sure it's not the GPU because I took it out of an SLI configuration of 2x gtx 1080 the day before and they were working fine with no coil whine before even as a single GPU. But getting coil whine from another PSU makes me think that maybe it is my GPU causing coil whine? Unless I was unlucky and both PSU's are bad and were the culprits for causing coil whine

 

. Please advise me. I'm thinking of buying a new PSU 

 

 

Bought a budget model GTX 1080 and 2 crap PSU's and you are complaining about coil whine?

 

Get a good PSU to start with and see what happens.

[OoferWoofer]

I only have those 2 Power supplies as spares so wasn't really sure whether i needed a new psu. Ive bought a Bitfenix formula gold 550W so I hope that it gets rid or reduces the coil whine. Thanks for the knowledge gained from this.

[MS-DOS Guy]

2 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

Nvidia sucks.  They know what is whining on their graphics cards but they refuse to spend the extra 15 cents to fix it.

I have bought several Nvidia GPUs over the past years. 
I've had the 9500 GS from 2008, a 9800 GT, a GTX 480 a, 760 and now a 1060 3GB. All of which, I've never experienced no coil whine at all even with satisfactory or mediocre PSUs. I'm not being biased either here, because I in most cases prefer AMD and have had more AMD cards then Nvidia Cards in general. But to be fair, AMD has had more problems with coil whine then most cards including there infamously known HD 7970.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

I have bought several Nvidia GPUs over the past years. 
I've had the 9500 GS from 2008, a 9800 GT, a GTX 480 a, 760 and now a 1060 3GB. All of which, I've never experienced no coil whine at all even with satisfactory or mediocre PSUs. I'm not being biased either here, because I in most cases prefer AMD and have had more AMD cards then Nvidia Cards in general. But to be fair, AMD has had more problems with coil whine then most cards including there infamously known HD 7970.

Didn't know this was your first foryer into the 21st century.   All of those cards are quite old.  Nvidia cards known to have coil while are 1080, 2080 and even as far back as 980. 

 

The PSUs you've used are fine for these 5 to 10 year old cards.  But technology changes. GPUs change.  PSUs change. 

[Princess Luna]

4 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

Nvidia sucks.  They know what is whining on their graphics cards but they refuse to spend the extra 15 cents to fix it.

Is it nVidia fault specifically or AiB? I have always owned Founders Edition/Reference including the GTX TITAN X and 1080 Ti, had a 2080 Ti FE as well but traded for the V and yet to experience coil whine.

 

Would like to know what's the issue a bit more in detail if possible.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Princess Luna said:

Is it nVidia fault specifically or AiB? I have always owned Founders Edition/Reference including the GTX TITAN X and 1080 Ti, had a 2080 Ti FE as well but traded for the V and yet to experience coil whine.

 

Would like to know what's the issue a bit more in detail if possible.

Depends on the card and who makes itinteresting you have a 2080 Ti FE w/o coil whine.  I have experienced it first hand and if you Google it, you'll see it's quite common and people just "deal with it". 

 

Maybe your PC isn't quiet enough to hear it or maybe the frequency is out of your hearing range.  I measure the whine on the 2080 at around 16 to 18kHz.  Like a mosquito trapped in the PC. 

[Princess Luna]

5 hours ago, jonnyGURU said:

Maybe your PC isn't quiet enough to hear

It could be, system was entirely air cooled and my case fans aren't exactly top notch, I seen a GTX 980 Ti coil whine like crazy under stress at graphically demanding games like The Witcher 3 and I just thought it's usually "that easy to spot it".

 

FE Coolers on the TITAN X Maxwell and 1080 Ti and now V are all so loud as well there's that.

 

A shame really, one would still hope nVidia to the very least not do these called pocket change save ups at their current pricing, I'll give a google a go on the matter.

 

Cheers!

[MS-DOS Guy]

5 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

Is it nVidia fault specifically or AiB? I have always owned Founders Edition/Reference including the GTX TITAN X and 1080 Ti, had a 2080 Ti FE as well but traded for the V and yet to experience coil whine.

 

Would like to know what's the issue a bit more in detail if possible.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Besides if Nvidia was infamous for having coil whine then I think this would be mainstream. @jonnyGURU is like the first person to ever tell me this 

 Also, I may have had mostly old cards but my current card is a 1060 and I experience no problems with coil whine. Additionally, I build people computers as a part time thing, I've had certain builds for instance where the consumer would like hard line water cooling and just time consuming features. So I would have the rig for long periods of time. Alot of those builds had Nvidia cards that were quite new, @jonnyGURU and none of those systems experienced coil whine. So... 

[MS-DOS Guy]

5 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

GTX 980 Ti coil whine like crazy under stress at graphically demanding games

Well keep in mind, that might be the PSUs fault. And even if it isn't, the HD 7970 experiences the same problems and even some newer AMD cards. Nvidia is by far not the only guy in town having there GPUs experiencing coil whine. 

[Guest]

57 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

Well keep in mind, that might be the PSUs fault. And even if it isn't, the HD 7970 experiences the same problems and even some newer AMD cards. Nvidia is by far not the only guy in town having there GPUs experiencing coil whine. 

It's not the PSU.  I've tried four or five different PSUs and even the old "caps in the cables" trick and there's still coil whine. 

 

A 1060 card doesn't tend to have coil whine.  Card's just too wimpy and doesn't use that much power. 

 

5 hours ago, Princess Luna said:

 

FE Coolers on the TITAN X Maxwell and 1080 Ti and now V are all so loud as well there's that.

 

Water cooling. 

 

If your fans weren't drowning everything out,  you would hear it. 

[MS-DOS Guy]

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

t's not the PSU.  I've tried four or five different PSUs and even the old "caps in the cables" trick and there's still coil whine. 

Ok first off, I have nothing against you but, coil whine comes from two things, the PSU or the GPU period. 
And yes, it can be the PSU, here's a video about it from a reputable source. Linus. 

 

The video may be a tad old but it does provide some ways to remove coil whine and he doesn mention the PSU may being a problem. 

[Guest]

20 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

Ok first off, I have nothing against you but, coil whine comes from two things, the PSU or the GPU period. 
And yes, it can be the PSU, here's a video about it from a reputable source. Linus. 

 

The video may be a tad old but it does provide some ways to remove coil whine and he doesn mention the PSU may being a problem. 

"Coil whine comes from two things". 

 

Yes.  Yes it does.  Glad you realize that. 

 

One last time....

 

PSUs can have coil whine. 

 

Graphics cards can have coil whine. 

 

But the phenomenon is not always mutually inclusive.  

 

Sometimes, the PSU can exasperate the coil whine of a GPU, and swapping out the PSU can make the noise go away. but it doesn't inherently cause the problem.  Some graphics cards just have coil whine no matter what. 

 

And I know I said "Nvidia sucks" but I know it's not an Nvidia vs. AMD thing. I never said AMD cards never have coil whine. Just lately I've seen it more often from Nvidia and their attitude is "deal with it" (at least on a customer service level). 

 

Look, I'm not getting into it with you.  I will just tell you that part of my job is having almost every graphics card currently on the market on a shelf along with almost every PSU.  And I spend time combining these parts to look for noises from the PSU because different GPUs will make different PSUs noisier (didn't expect that, did you?)  And recently I've been struggling with some 2080 and 2080 Ti cards that are noisy no matter what PSU is used.  And prior to that, I had the same issue with 1080.  And before that, the same issue with 980 Ti.... 

 

And yes... Some AMD cards.  Just not as frequently lately. 

[Guest]

On 5/11/2019 at 6:46 PM, Stefan Payne said:

Coil Whine from the GPU is only solved by replacing the GPU. PSU can make that whine stronger but its always gonna be there.

In case you missed what Stefan said too... 

[MS-DOS Guy]

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

Some graphics cards just have coil whine no matter what. 

Yeah I know.

 

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

On 5/11/2019 at 8:46 PM, Stefan Payne said:

Coil Whine from the GPU is only solved by replacing the GPU. PSU can make that whine stronger but its always gonna be there.

In case you missed what Stefan said too... 

In certain instances, replacing the PSU can fix the coil whine. I've had circumstances where replacing the PSU would fix the problem. 

 

1 hour ago, jonnyGURU said:

And I know I said "Nvidia sucks" but I know it's not an Nvidia vs. AMD thing. I never said AMD cards never have coil whine. Just lately I've seen it more often from Nvidia and their attitude is "deal with it" (at least on a customer service level). 

Fair enough. And I agree with you with the "deal with it" attitude Nvidia has lately been giving to it's consumers.

 

 

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

Ok first off, I have nothing against you but, coil whine comes from two things, the PSU or the GPU period. 

Anything with coils can whine. The inductors of motherboard VRM can also experience coil whine, though it's less common than video card coil whine, largely due to the lower power draw of CPUs. I think there was a thread on the forums yesterday or the day before with a user having coil whine on their motherboard after they upgraded their CPU to a 9900k.

Coil whine is caused as an electrical current is passed through the coil which then vibrates, causing a high pitched whining noise. Increase the current and the vibrations and coil whine produced increases as well. This is largely the reason why a GTX 1080Ti is more susceptible to coil whine than a GTX 1060. You can see this in the video you posted where depending on what was happening on screen - varying the load/stress the GPU was under - the pitch of the coil whine would change.

There are ways to minimise coil whine. One common way is the use of caulk (or resins, glues, whatever) to hold the coils in place to prevent vibration. You should be able to see this if you look through the fan grill of a quality PSU. Often people will worry that something has leaked or melted in their PSU, however it is there intentionally and part of the reason is to help reduce coil whine (from the PSU).

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

And yes, it can be the PSU, here's a video about it from a reputable source. Linus.  

No disrespect to Linus, however he is not a reputable source on PSUs.

[MS-DOS Guy]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

however he is not a reputable source on PSUs.

and why's that?

[MS-DOS Guy]

1 hour ago, Spotty said:

Anything with coils can whine.

Well I'm aware of that but the only things in a system I know that have coils are the GPU and PSU. I didn't actually know the VRM had coils.

[Spotty]

24 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

and why's that?

From what I've seen, he doesn't have any technical knowledge on PSUs or their designs. LTT has never done a proper PSU review. Linus' idea of testing a PSU is launching it off the roof with a slingshot and seeing if it breaks.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but JonnyGuru, the person you were replying to, has been a respected member of the PSU review community for the last 15 or so years, and is currently engineering director for a major PSU brand. If you've ever looked up a PSU review you've probably visited the site he founded for PSU reviews; jonnyguru.com. He is what I would consider to be a reputable source of information.

 

19 minutes ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

Well I'm aware of that but the only things in a system I know that have coils are the GPU and PSU. I didn't actually know the VRM had coils.

Yeah... VRMs are made up of multiple parts with mosfets, inductors, and capacitors. The Inductors (aka Chokes) are what cause coil whine. They're the small little boxes that stick out next to the VRM heatsink.
VRMs are used in both GPUs and CPUs. Same principle in stepping down the 12V power the graphics card/motherboard receives to something that the processor can use (~1.15v).

Graphics Card:

Spoiler

Motherboard:

Spoiler

Here's a pic showing an inductor/choke (left) in which you can see the coil that is inside (middle).

Spoiler

 

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, MS-DOS Guy said:

In certain instances, replacing the PSU can fix the coil whine. I've had circumstances where replacing the PSU would fix the problem. 

No, it can change the amplitude or the strenth of the whine so that its more annoying with one PSU than the other.

But the Coil whine will always be there.

 

The only exception might be a dead or shitty PSU that cuases the whine with really really bad voltage regulation and the Regulators on the Device try to deal with that. But then again, that's kinda the point I was making: The GPU was whining anyway, you just notice it more.

 

I had a really annoyingly whining HIS 7970GHz Edition (first card didn't but died for some reason), I tried all the PSU I had at the time and it was always there. ust stronger with one PSU than others.

35 minutes ago, Spotty said:

. The Inductors (aka Chokes) are what cause coil whine.

I don't fully agree with that as can be seen in this long video:

Ceramic Capacitors can also cause high pitched noise like a Piezo Speaker. 

That is not well known and I only know about it because Dave talked about it in some of his Videos. There are a couple other Videos as well.

 

 

PS: His job was designing sonar equipment or he did something at Altium.

Thus "Power Electronics" (=everything related to generating or converting Power) is not his strong point...

[Spotty]

38 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

I don't fully agree with that as can be seen in this long video:
 

Ceramic Capacitors can also cause high pitched noise like a Piezo Speaker.  

That is not well known and I only know about it because Dave talked about it in some of his Videos. There are a couple other Videos as well.

I've never heard of capacitors giving off a high pitched whine. I'll give the video a watch.... Lol, 3 seconds in and that Australian accent is beautiful.

Has that ever been the issue in motherboards/GPU/PSUs where the capacitors were the cause of the whine as opposed to inductors/coils?
[forgive my ignorance] The caps used in the VRM stages are usually electrolytic aren't they? So would this be more for the SMD capacitors used across the board rather than the caps in the VRM?

... I bet it wouldn't happen if they were Japanese made caps /s (i'm kidding please don't kill me)

Edit: Just finished watching the video. Very interesting. I never thought of that being an issue before.
Has it ever been an issue with GPUs/PSUs though, or is that still predominately caused by the coils?

Edited May 13, 2019 by Spotty

[Stefan Payne]

44 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Edit: Just finished watching the video. Very interesting. I never thought of that being an issue before.
Has it ever been an issue with GPUs/PSUs though, or is that still predominately caused by the coils?

That is the Problem:
Because nobody knows about this, nobody expects the Capacitors to be the noise maker, so nobody looks for the Capacitors and assumes its the Coils.

So that is some Information that is not known.

 

But I know that Whine was an issue with early DC-DC PSU from pre 2010. For example Cougar S-550, Silverstone Zeus 750 and 850W and some others that used Buck Converters back in those days. That was rather uncommon and rare as most indy PSU used Mag Amp back in those days.

 

That might or might not be related.

 

However, I suspect the Ceramic Capacitors to be the issue with Fiji Cards from what I've heard so far. Though I don't have one and can't prove it (nor do I plan on purchasing one).