GTX 970 electrical buzzing noise - caused by power supply?

[Gdog96]

Hi all, 

 

I recently purchased a KFA2 GTX 970 second hand for a great price, upgrading from a GTX 660.

 

However, whenever the card is under load, there is a fairly loud electrical buzzing noise coming from the centre of the PCB - I can hear it across the room and its annoying as the rest of my system is near silent. I know it is not the fans because I have stopped the fans by hand briefly to test them and the buzzing continues. Further, if I alt tab out of a game the buzzing noise instantly stops before the fans have slowed down. 

 

The noise isn't your standard high pitch coil whine noise, it sounds more like a cable tie caught in a fan (which it obviously isnt). However it does seem to change pitch ever so slightly when looking around in games, but I might be imagining things. 

 

The person I bought it from claims he has never heard any noises like that before. The card works fine otherwise with a load temp of ~70 degrees. 

 

Now, I was wondering if it could be my power supply causing the problem? The card is hooked up to a Silverstone SFX 450 watt PSU. 450 watt is the minimum wattage for this card, but maybe I'm cutting it too fine? I don't have another power supply to test it with. 

 

The rest of the system is as follows:

i5 3570k - no OC

8gb Ram 

OCZ agility 3 120gb SSD

WD Green 2TB

2 fans in the system total including CPU fan

 

Any ideas what this could be and if there is even a way around it?

 

Thanks very much 

 

 

[DXMember]

That's probably why it was sold second hand.

Try to your money back (:

 

If he still insists the card was fine with him, then ask him to demonstrate it in his PC and still ask for your money back and tell that you just can't live with it

[Enderman]

its coil whine

you can try different PSUs, sometimes that fixes the problem

[Prysin]

its coil whine

you can try different PSUs, sometimes that fixes the problem

or sell it at Ebay for a lower price, accept the hit, and buy a R9 390

[Bloodyvalley]

coil whine

 

deal with it :\

[kgorringe]

Hi all, 

 

I recently purchased a KFA2 GTX 970 second hand for a great price, upgrading from a GTX 660.

 

However, whenever the card is under load, there is a fairly loud electrical buzzing noise coming from the centre of the PCB - I can hear it across the room and its annoying as the rest of my system is near silent. I know it is not the fans because I have stopped the fans by hand briefly to test them and the buzzing continues. Further, if I alt tab out of a game the buzzing noise instantly stops before the fans have slowed down. 

 

The noise isn't your standard high pitch coil whine noise, it sounds more like a cable tie caught in a fan (which it obviously isnt). However it does seem to change pitch ever so slightly when looking around in games, but I might be imagining things. 

 

The person I bought it from claims he has never heard any noises like that before. The card works fine otherwise with a load temp of ~70 degrees. 

 

Now, I was wondering if it could be my power supply causing the problem? The card is hooked up to a Silverstone SFX 450 watt PSU. 450 watt is the minimum wattage for this card, but maybe I'm cutting it too fine? I don't have another power supply to test it with. 

 

The rest of the system is as follows:

i5 3570k - no OC

8gb Ram 

OCZ agility 3 120gb SSD

WD Green 2TB

2 fans in the system total including CPU fan

 

Any ideas what this could be and if there is even a way around it?

 

Thanks very much 

By the way you say it changes pitch when you turn, that's just some good old coil whine my brotha.

[daniellearmouth]

Ah. Coil whine. Something 970s are somewhat notorious for.

 

You could possibly try to overclock it or overvolt it, maybe? To change how it draws power from the PSU.

 

Either that, or try to make do with headphones or something.

[Gdog96]

Okay, thanks everyone. I was unaware that coil whine came forms that weren't just that high pitch whine. 

 

Cheers