RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio coil whine

[Kasenumi]

Hi everyone
So a few days ago I started hearing some electric high frequency sound coming from my PC. Firstly thought my AIO pump was failing but after listening a bit more it seems that GPU causes the noise. Increasing fans speed also increases the electric noise. It started 2 weeks after my GPU warranty expired.
I googled a bit and it seems that a crappy PSU might cause this. Some people say that replacing a PSU with a more quality one can fix this. Honestly, this buzzing noise causes a headache and is getting on my nerves.
If a game is opened - coil whine noise can be heard. ALT+TAB and its very quiet, almost unnoticeable. 
My current GPU is RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
PSU is BeQuiet Pure Power 11 cm 700W

Is this caused by a GPU or a PSU?

[CommanderAlex]

Coil whine is the natural phenomenon where coils or inductors vibrate in a frequency that falls within the range of human hearing- roughly 20-20,000Hz. There is nothing you can do for coil whine as it is just an aesthetic thing and does not affect the performance or affect the longevity of the graphics card (or any computer component). Have you tried V-sync to lock in the FPS to the refresh rate of the monitor? 

 

My card and other cards in the past that I've had (GTX 1070, RTX 2080) have had coil whine to some degree, but not as horrendous as some videos of people's card have. 

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, CommanderAlex said:

There is nothing you can do for coil whine

I had terrible coilwhine (1070) replaced the pcie cable (from same manufacturer,  bequiet) coilwhine was gone.

 

So saying there's nothing you can do is factually wrong, its just that its not super straightforward or necessarily easy...

 

1 hour ago, Kasenumi said:

BeQuiet Pure Power 11

Seeing mine was a pure power 10, you could try changing the pcie cable(s) with *compatible* ones.

 

But just so you know,  if the cables aren't 100% compatible it can fry your pc, so make sure they are .

[Pixelfie]

Could be both the PSU and GPU. It can even be the motherboard, or even your neighbours having some device on their power

 

My Gaming X 5500 XT also has horrible coil whine with a Be Quiet PSU, but it was a cheaper model (SP9). After replacing the PSU with an RM650x it's less, but definitely still there.

 

Other options would be undervolting the card or getting a case that isolates noise pretty good (like a Pure Base 600 etc). You can also turn up case and CPU fans. Sometimes running a GPU heavy benchmark like Superposition overnight will help stuff, but I wouldn't do it if the PC is in the room you sleep, in that case maybe do it while going to work/school

 

If it's not annoying you shouldn't bother. It won't damage any part, but the sound can definitely be annoying and difficult to fix.

Edited September 28, 2021 by Pixelfie

[jaslion]

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

So saying there's nothing you can do is factually wrong, its just that its not super straightforward or necessarily easy...

This. The stupidest things can fix it but there is nothing that will always be the fix to go for. Sometimes it does happen that there is nothing to do about it sadly.

 

Things that fixed it before:

 

Change psu

Change cable

Remove and reseat gpu

Clean the card

Move it to a different slot in the computer

Change the thermal pads

Remount the cooler

Literally just bumped in to it

Put some lego's under a sagging card

Left it out of the computer for a couple days

Changed the fan profile

...

 

It's honestly quite random what works sometimes

 

[Mark Kaine]

11 minutes ago, jaslion said:

It's honestly quite random what works sometimes

Yeah I bet it is... in my case it was easy to figure out cause I previously changed my cable and then got coilwhine... so it was pretty obvious whats causing it, still fairly easy to try (even if random) 

[Mark Kaine]

16 minutes ago, Pixelfie said:

My Gaming X 5500 XT also has horrible coil whine with a Be Quiet PSU, but it was a cheaper model (SP9). After replacing the PSU with an RM650x it's less, but definitely still there.

funny for me its the other way around,  I still have my old bequiet psu, there's no coilwhine whatsoever with it and my 3070, but im now using a RM650I and the coilwhine is pretty bad, depending on the game and some games vsync fixes it, other games it has no effect whatsoever- so yeah it does seem random (I still somehow blame "loose coils" lol)

 

Seriously tempted to put my old psu back sometimes,  but then the coilwhine isn't *that* bad (in most games)

[CommanderAlex]

33 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

I had terrible coilwhine (1070) replaced the pcie cable (from same manufacturer,  bequiet) coilwhine was gone.

 

So saying there's nothing you can do is factually wrong, its just that its not super straightforward or necessarily easy...

 

Seeing mine was a pure power 10, you could try changing the pcie cable(s) with *compatible* ones.

 

 

If others complained online that just by changing a cable fixed their coil whine, MANY others would do that. It just happened to fix coil whine for you so it does not paint a wide brush over fixing coil whine. 

[Mark Kaine]

3 minutes ago, CommanderAlex said:

If others complained online that just by changing a cable fixed their coil whine, MANY others would do that. It just happened to fix coil whine for you so it does not paint a wide brush over fixing coil whine. 

except in many cases psu or cable change fixes it, most people just dont bother "because they're using headphones anyway" or are too cheap to try a fix that may or may not work. 

Or have someone telling them "there's nothing you can do..." (falsely) 

 

No, there's no guarantee,  but it is possible and not that outlandish of a fix either (you could also theoretically try to dampen it with silicone glue or by changing the offending coil... but hey)

 

 

[CommanderAlex]

18 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

except in many cases psu or cable change fixes it, most people just dont bother "because they're using headphones anyway" or are too cheap to try a fix that may or may not work. 

Or have someone telling them "there's nothing you can do..." (falsely) 

 

No, there's no guarantee,  but it is possible and not that outlandish of a fix either (you could also theoretically try to dampen it with silicone glue or by changing the offending coil... but hey)

 

 

I don't get why your getting up in arms over "there is nothing you can do". Sure, if you really wanted to try using silicone to attempt to dampen the coil and prevent it from vibrating to audible levels, this could work.