Corsair HX 650W/GTX 285 Coil Whine Woes

Yeah, coil whine is now commonplace. Chances are you could return the PSU, GFX card and you'll have the same problem. If possible try another GFX card brand, but even then it's evens that you will get some whining but perhaps less severe. Simply luck of the draw I'm afraid.
 
Unfortunately as was stated above, it has become something of the norm. A solution, an unpractical one though, is to get a less powerful graphics card that won't push such high FPS. (My old 7900GT is dead silent...well aside from its fan) Coil whine is actually one of the biggest things holding me back from getting a quiet water cooling setup as then the coil whine wouldn't have any noise to get buried under.
 
Unless the manufacturer states (in writing) that adding nail varnish won't void your warranty, I would suggest not to make irreversable mods to such an expensive (IMO), new card. If you wanted to go down the 'fix it myself' path, maybe stuff like hot glue might be better as you can always peal it off without leaving a trace if you have to RMA it.

If the PSU is the main culprit tho, have you thought about something like this as a workaround...

http://thermaltakeusa.com/Product.aspx?C=1156&ID=1543

They had a 250W version but can't find it on thier site anymore (maybe obsolete)
 
Some claim that certain manufacturers of power supplies are less prone to this than others - supposedly the Corsairs are some of the bad ones, so a different manufacturer of PSU might help - be careful though, because many name brand PSUs are all made by the same actual company.
 
This is exactly the same issue I had when I switched to my first series of no less then 3 different GTX 285's back in February. I had a 520hx AND then even a 620hx - they both contributed to and more than likely enhanced the coil whine/hissing/squealing/buzzing coming from the system. It was extremely noticeable and I found it ridiculous that such problems occured - first I had ever encountered.

Anyhow, I made a video and put it on youtube to show the noise: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiGocVpYh6A (turn up volume)

Ultimately I switched to an enermax modu82+ 625w powersupply (great PSU recommended) and the PSU whine stopped - BUT the GTX 285 noises remained. Even with one source down - the GPU was still bad enough to make me return it. 4870 1gb was purchased and used for a few months until just yesterday when I exchanged 2 different GTX 285s to finally settle on my current card. If it wasn't for the performance in games and CUDA I wouldn't even bother with nvidia cards this generation. I even used the 4890 which lad little to no squeal. I hope next gen nvidia cards fix their coils or vrm...whatever causes the noises.
 
Thing is ati has this noise as well.
8800 GTX: had it
9800gx2: didnt have it
gtx280 didnt have it
hd4870x2: has it
from my experiences.
 
With several 260 GTX builds:

Antec Neohe 650: No squeal
Antec NeoHE 550: No squeal
Antec Quatro 1000: Had it
BFG LS-550: No squeal

Could be the Quatro 1000 was defective, so I rma'd it, and sold it without trying it. This was reproduced with the same GPU card on one of the sytems I built.
 
The best comment on inductor coil squeal I have seen so far explains rather well why PSUs have something to do with it:

ViperJohn said:
This isn't exactly a revelation or stroke of genius. The noise referred to is series inductor singing
and it is CERTAINLY NOT a deadly flaw!!! It has been around since the first switching power
supplies were developed. It is as common as house flies in high phase current switching power
supplies used for the CPU/GPU on GFX cards and motherboards. Both NV and ATI have had issues
with this depending on the design of the power supplies and more specifically the inductors used
in the manufacturing of a given series of cards.

It is most commonly the turns of copper wire in the phase series inductors vibrating at an audible
sub-harmonic of the power supplies switching frequency when the CPU/GPU is under high load
and current pulses through the series inductor are at very high level. It crops up quite often
with some modded GFX cards where the combination of increased Vcore and GPU speed drives
the phase currents upwards of 60%+ higher than stock.

Inductors where the wire coils are not potted or varnished in place to prevent the vibration can
play a symphony that varies with the constantly changing current pulses. It can be irritating
as hell sometimes. It is not damaging anything but your nerves if you have a bad case of singing.

It is easy to correct if you can get to the coils without desoldering the inductors to get at the
coils. Insulating varnish, clear nail polish or thick set cyanoacrylate glues have all been used
to quiet singing series inductors with the latter being an RMA test tech's best friend.
Click to expand...

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?p=5881510
 
This thread has completely put me of the Corsair HX 520 and HX 620 power supply units!

Good tip with the Enermax. Enermax PSUs are amongst the best around without doubt. Mine is still going strong and it's nearly 5 years old! It's a 425W PSU powering my set-up without a hitch or complaint and zero coil noise

I'll definately go with the Enermax Modu82+ 625 come GFX card upgrade time.

The [H]ard guys like it

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ4MiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
 
Last edited:
My 8800GT had high coil whine with my Ultra XVS Modular 700w PSU. I bought a 9800GT and had no whine. Then I SLI'd it with my 8800GT(firmware modded to a 9800gt) and the 880GT had whine but less audible since it was the secondary card.

My Ultra PSU eventually exploded and I replaced it with a 700w OCZ StealthXstream. Much less coil whine from the 8800GT but it was still there. Bought a GTX 275 and no coil whine.
 
The only time I get it is when I do the unreal editor and move around in 3d mode, or when playing a game with the GTX 285. How do you run crysis at 2300 FPS anyways? :eek:
 
I feel your pain. Coil whine sucks especially when there isn't much you can do about it but rma and hope the replacement is whine free. From my experience, it is usually the psu that loudly whines and squeals. I have had only two video cards whine and they were pretty quiet for the most part.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top