Coil whine....need a remedy.

A

akg102

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 13, 2011
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I purchased a Gigabyte OC 7970 about 7 weeks ago. It's a great performer, unfortunately, it seems to have very obvious coil whine.

In game, in menu, fullscreen, windowed.......it doesn't matter how I'm gaming or benching, the whine is there.

I considered trying the hotglue/nail polish method, but didn't think that would help.

I've applied for an RMA from Gigabyte, but they haven't gotten back to me yet, after a week of waiting. I really don't know what to do at this point. I've also OC'd at a bunch of different levels in hopes of changing the frequency....nothing has worked thus far.


I'd greatly appreciate any advice you can give me. (I know this has been beaten to death. Sorry)
 
What power supply are you using? Sometimes a different (or better) power supply can eliminate it.
 
akg102 said:
I purchased a Gigabyte OC 7970 about 7 weeks ago. It's a great performer, unfortunately, it seems to have very obvious coil whine.

In game, in menu, fullscreen, windowed.......it doesn't matter how I'm gaming or benching, the whine is there.

I considered trying the hotglue/nail polish method, but didn't think that would help.

I've applied for an RMA from Gigabyte, but they haven't gotten back to me yet, after a week of waiting. I really don't know what to do at this point. I've also OC'd at a bunch of different levels in hopes of changing the frequency....nothing has worked thus far.


I'd greatly appreciate any advice you can give me. (I know this has been beaten to death. Sorry)
Click to expand...

Personally i'd RMA it. I've ran a few gigabyte motherboards in the past that coil whine, and its very annoying. I've heard of the nail polish trick as well but I have no idea if it works.
 
I had a reference Sapphire 7970 with noticeable coil whine. I complained to Sapphire, but they told me they would not RMA card. Didn't bother pursuing it further so I just sold it.

Hopefully Gigabyte will be better for you.
 
Coil whine happens as a result of interplay between two components with coils. It's usually the video card and the power supply, but the motherboard can also be one of the players.

The choices are using nail polish to silence the offending coils (you may be able to locate them better by using a cardboard tube such as may be found at the end of a roll of paper towels), or to RMA and hope the replacement doesn't do the same thing. The nail polish remedy does work, if you find the coils that are making noise, but I'm not enthusiastic about users having to spread goo all over their stuff just so the company can be cheap about not immobilizing the coils.

I think I've seen people say it fades over time but not quickly. but that's no solution for you since it's that annoying.
 
Thanks for the replies. I've tried the card on a different power supply....the one supplied with the SG07 and it still whined. It also had a different motherboard. (An AMD system)

I have a Kingwin 850w....it's not a high end PSU by any means. My mobo is an AsRock mini-Itx z68.

I'm a little hesitant to drop $200 on a gold rated power supply without knowing if it will help. I doubt they accept the RMA, so I guess I'm not totally against going with the nailpolish/glue route.....I'd just hate to void my warranty on something that might not work.

I believe the chokes look something like this:

http://rog.asus.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/asus-radeon-hd-7970-directcu-ii-sap.jpg
http://cdn.overclock.net/6/63/600x340px-LL-633f7527_150a.jpeg

The copper isn't exposed, which is why I was a little skeptical of the nail polish effectiveness. Correct me if I'm wrong.....as I don't have an EE background or much GPU modding experience.
 
i do have same coil whine on my 7970 windforce but i can't hear them over my fan
or game sound
 
Had two different 7970s in my sg08 with the asrock z68. Only the card caused the whine. it's silent now with a gtx680.
 
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I have 4 cards.. 2 Diamond and 2 XFX. I used them for a couple of weeks on there stock cooling and didnt notice any whine untill i went to overclock them real high like over 1200mhz on the core with max voltage. Since putting them on water cooling with the rest of the system with EK blocks i never hear the whine anymore.

That would be an expensive fix though.

Cheap fix whould be to use headphones while gaming.
 
I wonder if I left my PC on the Minecraft menu whenever I'm out of the house, the whine would eventually work itself out. That is, by far, the worst culprit. BF3 menus are also very bad.

I'm not sure that the nail polish trick would work with the hard-covered coils.
 
I feel your pain, i have a Gigabyte Windforce 7970 OC and it has coil whine too. its only audible in games but it's still disappointing, especially coming from a Radeon 6950 that was virtually silent in that regard.
 
I think I might go the hot glue route first........any chance of over heating due to the insulation?

Also, for clarification, I drown the solid chokes? Correct? Outlined in blue.

gtx280_step1_2.jpg
 
akg102 said:
I think I might go the hot glue route first........any chance of over heating due to the insulation?

Also, for clarification, I drown the solid chokes? Correct? Outlined in blue.
Click to expand...

I don't think I'd take the blunt instrument approach to it. If you can't identify exactly what is making the noise, I wouldn't put a bunch of hot glue on random components on a $550 video card, especially if it might void the warranty. I'm not even sure that the solid chokes make the noise enough to notice, normally it is the copper coils that do it - and if they do whether putting glue on the outside would help or not. If you do decide to do it, just put a little dab of glue on the edge - you don't really need to cover it, just provide enough damping to stop the noise.
 
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Forceman said:
I don't think I'd take the blunt instrument approach to it. If you can't identify exactly what is making the noise, I wouldn't put a bunch of hot glue on random components on a $550 video card, especially if it might void the warranty. I'm not even sure that the solid chokes make the noise enough to notice, normally it is the copper coils that do it - and if they do whether putting glue on the outside would help or not. If you do decide to do it, just put a little dab of glue on the edge - you don't really need to cover it, just provide enough damping to stop the noise.
Click to expand...

Well.......I took the blunt instrument approach. It did absolutely nothing but make a big freaking mess and waste a couple hours. Now I have to find a way to get all of this glue off.
 
You should use a paper towel roll tube or similar tube to isolate the whine before throwing hot glue everywhere.
 
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