970/980 Coil Whine

SLI MSI 970 Gaming, no coil whine. All this coil whine talk, I don't think I've ever even heard coil whine before lol. I've owned 20+ different graphics cards since the nvidia 200 series and amd 4000 series.

that's it, I'm rma-ing mine. and gonna repeat until I get a good card
 
Well I ran more benchmarks and the whine is lower but still there at higher fps. I'm going to rma in few days.
 
I'm getting two MSI 970's in tomorrow so I'll post when I know if they have any whine or not.
 
According to LinusTechTips, the 970s are heavily back ordered. The sale is unprecedented and overtakes the mining era in terms of the GPUs sold.

Looks like the vendors have their work cut out to replenish their inventory. The blame squarely goes to nVidia for pricing these at 329$ with great non-reference designs available at 349$ only. Seems like every one wants these cards now.

Heck I can't even get my 290xs sold at 375$ on ebay. No interest from anyone since 20 days :/

$375 is more than it costs to get new 290x cards so...
 
holy shit dude.. how long did all that take and you had to pay for shipping ?

holy shit dude :eek:

I notice you're using Gigabyte 970s as well, any comments on the RMA process?

All were bought and returned on either Amazon or Newegg. I did not RMA them through the manufacturer. It took from the day they were released until last week to finally find the two good ones. This should never have needed to happen.
 
Okay I really am not sure if I'm hearing coil whine or not from my 970. Like I wrote before, the only time I hear a difference is sticking my ear against the case when I turn off furry object in FurMark.. that's it. And it sounds more like a whirring sound, not a screeching or high pitched noise. I even tried taking a video, but you can't hear the difference at all. But there's 8 fans in there, and the GPU fans run at 100% as well.. so I don't even notice any change without putting my ear against it.
 
I mean, do you play FurMark a lot? Do you typically play it with your ear against the case?

If you do, you've got bigger issues to deal with, I think.
 
I mean, do you play FurMark a lot? Do you typically play it with your ear against the case?

If you do, you've got bigger issues to deal with, I think.

MAYBE I DO, DON'T JUDGE ME!

I don't care about the sound mine makes. I'm just reiterating because people seemed to express disbelief that some peoples cards aren't whining.
 
should i rma through newegg or msi?

Totally up to you. I sent my MSI 970 back to Newegg, they received it in Monday and today I had the refund in my bank account. Then I bought an Asus 970 to see how that goes. Unless this Asus is loud as heck, I am keeping it at this point.
 
I RMA'd mine back to Gigabyte because Directron charges 15% restock for "non-DOA" returns. Coil whine =/= DOA ofc.

Gigabyte received my cards yesterday. Will update on how the RMA goes.
 
I got my two Gigabyte G1 970s today and they both have coil whine. Its not the screeching whine that the ones on youtube seem to have but its noticeable. I don't know if I should RMA or not since I only game with my headphones on and I can't hear it at all then. They only whine when they're at full load so watching a movie without headphones is unaffected. The whine is also more pronounced when both cards are installed. When its just one card by itself you have to literally put your head next to the card to hear the whine.

Another odd thing that has happened since i installed both cards is that the led light on my corsair h100i blinks slowly while gaming which it didn't before.
 
I'm getting two MSI 970's in tomorrow so I'll post when I know if they have any whine or not.

No coil whine whatsoever on my two new MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G cards in SLI. My initial OC is 1500 Core / 8000 memory and temps are in the 60s under load with fans on auto.
 
Totally up to you. I sent my MSI 970 back to Newegg, they received it in Monday and today I had the refund in my bank account. Then I bought an Asus 970 to see how that goes. Unless this Asus is loud as heck, I am keeping it at this point.

would coil whine be sufficient reason for them to waive the 15% restocking fee?
 
alright looks like the quickest way is to just return it while waiting for stock from newegg/tigerdirect
 
That dolphin noise is pretty bad. Only time I've heard this is from a failing power supply. Never heard anything resembling that from a GPU before.
 
would coil whine be sufficient reason for them to waive the 15% restocking fee?

Call CS first and let them know about the coil whine and ask them to waive the fee. They will put a note on the account so it does not charge you.

Restocking fees are somewhat of a crappy move. Since they are forced to sell at "open box", you are technically paying for the lost value of the product though there are some shady retailers that will repackage as new and sell as new even charging restocking fee.

Personally when I buy new the last person that touches my product is the person who does QC at the factory, not some 9 dollar an hour intern at Newegg. I want my stuff brand new and "untouched" :)
 
So just to give an update on my Gigabyte RMA, the status changed to

"No trouble found after tests with multiple configurations"

Riiiiiiiiight, because obvious coil whine is "no trouble" in their eyes. :rolleyes: Clearly Gigabyte does not want to own up to their shitty QC, so I guess I can expect them to send me back my old cards. Well this'll be the first and last time I buy Gigabyte.
 
970 Strix here - no coil whine. Actually very to little noise at all. One of my best video curd purchases ever (just after that 8800 gtx :p)
 
To those of you talking about whether or not coil whine / buzzing (non fan related) is a issue or not. It is a technical issue.

I don't know know about other manufacturers but Asus tech did tell me that at a factory settings there should not be any sort of noise as such and is considered not normal. So that means it is not operating as it should be and do not know what that will lead to in long term.
But at same providing too much voltage could possibly cause such noise.

Send a email to your manufacturer and explain in detail and be sure to ask if this is considered normal or not. That should settle things for you.
 
I could not even hear my MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G cards, no whine at all, and with fans at full speed. They've done amazing things making them cool, quiet, and pulling less power.
 
To those of you talking about whether or not coil whine / buzzing (non fan related) is a issue or not. It is a technical issue.

I don't know know about other manufacturers but Asus tech did tell me that at a factory settings there should not be any sort of noise as such and is considered not normal. So that means it is not operating as it should be and do not know what that will lead to in long term.
But at same providing too much voltage could possibly cause such noise.

Send a email to your manufacturer and explain in detail and be sure to ask if this is considered normal or not. That should settle things for you.

Eh, that sounds more like a canned response than an absolute truth. If someone says "Hey is this GPU supposed to sound like a dog whistle?" of course they are going to say no. Meanwhile coil whine remains a common concern on many GPUs.
 
So just to give an update on my Gigabyte RMA, the status changed to

"No trouble found after tests with multiple configurations"

Riiiiiiiiight, because obvious coil whine is "no trouble" in their eyes. :rolleyes: Clearly Gigabyte does not want to own up to their shitty QC, so I guess I can expect them to send me back my old cards. Well this'll be the first and last time I buy Gigabyte.

Can you return to where you purchased it?
 
In years past I have had terrible coil whine. I switched PSUs and problem has gone away. My Corsair HX750 has been great, I don't recall any coil whine from GPUs since I have put this in years ago.
 
well you're lucky but i'm pretty sure for most people in this thread the problem would not be affected positively by a psu change...
 
Can you return to where you purchased it?

Bought from Directron, 15% restock for non-DOA returns.

Can't complain though, buying from them already saved me about $70 in sales tax (fuck California and its ridiculous 9.25% sales tax), and on top of that I got another 10% off first-time customer discount. I ended up paying $688 including shipping for 2 Gigabyte 970s, which is $120 in savings compared to buying from Newegg or Amazon.

Now if only Gigabyte would up their QC...
 
Does the the ACX2.0 970 have coil whine?

All of them have a chance at it. Even the reference 980's.

It seems much more common with the Asus and msi cards.

My corsair psu whines so I passed on these. I don't need to double down on coil whine and I don't have time to drive back and forth to UPS RMAing. I really hope they watch this better next gen.
 
This caught me surprise last night. I haven't really heard any coil whine from my 970 in games at all, but last night I left my PC on while I slept to finish a download from an extremely slow site, and after half an hour or so of the PC sitting idle it suddenly started singing to me - really quite loudly. I'm guessing it was the windows experience index refreshing or something, four maybe 5 second bursts, two at one pitch, two at a slightly higher pitch. It cut through the room quite clearly and made me wonder what on earth was going on for a minute!
Unusual as I looked for coil whine in places where all my previous AMD cards have had it (e.g. the 3000fps opening to crysis games is a good example, or getting 500-600fps in GZDoom) but didn't find any - to all intents and purposes my card seems electronically silent, but for whatever was going on last night!
 
Does the the ACX2.0 970 have coil whine?

Mine does.. but it is pretty feint. the only reason I hear it really is because it is on my desk with a side fan so it is open there as well. completely ignorable. With headphones on I don't hear it at all unless it is at a crazy uncapped fps rate thing happening.
 
Who here solved the coil whine noise by replacing a PSU ?

If so, which model to which model have you replaced with?


I personally am using PC Power & Cooling 750W (red)
 
I'm guessing it was the windows experience index refreshing or something, four maybe 5 second bursts, two at one pitch, two at a slightly higher pitch.

yup i also find wei to be one of the things that make the coil whine flare up the most
 
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