7970 squealing noise when playing games?

Kaynar said:
I made an account on this forum just to share that I also own an XFX 7970 Black Edition Double D and I also have alot of squealing noise when running any 3D application (and i've done alot to try to stop it). Firefox has made my PC crash twice since I installed this card, but I guess thats just driver issues. It is the first time I have such an intensive noise coming from a GPU but I've already had it before in lesser amounts when moving the mouse (on a 7800GTX).

My previous card is XFX 5870, never had a problem with it.

Otherwise, the 7970 performs amazingly with P8380 on 3Dmark11 and runs fluidly. I have contacted XFX support twice and they have answered that there should be no problem but if, however, I wish to return the card to get a new one I could do so.

Edit: I am also using Afterburner 2.2 beta for a custom fan profile, the GPU is always under 65c with fans going up to 55% but most of the time they are running at 40% which is totally inaudible over my 1700RPM case fans. Much quiter than reference XFX 5870 in general.
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I got a reply back from XFX too... basically same thing and not to worry about it hehe... which is what I expected.

Also of note with respect to my plan of installing water blocks, imagine my surprise when I saw stickers over two of the heatsinks screws indicating the warranty will be void if I remove them. I asked XFX about that and was told that policy doesn't apply in the North America region. I thought that was kind of weird... but I'm happy I can go ahead with my plan and not void the warranty. Especially considering I was a bit paranoid with the noise they're making hehe... Anyway, I can't wait for the water blocks! In the meantime I've managed to get all three running by changing up the spacing a bit, added a couple extra 120's, one blowing from the side and the back of the cards, and by leaving the side off my case hehe... I'm glad I use headphones because the thing is bloody loud now!
 
[D]razio;1038297514 said:
What power supply do you have?

You aren't able to hear any electrical whine with your side panel off?
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Nope.. I sit about 2 feet from my case and my cards are right at the top of my tall moutain mods case. Theres 3 120mm fans on top which are right over them. I'd hear it if it did.

I have 2x 1600WATT Ultra X4 P/Ss working at 1200 watts each. The brand has a bad rap but i dont get any whinning from them unlike my former Pc Power and Cooling 1KW SR P/S which was the best out there.

Heres a link to my build.. well former build. Going to be selling off the MB,CPU and Quad GTX580s and blocks in a couple of days when i get time to remove all the blocks from them.

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=693435
 
BTW.. just ordered another XFX 7970. Fingers crossed its whine free! hehe. Crap!

Water cooling them and ending up just hearing the whine would kill!
 
I can confirm my sapphire 7970 has coil whine, however I guess im lucky that with the side of my case on its not audible over my case fans.
 
I have 4 Asus 7970 in Quad-Fire and 1 is whining badly only in 3D. Idle, not a peep.

It's really annoying since my 4 cards are watercooled and I have an extremely quiet system. All I hear is that annoying whinning in 3D. :(
 
I just got my sapphire 7970 and it has whine. I noticed that it only whines when the frames are high.

CS for example:

If i set fps_max to 60, the whine stops.
fps_max to 100, you can hear it.
fps_max to 300, it's a lot louder.
 
Louder at higher frame rates prob cause its putting out more power to do them.
 
eclypse said:
Louder at higher frame rates prob cause its putting out more power to do them.
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I would have thought low frames (when maxing out the card) like in BF3 would equate to more power since the card is trying all it can on ultra settings and still only pushing 30-60 frames.
 
My Gigabyte Windforce card has coil whine and it's going back cause of it.
My Asus DCUII Top edition does not have coil whine, but I guess that's expected since they use better power modules.
 
My Sapphire 7970 does the same annoying coil whine noise.
I even recorded it: http://youtu.be/Va3UhENMzxc , i started to notice it after i put the Accelero 7970 but thats probably because the reference cooler was too loud to even spot the coil whine.

According to Sapphire, i shouldn't worry at all.
 
The point isn't to worry though, it's annoying as heck.
I bought a non reference cooling card so that it's quieter, coil whine negates that purpose.
 
Eluder79 said:
The point isn't to worry though, it's annoying as heck.
I bought a non reference cooling card so that it's quieter, coil whine negates that purpose.
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Ironic stuff, i didn't notice it with the reference cooler on but now with the Accelero its really annoying as you said.

But there is nothing we can do, if you RMA it you might get a new one with even more coil whine.

I can live with it, for now at least.
 
Well I'll keep returning it to my retailer until I get one that doesn't exhibit the issue, that or go with a different manufacturer.
 
Eluder79 said:
Well I'll keep returning it to my retailer until I get one that doesn't exhibit the issue, that or go with a different manufacturer.
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You can keep trying but as i said almost all the 7970 got the coil whine, some more, some less but its highly unlikely you will find one without the coil whine.
 
Well as I mentioned, my Asus DCUIIT absolutely doesn't so maybe I'll have to get another one of those instead.
 
Just a personal update:
I decided that the coil whine in my 7970 wasn't that big of an issue and did not return it. I put in my review on Newegg and gave it 5 stars. Case closed for me.
 
Well, crap. I was all set to get a 7970 and then I saw this thread. No way am I getting a card that emits a whine while playing games. (Is this mentioned in any reviews? I had looked at a bunch, and only recall praise for how quiet the card was...)

Is there any brand whose 7970's don't whine for anyone? Or is this a fundamental flaw in all of them?
 
Yeah just get a regular reference card that cools the vregs better then non ref.

From what i've read i believe you want a Gigabyte,MSI or Asus that does there warrenty through the serial number so reselling them later with warrenty will make everything peachy.

If you want to go water cooling then going with a reference card will make that easy as all the water blocks out now are for ref cards.
 
BTW.. mine dont normally squeel. Only when i raise the voltage too high and put a huge load on them like in heaven bench did it ever do that lightly. My normal overclock of 1200/1800 mem is squeel free durring gaming (BF3) max settings. I would know as i have a quiet rig and everything is on water cooling and near silent fans.
 
Coil noise is pretty common. I wouldn't RMA a card if it had a little bit of coil noise.
 
I've only ever gotten coil noise in the menus of some games where the FPS is into the hundreds or thousands. On any of my videocards I've owned actually, 7970 (specifically the top one, if the bottom one does it, the tops louder) does it barely audibly under those conditions but haven't heard it any time else.
 
gggie said:
Well, crap. I was all set to get a 7970 and then I saw this thread. No way am I getting a card that emits a whine while playing games. (Is this mentioned in any reviews? I had looked at a bunch, and only recall praise for how quiet the card was...)

Is there any brand whose 7970's don't whine for anyone? Or is this a fundamental flaw in all of them?
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It's really hard to notice it with the reference cooler, before i bought the Accelero 7970 i used to play with a constant fan speed of 50%, never heard the coil whine. The problem is when you install a very quiet solution like the Accelero or WC but again, if you play with headphones you won't know its there.
 
tzhu07 said:
I have z68. AsRock Pro3-M.
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The z68 is actually causing the squealing. I have asus z68 genez and at first i thought it was my 7970 and i return it for another one and it made the same noise so i knew it wasnt that. Then i listen closely and it was the z68 shipset making the noise. Its pretty common. Not a big deal unless your PC is dead silent. Just wanted to give you a heads up.
 
Does this whine affect the 7950 as well? Or is it exclusive to 7970?
 
aoya said:
Does this whine affect the 7950 as well? Or is it exclusive to 7970?
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Most likely but i mean the squeal isnt loud at all. But i did exchange my z68 genez for another one and the squeal is still there but lil quieter.
 
I google'd "7950 coil whine" and it doesn't look like there are people experiencing the problem. Maybe it's isolated to the beefy 7970.
 
Mine Sapphire 7970 whines pretty loudly. It'll whine running WEI, just dragging a window around the desktop, and at normal FPS like in Unigine where it's doing 55-110. Might just RMA it.
 
Anyone experienced weird coil whine like noise coming through audio channels during gaming? I notice it occasionally through my headphones (but not speakers) when my graphics card is working hard (e.g. BF3 load screens before there is game audio coming through the phones, or Furmark etc).

I do not notice the noise when there is any audio coming through the phones.
 
Reading through this thread, can I assume that coil whine while under load is something normal? I've never had this issue before with my mid-range cards, but now that I've finally picked myself a high end card such as this one, it got me a little worried when I first heard the noise.

It happens only when running 3D games, even more so when in game menus that don't cap the FPS.
 
grambo said:
Anyone experienced weird coil whine like noise coming through audio channels during gaming? I notice it occasionally through my headphones (but not speakers) when my graphics card is working hard (e.g. BF3 load screens before there is game audio coming through the phones, or Furmark etc).

I do not notice the noise when there is any audio coming through the phones.
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That pretty much always happens unless you use an external DAC.

Also, my Powercolor 7970 has pretty significant coil whine.
 
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