970/980 Coil Whine

Btw I put in my old 750 Ti and while there definitely is still whining, it's much less noticeable and I do actually have to basically put my ear beside the card to hear it.

Still doesn't rule out PSU whine I guess since power draw is much lower, but it's something.
 
Could be either component, really.

I will say I have had a LOT of trouble with Corsair-branded power supplies and coil whine. I've been through multiple RMAs in some instances, and STILL ended up with a unit that whines when moderate load is placed on it. It's also worth noting that allowing the power supplies to burn-in generally did help eliminate some (or all) of the whine, but it took about a week of normal usage to get to that point.

I've also had coil-whine issues with a GTX 260 and a HD 6970, but most graphics cards have been just fine.

To be honest with you I'm thinking the same thing as well. After the whole Corsair K70 RGB fiasco I might start looking at different brands.
 
Btw I put in my old 750 Ti and while there definitely is still whining, it's much less noticeable and I do actually have to basically put my ear beside the card to hear it.

Still doesn't rule out PSU whine I guess since power draw is much lower, but it's something.

What is your PSU brand and model?
 
Corsair AX1200i. It's overkill I know, but I chose it specifially for the fanless opertaion below 30% load, and given how efficient these Maxwell cards it has panned out thus far. (or maybe not lol?)
 
Corsair AX1200i. It's overkill I know, but I chose it specifially for the fanless opertaion below 30% load, and given how efficient these Maxwell cards it has panned out thus far. (or maybe not lol?)
Yeah, I picked Corsair for that "hybrid" fan feature too... but replacing fan noise with coil whine isn't a great trade :p
 
Greetings.

I have a Asus GTX 970 and I too here this buzz/whine noise...

but what is strange for me is... it does not always make noise but I can 100% cause it to reproduce this noise.

I ran a FurMark Burn In to load it up but clock speed wasn't reaching its max, I had to enable 8X MSAA to make GPU core run a max speed.
Still I do not hear any noise,
BUT, if I press the space bar to toggle off the furry object which cause the load to go to about 55%... than it starts making this buzz/whine noise.
Also, if I press P to toggle post-FX mode (still without the furry object) it makes slightly different tone of buzz/whine noise.
Varying fan speed have no effect aswell.
 
I guess I really lucked out... Maybe some combination of motherboard (intel DX79SI) + psu (Enermax Platimax 850) + cards? Neither of my STRIX cards have whine. I have tried 3dmark11 and all the demo tests - those max the gpus out according to the afterburner monitors on my G13. I also have played Far Cry 3, Wolfenstein TNO, Diablo3 (on 3 screens it actually does work the gpus a bit), and Alien Isolation (which isn't too hard on the system). I'll try some more games this weekend...
 
I guess I really lucked out... Maybe some combination of motherboard (intel DX79SI) + psu (Enermax Platimax 850) + cards? Neither of my STRIX cards have whine. I have tried 3dmark11 and all the demo tests - those max the gpus out according to the afterburner monitors on my G13. I also have played Far Cry 3, Wolfenstein TNO, Diablo3 (on 3 screens it actually does work the gpus a bit), and Alien Isolation (which isn't too hard on the system). I'll try some more games this weekend...

Have you tried what I have mentioned about using FurMark? Toggle that furry off?
 
Have you tried what I have mentioned about using FurMark? Toggle that furry off?

I have not but I will .... btw my cards are at 1460/3800... haven't touched the voltage slider in afterburner... While benching I see the voltage and speeds bounce around a bit so I guess the cards are hitting the TDP wall and throttling back but they rarely dip below 1400 core. When I game they are pegged at 1460 the whole time.

edit: I had some GTX260s that were silent the whole time I had them except for one game, STALKER, I think it was the Clear Sky installment.. that would make them squeal like a pair of stuck pigs... so I am sure there's a program out there that can stress a component a certain way... granted they shouldn't make noise in a perfect world.. that's not where we live. ;)
 
So here's one review on Newegg about the Gigabyte 970:

Michael H from Newegg said:
Pros: Card is really impressive for the price.

Cons: Coil whine.......I refuse to drop hundreds of dollars for a noisy product. Especially when I've dropped serious cash on quiet case fans, defeats their purpose.

Other Thoughts: I jumped from Gigabyte GTX 760s in SLI to this card for Oculus Rift development, as at the moment it doesn't support SLI (hope that changes). Its a great card, and my 760s are perfect....but that coil whine. My 760s did not whine. I also tested with my lastlast builds PSU and it whined as well. Internet says this is an issue with several companies. I may wait a few more weeks to see if bad press lights some fires :(.

Seems like these cards have some real coil whine issues that can't really be blamed on the PSU.
 
Well the whine is back today. So I just moved my case around and tested during Valley benchmark and it is 100% my PSU that is whining. I have never had an issue with a PSU before and certainly didn't have a problem while using my 780 Lightning ( that I just sold this week) for a year.

Is it because this card draws so little power? Is the PSU going bad? This is just annoying as all hell.
 
yep two 970 from Palit; can hear coil whine (when under load)

Don't know if i should return them, since it seams to be such a wide spread issue and n next cards could be the same and i got those rather for a good price

psu Akasa 1kw
 
What does seem to be consistent though is that the reference 980s have far fewer issues with coil whine.

Man if Gigabyte sends me back some whiny cards, I may just sell them locally on CL and grab 2 reference 980s and call it a day. For the first time I'm actually glad there's such a huge stock shortage since it means these cards will be a much easier sell.

Just as an experiment the othe rday I listed my now RMA'd 970s for sale, and within 1 day I got 3 responses, and all were willing to pay my asking price. That has like literally never happened on CL before lol
 
I just noticed something else..

While running a Burn-In FurMark without AA, CPU is fully loaded but core clock is only around 980MHz. (no buzz/whine)
But toggling off the fur cause core clock to run higher at around 1317MHz but load is only around 45%. (now with buzz/whine)

Another funny fact is... noise is different with AA ON & OFF too

What the hell?
 
Another option, if you don't want to bother returning the product: Fix it yourself.

Break out the clear nail polish and coat the coils. That'll shut them up.
 
Well there's just one problem:

My suspicion is that burning in changes the resonant frequency of the tank circuit that is causing the coil to vibrate. It could be a slight inductance, capacitance or resistance change that moves the resonant frequency outside of the audible range or outside of the coil's resonant frequency thus halting the coil's vibrations. Lots of anecdotal evidence to suggest something is going on along with the altering of the voltages and frequencies being applied to the coils. Sometimes a little hot snot takes care of it but modern coils are now sealed and aside from drilling open the case and pouring in epoxy, burning in and voltage tuning are pretty much the only two things to try. Otherwise, its RMA time.

You can't rub nail polish on buried coils.
 
It's the crappy smartphone recording...
video just gives you a idea of it.

It isn't low to loud noise... it is no noise to having noise.. that is why it is even more noticeable.
 
Wow that sucks.

I thought mine was whining when it put it under load, but it was just the blower spinning up, I'm so used to having a waterblock i forgot what it sounded like. But man n=1 that sounds rough.
 
I had terrible coil whine from my Asus Strix 970 that has now devolved into a practically non-functional card. It randomly hard crashes and stock clocks won't come back unless I clean uninstall all the drivers and reinstall them. Plus the displayport has started wigging out too.

I really regret buying this card, but I guess that's what I get for buying Asus...
 
Make sure that all of you report this to your manufacturer as well and see what they say.

Asus told me if the noise bothers me I should exchange it to where I bought it from since these GPS are very new.

At least for me I can take a short drive to Asus service center of I have to. One of the reason I buy Asus since I can't be bothered by shipping and such.

Anyways back to the topic, this issue seems to be way more wide spread than anything else. Hopefully reviewers could look it to it and have a chat with manufacturers about to give us the readers a support if any.
 
Those last few videos of the gpus sound like shit guys, send those back. Sounds like a bug is getting electrocuted or something lol
 
Jesus, these videos.. I don't hear any sound coming from mine, I consider myself lucky.
 
Wow really? You've tried the FurMark method I've explained before?

By hitting P and then space like you did, and putting my ear REEEALLY close, pretty much touching the case, I can hear a really really subtle change in noise. I guess it sounds like the videos you guys posted, but I can barely hear it.. and don't hear it over the 8 fans in my case. I should also add I run my GPU fans at 100% (And I sleep with this thing about.. 3 feet from me).

Almost sounds like the sound an optical drive makes when starting to read a CD or something.. but incredibly low. I don't think it would capture it on video if I tried to record it hmm..
 
Well I guess yours is more of a true "whine" than a screech or buzz, but I'd say it's still pretty damn annoying, especially if you can hear it above all those fans.

I'd RMA that card if I were you. Or try burning in (out?) that noise.
 
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if i run furmark without the furry thing, it sounds more like a screech

what are the chances of getting a better card through rma?
 
No idea tbh. Personally my plan right now is to just hope for the best and that Gigabyte does right by me. If they reject my RMA and send me back my old cards then I'm gonna eat the 15% restock and return them. If they give me some more noisy cards I'm gonna sell them locally.

I hate throwing more money at a problem in order to solve it, but it really seems my best bet for not getting a whiny card at this point is to just grab a reference 980.
 
well when i had a evga gtx 750ti, it has coil whine too, so i rma'd it and got back another that was exactly the same.

so the question is, does anyone have a msi gtx 970 that has absolutely no whine? if no one does, then it's unlikely that i'd get lucky with an rma
 
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