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RMA time for 6970?

B

BeavermanA

2[H]4U
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Apr 27, 2006
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3,290
Well just installed my 6970 this evening. So I get a terrible whining sound coming from the card whenever a 3d app is launched. It fluctuates in pitch when moving my view in game, changing screens etc. Even when watching a video the whine becomes audible, although not nearly as loud as a game.

It is not the fan. Turned it down very low and no change. I won't be able to live with this seeing as how I'll be putting a waterblock on the card asap, and the whining sound is way louder than any fan/pump in my system.

Sorry my camera is crap, and so is youtube, but hopefully you can make it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPV9-31X8Ss

Is this just coil whine or some other fault of the card? Haven't experienced this with anything before. Covered under warranty?
 
Arcygenical said:
Certainly just coil whine. However, at that volume, it is not normal.
Click to expand...
I had the same issue with 2 different video cards (260 GTXs). Turns out replacing the power supply resolved the issue for me.
It appears to be a certain combination of PSUs and Video cards.
 
Well damn I certainly am not replacing my PSU. It has worked flawlessly with my HD5870.

Will try a couple things with the PSU+Vid card, see if it goes away.

*edit*

Nah it's not going to go away. Swapped all the pci-e power wires with brand new ones and put them in different ports, still the same.
 
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BeavermanA said:
Well damn I certainly am not replacing my PSU. It has worked flawlessly with my HD5870.

Will try a couple things with the PSU+Vid card, see if it goes away.
Click to expand...

My 5850 did that,I sent it back for the 5870...
 
Also I have found that raising/lowering the core clock is directly proportional to the volume of the whine. I lowered it all the way down to 500mhz while in a game, and the whine wasn't very noticeable, like watching a video. Then did a very small overclock to 900mhz and it was screaming. Definitely not a good sign since I want to be getting some high clocks on water.

Dave65 said:
My 5850 did that,I sent it back for the 5870...
Click to expand...

Cool. Who did you go through, the etailer or manufacturer? Did you have to pay shipping costs?
 
What are your specs, PSU (also how old psu)mobo etc... That is definitely not good. I agree it could be a coil. PSU could be the cause but perhaps it is a rare dud card.
 
Also I have found that raising/lowering the core clock is directly proportional to the volume of the whine. I lowered it all the way down to 500mhz while in a game, and the whine wasn't very noticeable, like watching a video. Then did a very small overclock to 900mhz and it was screaming. Definitely not a good sign since I want to be getting some high clocks on water.
Click to expand...

That's because you're changing the current going through the toroid. You don't need as much power (and thus current) at lower clock speeds.
 
I'll leave the show sig button checked, so specs in sig. Everything 1 year old max.

I'd test it with my other pc, but its PSU does not have an 8-pin connector. Forced me into this whole mission tonight. Was planning on using the 6970 in my other pc until I was able to get a waterblock for it. Just finished getting the air cooler back on the 5870 and setting up the other pc.

Oh and thanks for any help, only things I've had to RMA in my life have been HDD's as far as I can remember.
 
I had a PSU that squealed when one video card was in a computer, but not the other. But I've had video cards that squealed too (my old 8800 GTS)

Before you use time RMAing, make sure you know which is doing what.
 
fattypants said:
I had a PSU that squealed when one video card was in a computer, but not the other. But I've had video cards that squealed too (my old 8800 GTS)

Before you use time RMAing, make sure you know which is doing what.
Click to expand...

The sound is definitely coming from the gfx card. Separate psu and mainboard compartments in the 800D make it easy to differentiate.

Even at idle I can still hear a buzzing sound when the side panel is off. Kinda like my Samsung plasma, except they consider it "normal" even at 12ft away.
 
Could be Vsync. I know a few of the previous versions of nvidia and ati cards had issues with this. Try turning on and see if it stops before RMAing.
 
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BeavermanA said:
The sound is definitely coming from the gfx card. Separate psu and mainboard compartments in the 800D make it easy to differentiate.

Even at idle I can still hear a buzzing sound when the side panel is off. Kinda like my Samsung plasma, except they consider it "normal" even at 12ft away.
Click to expand...

Specs?????
 
RMA that beast. The only thing you should hear is the fan...coil whine that's audible from several feet away is completely unacceptable.
 
gman said:
Could be Vsync. I know a few of the previous versions of nvidia and ati cards had issues with this. Try turning on and see if it stops before RMAing.
Click to expand...
Yes I googled this issue over the weekend and did find the vsync tip. With it on, the whine is less severe, but it is still there. More of a lower tone sound with vsync on. Even if it completely disappeared with it on though, that would still be unacceptable. Usually play with it off, and Dead Space is a game that is mandatory for it to be off.
Lord_Exodia said:
Specs?????
Click to expand...
i7 920, evga classified 760, corsair dominator gt 1866mhz, corsair hx1000w
Bad ConNecTioN said:
RMA that beast. The only thing you should hear is the fan...coil whine that's audible from several feet away is completely unacceptable.
Click to expand...
Indeed. Contacted CompUSA today and they issued me return labels and a full refund including shipping once they get it.


So now I'm thinking I may go back to Nvidia with the GTX580. Either that or I'm just going to stick in my old ass 7900GS and use this pc for internet browsing.
Have my old pc with my HD5870 in it now, playing pc games on a 58" plasma is sweet, and at 1080p the card is good for a while.
 
Well slap my ass and call me Susan, I seemed to have jinxed myself by posting in this thread. I finally got around to installing my XFX 6970, and it whines like Napa Valley. Not only that, but it returned a lower 3dmark03 score then my 4870 Xfire combo...granted, driver optimizations are probably to blame, but all in all I am just straight up disappointed.

It was a gift, so I don't think I'll return it. But I am curious if the coil whine issue is common, or just isolated to the unlucky, like the OP and myself.
 
my card makes a similar sound to that but it doesnt happen all the time. it is quite frequent though. i am returning it to tigerdirect because now the card wont clock past 500mhz no matter what i am doing.
 
My card seems to clock fine when going between 2d and 3d modes, however the powertune slider (thing that goes from -20 to +20) has disappeared from CCC. When I reinstalled the drivers it came back then once again disappeared.
Honestly, I am not impressed with 10.12a....not at all.
 
Its the only benchmark that I have used on every machine I've had since the Geforce 2 days. I do it mainly for shits and giggles...sorta like a road map of where I've been, and how much faster things have really gotten.
Until today, every new PC (or major upgrade) I've ever benchmarked has scored higher...so I was just a wee bit shocked when the score went down.

I am going to chalk it up to poor drivers, and the fact that they probably don't even think about optimizing for 03 anymore. I guess my tradition dies today...

If anyone's curious, my 4870's scored 88635, and 6970 scored 86500. 4870's are already boxed up, so I can't compare on any of the more recent benchmarks.
 
My tradition was even older than yours, I ran 3DMark2001SE, and I had the same problem you had: suddenly falling scores with newer hardware.

I scored a 55K result with my older 4890, but after running the same test on the same hardware with my new card, it fell to about 38K for no good reason. Maybe lack of optimizations for Win7 or the current Catalyst drivers have something to do with it, yeah.

Upgrading from my single 4890 I estimate my performance went up about 80% or so, so your 4870 Xfire was pretty fast for its time... so fast that single GPUs are just now catching up. But you can Xfire your 6970 now and totally blow your old setup away, especially with the improved Xfire scaling on the 6 series.

P.S. I scored 83523 on 3Dmark03.

And to stay on topic, my 6970 definitely doesn't whine, even in cranked Furmark... if yours does, then there's something seriously wrong with it. RMA is the way.
 
BeavermanA said:
Well just installed my 6970 this evening. So I get a terrible whining sound coming from the card whenever a 3d app is launched. It fluctuates in pitch when moving my view in game, changing screens etc. Even when watching a video the whine becomes audible, although not nearly as loud as a game.

It is not the fan. Turned it down very low and no change. I won't be able to live with this seeing as how I'll be putting a waterblock on the card asap, and the whining sound is way louder than any fan/pump in my system.

Sorry my camera is crap, and so is youtube, but hopefully you can make it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPV9-31X8Ss

Is this just coil whine or some other fault of the card? Haven't experienced this with anything before. Covered under warranty?
Click to expand...

Oh the bad memories from this. My EVGA GTX 280 FTW whined like this under any 3D application. Nine months later the video card exhibited memory artifacts and later eventually died. I got it replaced with another GTX 280 FW and it had no whining noise whatsoever. The only videicard that I ever had that died on me is the one that had the whining noise. RMA time ;)
 
I have a 7950GT that whines so loud it causes headaches...it's been around for years...I want it to die though :(
 
Well, I registered my card with XFX...so if it dies, I should be covered. I have a general question about the XFX warranty. If I RMA this card, will I still have a lifetime warranty on the replacement they send me? Or would it be a better idea to send it back to Tiger Direct?

Its funny...so far the only thing that exhibited coil whine from the card was 3dmark03. Furmark only raises the fan speed...and none of the games I've played have made it whine. Still testing though...
 
Well as an update finally, after not being able to tolerate my main rig being solely a dust collector any longer, picked up a used eVGA 580GTX from a [H] member.

No coil whine :).
 
It's not only inductors that can make sound, but capacitors can make the exact same whine. Then its just a matter of time before the cap fails. This can be caused by a faulty psu's power having bad filtering.
 
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