Coil whine, or is it coming from my fans?

[Opportunity231]

So i have finally almost gotten through with all of my issues with my new computer, but this last one has been going on since i got it (a week ago). That issue is i hear a buzzing noise that is coming from my GPU. However, im not sure if it is its fans or if it is just a coil whine. The buzz only seems to happen when gaming and turning up my manual fan speed, but only awhile after turning up my fan speed the sound goes away. On the other hand, when i game it doesnt eventually stop which leads me to believe that it is a coil whine and not an issue with my fan, but im no expert at this so im not sure.

The GPU i have is a Sapphire Radeon 7970. If you need me to describe the noise more feel free to ask. I just need to know if it has to do with my fans though so i can RMA it if i must.

Also, my temperatures are all fine. The GPU never exceeds 55*C.

[Toffie]

The majority of 7950/7970 cards have coil whine, even the 7970 Gigabyte I had before.
I sent it in for an RMA, I got it back without any form of coil whine.

[Faithh]

Basically every card has coil whine which is normal but it's just mostly not audible. If the frequeny is between 10000 - 20000 it's audible but depends on age, above 20K it isn't.

[Opportunity231]

So should i RMA it and get a new one? Or does coil whine not matter/wont break my GPU and i should just keep it? I use headphones, so i dont hear it at all, so sound isnt an issue. Im just worried about it breaking.

[Tornainbow]

Coil whine doesn't indicate there's anything wrong and to some extent is "normal". It can get much louder with time as I've found so if it's bothering you now I'd probably try and replace it. I just returned a PSU that had horrific coil whine and bought a different one that is dead silent.

[Faithh]

So should i RMA it and get a new one? Or does coil whine not matter/wont break my GPU and i should just keep it? I use headphones, so i dont hear it at all, so sound isnt an issue. Im just worried about it breaking.

I said for a reason that it's normal :P Well it's just a coil vibrating making the noise, it doesn't mean your card is going to die or going to underperform and if it doesn't bother you just don't rma it then. Happened to me quiet a lot, rma'ing a card getting one with coil whine again.

[Opportunity231]

Ok, i'll keep it i guess. However, there is one thing i forgot to mention. When i get the whine, there is also a vibration sound. Is that normal too? Like, i hear the coil whine, then i hear a "deeper" vibration type of sound that eventually covers up the whine. Not sure if that is the whine itself (because it is usually high pitched from what i have read) or if it is just a deeper whine than normal. Sorry if it is hard to understand me lol.

[Tornainbow]

Ok, i'll keep it i guess. However, there is one thing i forgot to mention. When i get the whine, there is also a vibration sound. Is that normal too? Like, i hear the coil whine, then i hear a "deeper" vibration type of sound that eventually covers up the whine. Not sure if that is the whine itself (because it is usually high pitched from what i have read) or if it is just a deeper whine than normal. Sorry if it is hard to understand me lol.

Maybe the fan? Vibration could be from the fan increasing because it's under load. Higher load can also change the character of the whine so you are no longer hearing it but the fan.

[Opportunity231]

Im not sure if it is the fan though. I have it set at a 80% speed at all times. And the actual coil whine (the high pitched noise) only really happens during loading screens or out in the middle of no where when my GPU is under little to no load. During a raid or in a major city it turns into a semi-loud vibration like noise, is that still considered a coil whine or something else i should worried about? But like i said, it cant be the fan since it is always at 80% speed and no noises are made when watching a video on youtube or watching a stream on Twitch, only when gaming does it occur.

[Faithh]

Just run a game, put your hands on the fan and listen.

[Opportunity231]

So i found out that it isnt a coil whine or something wrong with my fans. It actually is the card vibrating, i think. I think it is vibrating because when it started making the buzzing noise, i put my hand on the plastic part of the card and the sound went away, and i also felt the card vibrating a little. I think im just going to RMA it, but im not sure. Is that what you would recommend?

[Faithh]

Is that what you would recommend?

It's all up to you.

[Toffie]

Ehm, did you make sure you screwed the PCIE slots properly, both of them?

[Faithh]

Ehm, did you make sure you screwed the PCIE slots properly, both of them?

Well if you put some pressure on the card, the heatsink probably puts some pressure on the chokes and possibly it stops vibrating the coils in the chokes. That could prevent coil whine though.

[Opportunity231]

Well if you put some pressure on the card, the heatsink probably puts some pressure on the chokes and possibly it stops vibrating the coils in the chokes. That could prevent coil whine though.

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This could be true, but what im wondering is can coil whine even be low pitched and sound similar to a vibrating sound? Also the sound isnt affected by the amount of FPS im getting in game, it just seems to happen.

Also, i did screw in the PCIE slots properly and tightly.

[Faithh]

-
This could be true, but what im wondering is can coil whine even be low pitched and sound similar to a vibrating sound? Also the sound isnt affected by the amount of FPS im getting in game, it just seems to happen.

Also, i did screw in the PCIE slots properly and tightly.

Uhm coil whines happens because of the resonancy of electricity, the coil vibrates but it doesn't sound as vibrating rather a pitch noise. When you aren't playing games, is it still coil whining? If it isn't, set the fans higher and see if the noise appears.

See here for different types of coil noise:

- This is typical coil whine for graphic cards at normal fps -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISIRKFETxZA
- Playing games at 2K fps coil whine will always be there always because there is a lot of frequency switching, it's mostly like this -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP73edpQwgc
- In the beginning of this video, the noise is like something is stratching a piece of metal @ normal fps -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mMm26F6t3I

The 2nd example I gave, mostly happens in menu's like in Crysis or Unigine heaven the exit page etc because you got 5000fps but it's easily fixable by just forcing vsync on.

[Deleted]

If your GPU has coil whine, or trouble with the fan, I'd RMA it. Not a good sign.

[Faithh]

If your GPU has coil whine, or trouble with the fan, I'd RMA it. Not a good sign.

Pffffffffffff just read what I said before. Coil whine isn't a sign of that something is dying or malfunctioning. As you can see here, coils are just being dampened or just glued to secure to reduce the noise

Graphics cards have the coils inside a choke, like here but most cards nowadays just have closed chokes like this. The good old trick was just with open chokes people were just applying some non-conductive glue and it was fixed. In some cases overstressing a card like folding for a pretty long time did help or a waterblock which puts more stress on the chokes.

[Deleted]

Coil whine is nearly normal nowadays, try using vsync as suggested (with tripple buffering to avoid fps drops), not only does it fix the extremely annoying screen tearing that only crazy people enjoy, it also syncs your fps to your monitor (60 in most cases) thus removing any extra added stress on the card during menus & whatnot and will most likely reduce your coil whine to near-inaudible levels.

I have it on my 560ti as well, though only audible without vsync, it seems to have lessened over the past year & half since i got it though, so i do think a little burn-in over time might change the frequency