Is something wrong with my GPU? Should I return it?

[bomens62699]

It's quite late here and I had a very long day, I apologise if it comes off as a no-effort post. Let me tell you step-by-step what happened, because I feel like letting it out of myself. If you want the important bit, skip to the end.

When I got home in the evening I decided to install my new GPU. Installation was frustrating, however I was really careful with everything I have been doing. Along with the new GPU, I have also installed a new power supply.
The power supply is a Corsair RM750X, and the GPU is an MSI RTX 2080 DUKE. It has one of those cool features that you aren't really supposed to hear it, and the fans won't turn on until something like 49 Degrees Celsius? Anyway. After I booted up, the resolution was weird, same as when you re-install Windows and the drivers aren't installed yet. I wanted to install fresh drivers anyway. Drivers installed. Excitement through the roof. Let's fire up some benchmarks within games. I heard of the term 'coil whine' before, but never really had to research it until today. Looks like my GPU has it, it is a really weird screeching noise, but it's the least of my worries. My GPU runs at about 50 Celsius Idle (measured with MSI afterburner), and after about 5 minutes of gaming, it goes up to 78-80 Celsius. This results in a fan speed of about 65% (again, according MSI afterburner). It sounds like a jet taking off in my backyard. I can hear it through headphones, I can hear it on the toilet, I can hear it down in Africa. I tried reinstalling the drivers many times. I will try 'DDU' tomorrow. If not, I might have to return, but first I need some opinions if there is anything I can possibly do. Forgot to mention that my case is the NZXT H500, so it's not one of those compact builds that have 0 airflow. I also want to mention that I never had problems with noise from my pc before. So yeah. I'm going to bed sad and dissapointed.

Summary: New PSU (Corsair RM750X) and a new GPU (MSI RTX DUKE 2080) inside my NZXT H500 case. GPU has coil whine, runs at about 80 Celsius after about 5 minutes of gaming, and it sounds like a jet taking off next to me. Tried reinstalling the drivers, will try it once more before bed.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

What is the fan setup on your case? You might need to add more to it if its stock...

Im going based off a review from Gamers Nexus

NZXT H500 Case Review | Thermals, Noise, & Cable Management

Steve mentions that it has a weird airflow design but adding more fans will help as the case seems to be middle of the pack as far as cooling goes.

 

[Mussels]

Coil whine is a bitch, lots of things can increase or reduce it.
Sometimes physical stuff helps (different PSU, different mobo slot, re-seating cables etc) sometimes software (after burner and tweak the voltages up or down even a little)

as for the fan noise, you may just have a loud card and a hot case. the video review above shows its pretty bad in its stock config - remove the top filter and/or add some more fans to get things cooler

 

[enxo218]

I'd return it for the coil whine alone but if that's not bothering you as much and you decide to overlook it lets move to second issue need more information like
what are your ambient temps?
what are your card temps on idle
what games are you playing and at what resolution?
which driver version are you using?

 

[Deleted member 185158]

Actually all coils whine. Just most are out of the spectrum of your ability to really "hear" it. Much like a dog whistle.
It's not really an indicator the card is going to die or anything, it's just a very annoying sound and sometimes can be loud.

There are some ways to remedy it somewhat or even completely, but takes some time and tweaking.
You want to play around with lowering or even raising core voltage and see if the sound gets worse or go away. Typically a slight under-volt or under-clock can get rid of it.

 

[potato580+]

you can also make a custom fan setup manually, 40c idle is normal at that fan speed, i own hotplate gtx 260 blower, and the fans speed only run70% if the temp goes hot 85c+, i never seen it maxed 100% speed, until i do manual custom the speed, same as rx570 strix, the fan dont even spin on idle 30-40c

 

[Deleted member 185158]

you can also make a custom fan setup manually, 40c idle is normal at that fan speed, i own hotplate gtx 260 blower, and the fans speed only run70% if the temp goes hot 85c+, i never seen it maxed 100% speed, until i do manual custom the speed, same as rx570 strix, the fan dont even spin on idle 30-40c

MSI RTX DUKE 2080 has a max therm of 88c. That's why the fans spin up. So at 81c he's nearing limits. This really has nothing to do with coil whine though.
But he could kill 2 birds with one monster GPU and slightly lower voltage and clocks if need be to reduce the power draw. The coil whine tone should decrease. Also, he'll have a cooler running case and Gpu.
The case fan upgrades was a good idea.
And Mussels mentioned the PSU, which he could also try a different supply rail for the card. That .05mv difference for example, could cure the coil whine.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

The NZXT H500 is basically a Hot Box... 75-80C isn't super surprising for a 2080 in that case depending on your ambient.

If the coil whine is annoying I would return it.

 

[xtreemchaos]

whats it like when you leave the side panel off ?, I havnt used the same case as you but others have said its not the best for air flow. I also agree with if the coil whine is bad send it back buddy.

 

[bomens62699]

whats it like when you leave the side panel off ?, I havnt used the same case as you but others have said its not the best for air flow. I also agree with if the coil whine is bad send it back buddy.

I have been testing all morning, taking off the side panel does seem to help somewhat. About 5-10 degrees it seems. It might be the case after all, however, my last gpu and psu combo was very quiet, so I expected the same. Maybe the triple fan GPU is heating up the case really quickly, while restricting airflow.

I'd return it for the coil whine alone but if that's not bothering you as much and you decide to overlook it lets move to second issue need more information like
what are your ambient temps?
what are your card temps on idle
what games are you playing and at what resolution?
which driver version are you using?

Room temperature is around 20-25 degrees Celsius. Idle temps are around 50 degrees.
I've been benchmarking taxing games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1440p.

What is the fan setup on your case? You might need to add more to it if its stock...

Im going based off a review from Gamers Nexus

NZXT H500 Case Review | Thermals, Noise, & Cable Management

Steve mentions that it has a weird airflow design but adding more fans will help as the case seems to be middle of the pack as far as cooling goes.

Right now I have a weird fan configuration...it's kind of non-existent. The rear 120mm does not work, and the top fan is exhaust. The other fan I have in my case is on the Hyper212. Would buying more fans work? I assume buying an exhaust fan would be important, but I heard buying front intake fans are not a good idea on the H500, so the only fan I could change is the non-working exhaust.
Here is a picture:

Ignore that the fan on the picture on the top is intake, I've switched it around when I took the picture to see if it helps.

I've been waiting for black Friday to upgrade my PC, but I couldn't wait with the GPU, so if buying more fans is necessary, it is luckily not an issue for me.

Thank you all for your replies by the way!

 

[las]

Coilwhine can be extremely annoying, sadly some manufacturers and stores won't accept it as a RMA. If the store allows you to return it, do that instead of RMA. I know people who RMA'ed brand new GPU's because of coilwhine, after 4-12 weeks they recieved the same card with a node; "Works as intended"

Sometimes certain PSU + GPU combo's are the culprit.

 

[Bones]

I have been testing all morning, taking off the side panel does seem to help somewhat. About 5-10 degrees it seems. It might be the case after all, however, my last gpu and psu combo was very quiet, so I expected the same. Maybe the triple fan GPU is heating up the case really quickly, while restricting airflow.



Room temperature is around 20-25 degrees Celsius. Idle temps are around 50 degrees.
I've been benchmarking taxing games such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1440p.



Right now I have a weird fan configuration...it's kind of non-existent. The rear 120mm does not work, and the top fan is exhaust. The other fan I have in my case is on the Hyper212. Would buying more fans work? I assume buying an exhaust fan would be important, but I heard buying front intake fans are not a good idea on the H500, so the only fan I could change is the non-working exhaust.
Here is a picture:

Ignore that the fan on the picture on the top is intake, I've switched it around when I took the picture to see if it helps.

I've been waiting for black Friday to upgrade my PC, but I couldn't wait with the GPU, so if buying more fans is necessary, it is luckily not an issue for me.

Thank you all for your replies by the way!

Noted your comment about fans in that one isn't working - You need to resolve that issue for sure.
The GPU if there isn't enough cool air getting to it will run hot and other components will do the same. Also just to say it, exhaust is normally out the top and the back, your pic shows air coming in from the back and the idea is to have air moving in one direction more or less to help vent heat.
If the GPU is having to reply on air in the case that's already warm that does nothing to help it or anything else so..... Fix the issue(s) with your fans. Yes it would help to add a fan or two at the front, setup as intake with the top and back fans pulling it out (Exhaust) as described.

If you can get two up front as intake that would be very helpful and by getting airflow going to the GPU and all the rest will benefit too.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Apparently you can slot two 140mm fans in the front if you have no watercooling? I would replace your rear broken fan for a decent 140mm and get two for the front, even not too pricey mid ranged fans would help a fair bit and IMO would not be a total waste of £25 - £30 even if you RMA the card for the coil whine...……… and welcome!

 

[enxo218]

What bones said basically, the card is chocking should be idling at low 30s on air with those ambient temps. last resort is changing for case with more air flow...that is if fan addition and configuration doesn't help

 

[Zach_01]

I'd say first change the cpu fan to the other side. Pushing air through the HS towards the back of the case. Then get that rear fan working as exhaust and add 1~2 fan/s at front-bottom as intake.

 

[Deleted member 185158]

New case with better air flow.

 

[Grog6]

Have you tried a different set of power cables to the GPU?

If the voltage is low, the card power supply will work harder to supply the chip, so it can cause coil whine.

I'd check that first.

 

[bomens62699]

Noted your comment about fans in that one isn't working - You need to resolve that issue for sure.
The GPU if there isn't enough cool air getting to it will run hot and other components will do the same. Also just to say it, exhaust is normally out the top and the back, your pic shows air coming in from the back and the idea is to have air moving in one direction more or less to help vent heat.
If the GPU is having to reply on air in the case that's already warm that does nothing to help it or anything else so..... Fix the issue(s) with your fans. Yes it would help to add a fan or two at the front, setup as intake with the top and back fans pulling it out (Exhaust) as described.

If you can get two up front as intake that would be very helpful and by getting airflow going to the GPU and all the rest will benefit too.

Apparently you can slot two 140mm fans in the front if you have no watercooling? I would replace your rear broken fan for a decent 140mm and get two for the front, even not too pricey mid ranged fans would help a fair bit and IMO would not be a total waste of £25 - £30 even if you RMA the card for the coil whine...……… and welcome!

What bones said basically, the card is chocking should be idling at low 30s on air with those ambient temps. last resort is changing for case with more air flow...that is if fan addition and configuration doesn't help

I'd say first change the cpu fan to the other side. Pushing air through the HS towards the back of the case. Then get that rear fan working as exhaust and add 1~2 fan/s at front-bottom as intake.

Have you tried a different set of power cables to the GPU?

If the voltage is low, the card power supply will work harder to supply the chip, so it can cause coil whine.

I'd check that first.

Sorry for the late response. I ordered a few fans, tried a few different things, and wanted to see how the computer would hold up if I used it for an extended amount of time.

So here's the situation.

The coil whine is the least of my problems, it isn't really that noticeable, and luckily it is not present when not using the GPU that heavily, like when browsing the web.

As you guys recommended, I swapped the fan on the CPU so it blows the air the other way, I replaced my top 120mm fan that came with the case for an ML140, and I replaced the non-working rear fan for an LL120. Both of these fans are blowing air out of the case. I have included a picture at the end of this post, though it might be a little hard to see. My motherboard only has 3 fan headers, including the one on the CPU cooler, so I couldn't install more fans on the front. As I mentioned before, I also heard it is not beneficial at all to install those fans at the front because the case's front is closed, there is not much air the fans can draw in.
Unfortunately the fans are quite noisy, so I had to limit the 2 exhaust fan's RPM to around 900-1000 in my BIOS, otherwise my pc would have been just as noisy, -if not more-, like when I started the thread. I left the CPU cooler's fan to auto.

It's not very hot in my room, though it isn't very cold either. I would say it is somewhere around 20-25 Celsius, like last time. When I turn on the PC, the GPU temperature is around 38-39 degrees. It is not bad, however when I start running things such as the aforementioned Shadow of the Tomb Raider on max settings, the GPU easily reaches 70-75C. After I close these games, the GPU temperature is around 45-48, even after a long time, it just seems it's refusing to cool down. It's 47 as I'm typing this. I'm running the league of legends client in the background, but it doesn't really use any GPU power according to task manager.

I really like my case, I don't wanna change it. I'm also sad that I have to spend all this extra money on top of the already hard to swallow price of the GPU just so it would run as intended...

I'm considering returning the card, and getting a smaller card with a double fan.
I believe the problem might be that this card is huge with its triple fan setup, for my small case.

 

[(*^^*)]

For a moment. There was a case where GPU had an abnormal core clock value due to the harmful effect of multi-display in Japan. You may ignore this comment if you are not using multiple displays.
❶https: //awgsfoundry.com/blog-entry-374.html. ❷https: //gamedevice.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-364.html
❶❷ articles are in Japanese. Please translate it into your local language, or search for an explanation site in your local language for reference. The Japanese person downloaded a software called NVIDIA Inspector and played with Multi Display Power Saver. I hope you don't have to change your favorite case.

 

[Vayra86]

- NZXT, much like Phanteks, primarily designs cases with AIOs in mind. Phanteks already got the memo with their recent moves and updates for some cases like the P400S and the Enthoo but yeah. Not the best High airflow cases you can get in general.

- Adjust the fan profile on the Duke. If you run it balls to the wall (100% continuous load) it WILL go to 80+C but you still have temp headroom there. Use it to lower the fan curve a bit. Test the fan curve too, as in, at what % does it get truly noisy? Try to stay under for typical gaming loads and if you go over, make sure it STAYS over. Nothing more noticeable than a fan revving up and down into airplane mode all the time. But constant airplane noise tends to go unnoticed after a while of focused gaming.

- Sound is a thing of the mind too. Focus on it, and you will notice it. Try to focus on something else, and you can unnotice it. That is also why I make the comment above about fancurve management. Consider that all Turing cards will cap their performance and drop voltage anyway if they get too hot. It might be worth sacrificing a bit of performance there and just hard cap your fan curve below 65%. Just leave a tiny 100% region at the end starting from temps of 90 C and higher as a failsafe.

- Idle fan off, in my humble opinion, is an utterly pointless feature. The same fan at 20-25% will be inaudible as well. But again, revving up and down especially all the way to / from idle, is definitely noticeable. I also still don't believe the switching is good for lifespan, but the jury's still out on that one. My card can do it too but I just force it at 20% min speed and honestly, don't ever hear it.

- Case fans can help, but if the card revved up to airplane mode right away under a typical gaming load, don't bother. If it only gets loud after 10-15 mins of gaming, then case fans will reduce the noise profile.

- Use a frame cap or vsync method to reduce GPU load. Lower load = lower temps = more fan curve adjustments possible.

- For coil whine, a frame cap or Vsync will also help you. Coil whine tends to intensify under very high FPS. And with the very decent sync methods you've got nowadays, no reason to run uncapped anyway. Should you go out replacing parts for it... I wouldn't. If its that bad, rather get the card replaced. Not all cards are equal in this. My MSI Gaming X 1080 only whines in a very small selection of games and only at capped (120) fps or more. But I really have to concentrate on it to hear it; and that really is how it should be.

I'm not so sure the card has a problem itself, but you could always reseat and repaste the cooler if you are certain you will keep it.

 

[Zach_01]

Air circulation is the main issue here. You must improve that by give internals more fresh/cool air from out side and it must be done by the lower front or the bottom. If there is no way to do that, then the case's design is wrong...

 

[eidairaman1]

Air circulation is the main issue here. You must improve that by give internals more fresh/cool air from out side and it must be done by the lower front or the bottom. If there is no way to do that, then the case's design is wrong...

Front and bottom fan are intake, top and rear fan are exhaust, the way it should be. Smaller cases= hotter parts, they need faster exhaust at that point

 

[Zach_01]

Front and bottom fan are intake, top and rear fan are exhaust, the way it should be. Smaller cases= hotter parts, they need faster exhaust at that point

Have I said anything different? I said he must improve the intake of his case if possible..."give internals more fresh/cool air from out side and it must be done by the lower front or the bottom..."
At this point he doesnt have any intake fans (front/bottom). And by reversing the rear to intake (as it previously done) doesnt help either.

Sorry in advance if I miss you quoting point...

 

[eidairaman1]

Have I said anything different? I said he must improve the intake of his case if possible..."give internals more fresh/cool air from out side and it must be done by the lower front or the bottom..."
At this point he doesnt have any intake fans (front/bottom). And by reversing the rear to intake (as it previously done) doesnt help either.

Sorry in advance if I miss you quoting point...

Im just agreeing with you but also point out how ATX case specs are for the OP

 

[Mussels]

Air circulation is the main issue here. You must improve that by give internals more fresh/cool air from out side and it must be done by the lower front or the bottom. If there is no way to do that, then the case's design is wrong...

they are quite bad for airflow, but everyones gone nuts over them in reviews just cause its pretty - the ITX version is just as bad, after i researched it