R9 Series Coil Whine

[JrockTech]

Hello everyone. It looks like my XFX R9 380 has developed coil whine. At least I think it's coil whine. This noise is slightly lower pitch than a whine and begins when the card is under heavy load, and high FPS.

I have tried a few things to cut the noise; Using a frame limiter, using V-sync, lowering clock speeds, and lowering settings. These all worked a bit, but I don't like to limit my frames low as I use a 144hz monitor, and I don't like the input lag of V-sync.

Should I bother RMAing this card? It works great and overclocks like a champ. I would rather not go through the trouble if it is just in fact a noise issue. Anyone else experienced noise with this series?

 

[dorsetknob]

@XFXSupport
is the forum rep and is probably the best guy to talk to
you may need to supply serial num & other details to @XFXSupport
this will be in PM form so it would help @XFXSupport if you have such details ready and available

 

[Moofachuka]

I read somewhere coil whine can be caused by power supply. I remember some ppl fixed it by changing power supply.

 

[JrockTech]

I'll PM support when I get back from work.

You might be on to something moofo as my power supply is a little weak for my build...

 

[dorsetknob]

you may have slightly misunderstood me
@XFXSupport is a member here
AND he is A Support member of Staff For XFX
while its Advisable to open a ticket via the XFX website
@XFXSupport can give you advice in the ForumThread ( and liaise with the main Support Department )

 

[erocker]

Coil whine is generally a normal thing. If you can try to isolate what component is making the whine, usually a little dab of hot glue will sort it out.

 

[EarthDog]

I'll PM support when I get back from work.

You might be on to something moofo as my power supply is a little weak for my build...

Weak or not really doesn't have much to do with it. But that said, if you overclock your GPU and that CPU, you could make that frighteningly mediocre and only 30C rated PSU work hard.

Coil whine is generally a normal thing. If you can try to isolate what component is making the whine, usually a little dab of hot glue will sort it out.

True that.. however if its in the PSU, one shouldn't go poking around unless you know what you are doing.

 

[erocker]

Definitely don't do this to the PSU. I was referring to the graphics card only.

 

[JrockTech]

Hang on a second here, I thought he meant the PSU was causing the coil whine inside my GPU, not the PSU emitting the wine. This noise is most definitely the GPU. I do use a 500 watt corsair with my build. The bare minimum for my setup.

The frustrating part is this wasn't from the beginning. It just started a few weeks after owning the card. I'll contact XFX now and see what they say.

 

[Caring1]

Hang on a second here, I thought he meant the PSU was causing the coil whine inside my GPU, not the PSU emitting the wine. This noise is most definitely the GPU.

Yes, I have read similar where a PSU caused coil whine in a GPU. Changing the PSU for a quality unit eliminated the whine.

 

[JrockTech]

Yes, I have read similar where a PSU caused coil whine in a GPU. Changing the PSU for a quality unit eliminated the whine.

Yeah I did some research and it appears there could me some correlation. Either way, I think upgrading the PSU on Friday will be in order. After adding a couple 120mm fans to my build, I'm getting RPM drops under heavy CPU and GPU load. Not comfortable with 500 watts anymore.

 

[Mussels]

Yeah I did some research and it appears there could me some correlation. Either way, I think upgrading the PSU on Friday will be in order. After adding a couple 120mm fans to my build, I'm getting RPM drops under heavy CPU and GPU load. Not comfortable with 500 watts anymore.

wattage and quality are very unrelated in PSU's. a 1000W cheap no-name brand is going to be worse than a 400W quality unit.

 

[the54thvoid]

Also, coil whine on cards can just happen. Never owned a sub-standard PSU brand but have had whine on cards - it's more often than not the card. And some brands won't RMA for it - it'd have to be real bad.

 

[Mussels]

every high end GPU i've owned for years has had coil whine with uncapped FPS in certain situations. Exiting unigine heaven with their 'quitting' screen is a good example of a cause for that (can have hundreds of FPS there)

whining at 144 FPS with a 144Hz screen sounds like something you could RMA over.

 

[FYFI13]

I read somewhere coil whine can be caused by power supply. I remember some ppl fixed it by changing power supply.

I doubt that. My previous GPU, EVGA GTX970 ACX2.0 had a pretty bad coil wine. Now using MSI R9 380 and it's dead silent even in game menus with 2000+ FPS. Same PSU.

 

[JrockTech]

wattage and quality are very unrelated in PSU's. a 1000W cheap no-name brand is going to be worse than a 400W quality unit.

Yeah, I know. I feel my power supply doesn't have enough power for my build if that statement works better for you.

I doubt that. My previous GPU, EVGA GTX970 ACX2.0 had a pretty bad coil wine. Now using MSI R9 380 and it's dead silent even in game menus with 2000+ FPS. Same PSU.

Yeah, I should have went with MSI in the first place but the XFX was on sale. That's life.

 

[Moofachuka]

I doubt that. My previous GPU, EVGA GTX970 ACX2.0 had a pretty bad coil wine. Now using MSI R9 380 and it's dead silent even in game menus with 2000+ FPS. Same PSU.

I agree but I think it's a matter of pairing the card with the power supply. Like 380 can have coil whine on another power supply but with 970, it doesn't whine. It all depends...

 

[EarthDog]

It really is rare that swapping out a PSU can eliminate coil whine... And is that really a viable solution anyway? Drop another $75-??? on a PSU?

It simply is not about pairing it up the right card with the right PSU. If that were the case, the issue would be RAMPANT, and frankly, its not. I have tested literally DOZENS of cards on the same PSU, be it AMD or NVIDIA on the same PSU. I have swapped out MOST of those GPUs into another system with a different PSU. I have had like 1-2 stop the coil whine when swapping it out... I also could have jostled the card and stopped the coil whine that way too.

 

[eidairaman1]

I wouldn't worry about it too much honestly

 

[JrockTech]

I doubt that. My previous GPU, EVGA GTX970 ACX2.0 had a pretty bad coil wine. Now using MSI R9 380 and it's dead silent even in game menus with 2000+ FPS. Same PSU.

Just curious, why did you stop using the 970? Did it eventually burn out on you?

I'm going to be taking XFX supports advise and changing the PSU as well as "Burning in" the GPU a bit with benchmarks. I really hope it alleviates the whine. I want to avoid RMAing. 1 month without my P.C would be horrible .

 

[Divide Overflow]

I'm going to be taking XFX supports advise and changing the PSU as well as "Burning in" the GPU a bit with benchmarks. I really hope it alleviates the whine. I want to avoid RMAing. 1 month without my P.C would be horrible .

Best of luck to you! Please post back with your results after you make the change.

 

[JrockTech]

Best of luck to you! Please post back with your results after you make the change.

Thanks! I'm going to picking up the Corsair HX750i. I can get it 50$ off at a local retailer. After reading reviews on it from this site and other sources it sounds like a solid unit

 

[FYFI13]

Just curious, why did you stop using the 970? Did it eventually burn out on you?

After new Nvidia cards comes out, the GTX970 will lose it's value, so i sold it now (for340 euro) and saving for GTX1070. Yes, I'm that cheap

 

[Frick]

After new Nvidia cards comes out, the GTX970 will lose it's value, so i sold it now (for340 euro) and saving for GTX1070. Yes, I'm that cheap

That's more than they cost new here (Sweden).

 

[FYFI13]

That's more than they cost new here (Sweden).

Lucky you guys over there in Sweden

http://www.pixmania.ie/search/gtx970.html
http://www.elara.ie/results.aspx?search=gtx970
http://www.komplett.ie/search.aspx?tn_q=gtx970