[Ocelot44]

Well here I am again asking more questions since my anal retentiveness always gets the best of me. So my last card had pretty high coil whine while underload and I ended up getting a GTX 980 after returning the first one. Popped it in and it runs great as far as I'm concerned I'm getting a 2,824 score for Valley Benchmark and a 10313 Score in fire mark which might be a little lower than I expected because I am running on a I5 4460k CPU. So I was wondering if these were good scores or not also. But the main thing is I do have a slight coil whine, its not the high pitched one that causes a lot of strife but rather a lower clicking sound. Is this unavoidable and I'm just being scrutinizing about coil whine since I do tend to look for flaws or is this completely normal and all these cards have them to some extent was just wondering before I go and flip my **** and decide to return the card in exchange for another 980 and have the same or worse effect. I have a EVGA GTX 980 SC brand card. Thanks for the answers guys I would like to know if this is normal since I don't want to feel like I got a faulty product that I paid $500 for.

 

[P-39 Airacobra]

Honestly this is not normal, When you hear a coil whine on your PSU you replace it immediately. But many people have bought the 970 and 980 and all brands of both the 970 and 980 are getting many reports of coil whine. You may get scrutinized because they are expensive cards, and nobody likes to accept that they paid alot of money for something that has problems. I myself can't say for certain that they will fail early, For all I know they could last a long time. But I do know that if you exchange it that your new 980 will whine too. Besides they do not honer exchanges over coil whine for some reason. I myself am going to buy a 970 or a R9 290 in a few months to replace my R9 270. And I want the 970 over the 290 because I will not have to replace my PSU, And I like Nvidia's drivers better. But the coil whine has me concerned too.

 

[Ocelot44]

Well thats just a shame to hear, I mean with so many people having problems with it I guess it could be considered "normal" maybe its my PSU also. I guess I should just be glad that its not loud enough to go over my background noise and speakers. Guess I'm gonna just try to burn my GPU in and see how that goes for the next few hours. I'm hitting a boost clock of 1404 with it which seems also a little low for me since the card is technically overclocked to begin with. Also have an asic quality of 72.7 which also seems a bit low for me. Idk I mean it does run better and is handling most of my games, but I would figure that it would have no problem with all of them at a minmum of 2k resolution. Maybe I got my hopes up too high?

 

[villain]

From an earlier post of mine:
Quote:

ComputerBase tested 11 970s and 10 980s from different brands and all of them had some sort of coil whine. It was more of a problem with 970s. In most cases it couldn't be heard anymore once the card was in a closed case. Cards from Gainward, Galax and Palit were affected the most.

It's normal to some extent and it can be really bad if you get hundreds of fps in a game menu. A cheap PSU can be a part of the problem. Some manufacturers do a better job of reducing the noise by using better components. If you can hear it over your case fans and the card's own fans and you don't happen to have a cheap PSU, I would return it and get one from another brand.

 

[Duality92]

my 280x (MSI) was very VERY loud, it died randomly one day and I'm waiting for the RMA replacement.

 

[Ocelot44]

Well I mean it isn't like some of the more rediculous ones that sound like a damn dog whistle to human ears. If I keep my tower under my desk the fans are still more apparent then the whine, of course when some menus jump to like 5000+ fps its more apparent. But other then that I would say its pretty mild. I'm coming to the conclusion that it is PRETTY normal and maybe I'm overeacting. I'm just hoping that it doesn't mess with the longevity of the card which I'm under the impression that it doesn't.

 

[Ocelot44]

Also if it matters my card is still staying cool maxing out at about 65c and at the highest on benchmarking maybe a 75c.

 

[Duality92]

My card was under water, all it ever saw was about 50C lol, I did push quite a bit of voltage though.

 

[Ocelot44]

I see well I guess I'll just considering this an acceptable card since I mean I guess it'll just the job done for this gen till I need to SLI, guess I'll just do some burn ins like I said and do the warranty from EVGA and play it by ear from there. Thank guys!

 

[villain]

It doesn't really seem to be a problem with 980s, so yours might have above average coil whine. The 980 G1 I had didn't have any audible coil whine, although the 3 fans were rather loud. Here is a video for reference.

 

[Ocelot44]

Actually mine sounds just about like the one in the video, maybe a little lower noise wise actually. It doesn't really go over the sounds of my fans to be honest and after viewing that video which was actually very helpful apparently they all sound just about like how my card sounds. Maybe I'm a bit misinformed because I've really only ever owned 2 actual graphics card so it does make me feel a bit more comfortable about the noise levels of my cards. Thanks for the link villain its given me a bit more peace of mind.

 

[Ocelot44]

Plus I still can hear the whine on every single one of the cards in the video maybe I'm just unluckly blessed with good hearing xD

 

[villain]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ocelot44

Plus I still can hear the whine on every single one of the cards in the video maybe I'm just unluckly blessed with good hearing xD

Don't tell me about it, it's a pain to build a quiet system when you have good hearing

 

[Duality92]

I never complain about noise, my pc is the last thing I hear. My cherry MX green switches come first by far.

 

[Galaxy]

Coil whine's a tricky issue. Replacing the card can fix problem, but sometimes it just happens when certain hardware comes together in a particular configuration. I'm not sure anyone's managed to pin down the true cause, but we've gone to great lengths to eliminate the problem as best we can with our own designs and component choices. Even so it can still happen now and then for the occasional unlucky user. However, despite the fact that coil whine doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with the card itself (or any individual component in the PC for that matter), we do still consider it RMA-worthy. I can't speak for Evga, but if it's bothering you badly enough it's at least worth asking them about it. Occasional coil whine in loading screens and stuff like that is a fact of life for all graphics cards, but I wouldn't expect anyone to put up with it being a relentless nuisance.

By the way, the cards in the video sounded ok to me, and my hearing's just fine. Maybe the speakers aren't that great on my office PC, but it's worth mentioning that you're almost certain to hear something if you're listening intently for it. I found a video a while back that demonstrates a similar phenomenon that's actually pretty freaky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2hO4_UEe-4

 

[Ocelot44]

Thanks for the reply Galaxy it isn't particularly bothersome so I think I'm not going to RMA it although now I'm actually going to try to change out my PSU which is also exhibiting some coil whine and I'm not sure if it's linked to the card itself in some cases I've read that it might help I was using a Corsair cx750m which after some research isn't the best and people have had problems with them with coil whine so Im going to try to change it to a seasonic brand one and hope for the best.

 

[Ocelot44]

Well after stressing out and trial and error turns out the PSU was having an effect on the GPUs whine as with some cases. Had a Corsair cx750m and changed it out for a Corsair AX760 and now there is substantially less noise. I would even go as far to say as its gone completely

So this makes me happy and now I can finally enjoy my whisper quiet system xD Thanks everybody for their fast replies!

 

[Technatorium]

Aye, it is amazing how much difference a better PSU can make in how system components work and sound.