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Coil Whine is a Problem for Everyone

Gregster

Gregster

Gregster

Caporegime
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Essex innit!
Recently there’s been quite a bit of talk about users reporting coil whine issues with retail GTX 970’s. For those of you that are unaware of the existence of coil whine its best described as a high pitched noise typically produced by graphics cards or power supplies. It can be an intermittent or constant noise, but by all accounts it’s extremely annoying.

There’s a variety of components that are capable of producing the noises commonly associated with coil whine from VRMs to fan motors. More to the point though, coil whine has really turned into a catch all for unusual noises coming from a GPUs or PSUs. I say that not to belittle the problem but rather to highlight the fact that coil whine has been plaguing PC hardware enthusiasts for such a long time now that it’s become a catch-all phrase.

Speaking of time, how far back can we trace reports of coil whine problems on GPUs?

Starting with the AMD/ATI side of the story:

R9 290X
HD 7970
HD 6970
HD 5870
HD 4890
And now for the Nvidia side:

GTX 970
GTX 780
GTX 680
GTX 580
GTX 480
GTX 285
GTX 9800+
Coil whine is an industry problem and is not an ailment specific to one GPU vendor or another. As this list demonstrates coil whine is also not a new problem, but it is a problem that GPU manufactures and their AIB (Add-in-board) partners have yet to develop a consistent and effective solution for.

Some owners experiencing this problem have gone as far as covering the VRMs on their graphics cards with clear nail polish or glue to stop coil whine. Of course end users shouldn’t be fixing manufacturing defects in products that they paid hundreds of dollars for. After more than five years of reports about and RMAs for coil whine issues it’s hard to fathom that we’re still having these problems.

AMD initially contacted us about the reports of coil whine issues with Nvidia’s GTX 970 cards. So we asked AMD what they do to prevent the presence of coil whine on their graphics cards.

“You could say there are three ‘opportunities’ for us to do so and we use all three of them, where applicable:

At the design stage – Layout of the PCB and components is carefully considered with design rules that reduce emissions in the audible frequencies.
Selecting quality components – Improved components are selected which are manufactured to minimize the effect of audible emissions.
Manufacturing – During production and manufacture boards are rigorously tested and screened.
Of course for number 3, our efforts only have an effect if the AIBs take our board design guidance into account when doing their own – AIBs of course are free to design their own boards.”

Thus by AMD’s own account coil whine could be the product of loose design guidelines sent to AIB partners which would make these problems the fault of the GPU manufactures or it could be from poor quality control on custom designed PCBs from AIB partners.

Whatever the root of this on-going coil whine issue is it needs to be put to rest. Ending the scourge of coil whine is going to take a concerted effort by GPU manufactures and their partners. AMD at least seems to know what needs to be done to stop coil whine, but the proof is in the pudding and even with that knowledge coil whine is still an issue on AMD and Nvidia’s most recent products.

I have a dream that one day we’ll live in a world without coil whine; but something tells me that with a problem that’s been around for this long it’s going to be quite a while before we see any meaningful change. At the end of the day if there is one place where coil whine can be stopped in its tracks its back at the factory when our graphics cards are undergoing quality assurance testing. If the AIB partners don’t catch the issue, then it will be up to end-users to RMA their cards or fix the issues them themselves.

Coil whine is a complex problem and so far the solutions that manufactures and users have offered have been ineffective. This is an issue that needs leadership. This question now is will it be AMD, Nvidia, or the partners that take the lead on solving this problem.S|A
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http://semiaccurate.com/2014/11/04/coil-whine-problem-everyone/

Seems Semiaccurate have picked up on this and one quote I find pretty abhorrent is this:

AMD initially contacted us about the reports of coil whine issues with Nvidia’s GTX 970 cards.
Click to expand...

Is it just me who finds that pretty low for a company to do?
 
Tactics, seen both sides play such moves, yep it is the low of low but both have done it, no change.

Basically don't listen to the people who make them and diss each other, they have a motive for doing so.
 
Indeed, they both play just as dirty as each other. I don't care for all that childish nonsense, it's petty and a waste of time and energy.
 
Wizzfizz said:
The 980s don't suffer from coil whine then?
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None of them suffer coil whine any worse than any cards gone before them.

Cards have always potentially suffered coil whine, from both AMD and NVIDIA, its not something new and its not any worse now than it has being previously.

The difference is that this is not just NVIDIA's most successful launch, it is infact the most successful VGA launch of all time.

In my 15-20yr in this industry and buying graphics cards for the past 15 years never has a manufacturer sold so many cards in such a short window of time.

I mean come on, OcUK alone has sold over 10,000 9xx cards since launch, that is just OcUK!!!!

World wide the number is beyond huge! Well done NVIDIA! :)
 
In all the years of pc gaming I have never once had a gpu whine. And that includes the nvidia GPUs I have owned in the past.

Guess I just lucky, but another part of me thinks they is more to it like combination of PSUs and GPUs.
 
I had 4 680s that never had any issues with coil whine. I remember removing the coolers from the Lightning 680s and putting waterblocks on and I had it for a couple of hours but some hard benching sorted that out.
 
shankly1985 said:
In all the years of pc gaming I have never once had a gpu whine. And that includes the nvidia GPUs I have owned in the past.

Guess I just lucky, but another part of me thinks they is more to it like combination of PSUs and GPUs.
Click to expand...

You have not heard my 290Xs overclocked and overvolted lol.

Fortunately they are near silent at stock.:)
 
Orangey said:
Nvidia contacted pcper and other places about the 290 coolers.
Click to expand...

True that and I thought that was very low as well. I hate to see these tactics employed and rather they concentrated on beating each other in the performance and feature sets instead of this way.
 
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