Coil whine at stock, and a smoking graphics card.

TechnoCorruption · 6 Jun 2013 at 09:33

To cut a long story short, bought a XFX 7950 Black Edition from a competitor which arrived Monday. Serious coil whine, as in louder than my NZXT Switch with 7 x 140mm on full. RMA'ed for refund so I could buy a MSI 7950 Twin Frozr from Overclockers and get it the next day.

Been in my system for two days absolutely fine. Thought I would try a run through of 3D Mark and in all my years of PC building I had my first case of a brown trouser moment. PC shuts down mid 3D Mark run, I instantly look at the computer to see a small puff of smoke rising from one of the 6 black resistors just to the left of the 6pin plugs.

Quickly got the power plug out and inspected the card, boring I know but there are no signs of burning, obviously I had to check to see if it still works which it doesn't. I have never been so nervous as I was of removing the card and moving my dvi cable to my trusty HD4000 input (pats HD4000)

Thankfully it booted and all seems fine. So my question is 3rd time lucky with a 7950 or should I maybe look at something else (Budget £250). This card did have some coil whine by the way but it was not as bad as the XFX and as I understand its quite common on the 7950. I was just going to do a burn in test overnight as some people said it cures it.

Never got round to it though as the card done a "burn in" test of its own

Gregster · 6 Jun 2013 at 10:07

Sounds like a case of bad luck is on your side. I have not seen this before, so worth taking a punt on 3rd time lucky IMO. The 7950 is a good card and fingers crossed you get a goodun.

What PSU are you using?

TechnoCorruption · 6 Jun 2013 at 10:12

Yeah must be, there does seem to be reports of coil whine on the 7950 series in particular. Power supply is a Seasonic 620w.

Alz_D · 6 Jun 2013 at 10:49

I would chance it again - cant happen 3 times in a row surely. Did the coil whine happen while gaming or benching - my 7950's and 780's whine while running 3dmark but never during actual gaming even when they being tortured

TechnoCorruption · 6 Jun 2013 at 10:58

Coil whine was only when running high fps, crysis main menu was a big culprit as was running CSS bench mark at 295fps. Enabling vsync was enough to eliminate it. Have ordered a rma for refund for the card so that I can order something else today but after all this talk of coil whine and burning cards I must admit I am paranoid about the 7950's now.

Alz_D · 6 Jun 2013 at 11:09

TechnoCorruption said:
Coil whine was only when running high fps, crysis main menu was a big culprit as was running CSS bench mark at 295fps. Enabling vsync was enough to eliminate it. Have ordered a rma for refund for the card so that I can order something else today but after all this talk of coil whine and burning cards I must admit I am paranoid about the 7950's now.

I had 2 in xfire running a 24 / 7 overclock from release date until the 780 came out without any problems (other than xfire microstutter and the few games that were borked for the same reason). They are fantastic cards at a fantastic price and served me really well. Don't be paranoid - and remember - these things come in threes so if it DOES happen again - 4th time is almost GUARANTEED to be OK.

Gregster · 6 Jun 2013 at 11:22

That is a good brand PSU, so that shouldn't be the culprit.

TechnoCorruption · 6 Jun 2013 at 11:27

Alz_D said:
and remember - these things come in threes so if it DOES happen again - 4th time is almost GUARANTEED to be OK.

I don't think I could take another bad one, credit card is getting kaned as the 1st one hasn't been refunded yet lol.

paulstung · 6 Jun 2013 at 11:40

My 7950 has the same coil whine, on menu screens, and the start and end of benchmarks. It's got to be the most annoying sound ever. It even sounds like the way movies portray computers to sound when doing calculations, loads of little high and low pitched beeps, bops.

TechnoCorruption · 6 Jun 2013 at 11:45

Yeah, that's it. I agree that its the most annoying noise, seems all of the 7950 range suffer from it.

I don't really have many other choices at the £250 price range. I am leaning towards trying a 660TI, seems to be on par with the 7950 in most games, some a bit ahead, some a bit behind.

Loxa · 6 Jun 2013 at 12:34

I recently just sent my 7950 back to gigabyte because it had coil whine, waiting on a replacement hopefully.

straxusii · 6 Jun 2013 at 12:35

Obviously enable vsync to eliminate the worst of the coil whine then.

Loxa · 6 Jun 2013 at 12:39

straxusii said:
Obviously enable vsync to eliminate the worst of the coil whine then.

Some people don't want the input lag Vsync creates or the caped FPS, i also don't like paying £200+ for a card that whines more than my wife.

Gregster · 6 Jun 2013 at 12:53

Thrust4Money said:
Some people don't want the input lag Vsync creates or the caped FPS, i also don't like paying £200+ for a card that whines more than my wife.

Amen to that brother

Jay85 · 6 Jun 2013 at 12:57

Might be a coincidence but i had a seasonic x850 before that made my gpu coil whine. I changed it to a corsair 600m and its been fine since. I did however RMA my seasonic psu directly back to seasonic hq as they were more willing to sort me out a replacment, no questions asked. As i know problems with coil whine on the psu part is hard to replicate at times.

humbug · 6 Jun 2013 at 13:05

Jay85 said:
Might be a coincidence but i had a seasonic x850 before that made my gpu coil whine. I changed it to a corsair 600m and its been fine since. I did however RMA my seasonic psu directly back to seasonic hq as they were more willing to sort me out a replacment, no questions asked. As i know problems with coil whine on the psu part is hard to replicate at times.

My PSU, XFX (made by SeaSonic) first time round had / caused whatever... coil whine, RMA'd it for the same type and it was fine.

PhysicsMan94 · 6 Jun 2013 at 13:08

Should've gone nVidia.

/leavesthreadbriskly

TechnoCorruption · 7 Jun 2013 at 16:30

Jay85 said:
Might be a coincidence but i had a seasonic x850 before that made my gpu coil whine. I changed it to a corsair 600m and its been fine since. I did however RMA my seasonic psu directly back to seasonic hq as they were more willing to sort me out a replacment, no questions asked. As i know problems with coil whine on the psu part is hard to replicate at times.

Doesn't seem to be as a bit of research pulled up other users with the same experiences. As far as coil whine goes it seems to be a bit of a lottery where certain power supply's (all makes and models seem to be vulnerable) clash with certain cards.

I am not really fussed with it anyway as long as its not too loud, there seems to be some people that have eliminated it completely by leaving the crysis 1 menu on screen overnight.

I have ordered another XFX 7950 (lost a bit of confidence in the MSI brand, I know that I was just unlucky to get a smoker but just playing it safe with a XFX) I had looked into getting something else, but it such a good card price/performance wise, I just couldn't say no to trying another one.

BluD · 7 Jun 2013 at 17:03

My xfx has coil whine, only hear it on benchmarks though cause its the only time I don't use vsync, if ya can get used to using vsync then they're a nice card. I guess a 670 would be the best replacement if ya can get one for similar money.