7950 buzz when idle (300/150) - normal?

[guest]

 

[LtMatt]

I have capacitor buzz (not so much a whine but an electrical buzz) while idle (i.e at 300/150). Sits buzzing when at 0% GPU load on the desktop and if any thing moves on the screen it buzzes in sync with the movement. (i.e when scrolling, when a loading bar is stopping and starting and opening windows or the start screen - so more or less when any thing happens on the screen at all)

Card doesn't buzz when running at load.

Can any one confirm if this is normal or if a replacement is likely to cure the issue? I don't want the hassle of sending it back if they all do this.

Baring in mind the buzz isn't loud - just very annoying as the case sits right next to me on the desk and when idle all the fans are running quiet.

Leave it heavily overclocked running Unigine valley for 12 hours and see if that removes the whine.

 

[LtMatt]

Is it worth doing that with no overclock? Not too keen on overclocking a card that may be sent back.

You can try. Or maybe you can try leaving it on whatever causes the most whine for 24 hours. Often this has been found to remove it completely or at least reduce it. Other things you can try are using different PCI-E cables from your psu or using a different GPU slot on your motherboard.

 

[spixelspixel]

Idle buzz is much more common with power supplies

About it buzzing more when you move your mouse, do you have any 3d applications open but minimized?

 

[ArchAndroid]

Certain PSUs cause certain graphics cards to coil whine whereas others can diminish/get rid of it. Here's a good video about it.

 

[wazza300]

what board are you using? if it's x58 then they suffer more from coil whine than newer boards do

you can try turning off c1e in the bios an see if the noise reduces

 

[wazza300]

you can still turn off intel speedstep and/or c1e,it should stop the noise,but cpu wont downclock itself at idle