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7970 woes

Lycosa

Lycosa

Lycosa

Associate
Joined
26 Jun 2011
Posts
281
Hi,
I received my sapphire HD 7970 oc edition yesterday and got it up and running. Under load it seems to have very loud coil whine that changes in pitch from a low buzzing sound to a high pitched whine depending on the 3d application, I’m also seeing subtle artifacts in most games. I’ve tried reinstalling drivers, reseating the card and changing the pci-e power connecters.
I understand this seems to be a common occurrence with some 7970s and many people just put up with it, but I can hear the whine even with headphones on and I can’t ignore it. At the moment I’m looking to have the card repaired or replaced, but I’m willing to try other things if you guys have more advice. Or should I just return under the 14 day satisfaction guarantee and buy a different model 7970?

Pc spec:
sapphire HD 7970 oc edition, stock clock and volts, catalyst 12.8
i5-2500k @ 4.0ghz
Asrock extreme4 gen3
Corsair AX850

Thanks
 
Lycosa said:
Hi,
I received my sapphire HD 7970 oc edition yesterday and got it up and running. Under load it seems to have very loud coil whine that changes in pitch from a low buzzing sound to a high pitched whine depending on the 3d application, I’m also seeing subtle artifacts in most games. I’ve tried reinstalling drivers, reseating the card and changing the pci-e power connecters.
I understand this seems to be a common occurrence with some 7970s and many people just put up with it, but I can hear the whine even with headphones on and I can’t ignore it. At the moment I’m looking to have the card repaired or replaced, but I’m willing to try other things if you guys have more advice. Or should I just return under the 14 day satisfaction guarantee and buy a different model 7970?

Pc spec:
sapphire HD 7970 oc edition, stock clock and volts, catalyst 12.8
i5-2500k @ 4.0ghz
Asrock extreme4 gen3
Corsair AX850

Thanks
Click to expand...

Before you send it back you could try a couple of things.

Download and run Unigine Heaven on a loop overnight. Sometimes burning the card in a bit can get rid of it.

Use vsync or an fps limiter (msi afterburner) to limit fps to a respectable amount. Even the quietest cards will produce a noise if they're rendering 5000 frames.

If neither of those solve your problem then i believe ocuk will swap the card for you.
 
You can try running the Heaven bench for 24 hours. This has helped some but not all. As for the artifacting, this is usually a sign the memory is overclocked too high. As your card is stock, this would lead me to say you have a faulty card.

I wouldn't be happy with a noisy card tbh and would return it for that reason alone.
 
You might want to bump your i5 2500k up as well as in some games it will bottleneck the 7970 @4.0ghz.

I even see a slight bottleneck with my 2500k @4.7ghz in bf3 multiplayer.
 
thanks for the replys
The noise is there regardless of fps, just when its under load. I've been testing intensive games/benchmarks since receiving the card, but ill try leaving it in heaven loop and overclocking the i5 more. I am seeing graphic stability issues like when the voltage is too low for the clockspeed or too high for the card to handle, such as artifacting and flickering textures. I want a card I can overclock and since this one seems to be struggling at stock speed/volt I not sure I want to keep it
 
Lycosa said:
thanks for the replys
The noise is there regardless of fps, just when its under load. I've been testing intensive games/benchmarks since receiving the card, but ill try leaving it in heaven loop and overclocking the i5 more. I am seeing graphic stability issues like when the voltage is too low for the clockspeed or too high for the card to handle, such as artifacting and flickering textures. I want a card I can overclock and since this one seems to be struggling at stock speed/volt I not sure I want to keep it
Click to expand...

Sounds like it could be a faulty card, or it might just need a voltage bump in order to make it stable.

Refer to my AMD overclock thread should you wish to bump the voltage up some before you send it back for rma.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18431335
 
So, got my “replacement” card from ocuk today. It has equally bad coil whine under load and also produces subtle artefacts and flashy screens at stock clock/voltage:( (though I’m not sure if this is just driver problems). In fact there is no evidence to suggest it’s a different card to the one I sent back:confused:, I wonder if there has been a mistake.
What should I do? Send it back for replacement? Keep it and man up, put up with the whining and try to coax out the performance that’s expected? Send back for refund (under 14 day satisfaction guarantee) and buy a different card? I’m tempted to return it and go for the msi lighting, heard lots of good things about msi quality.
Thoughts?
 
Ultimately, I think as soon as monday comes round, i'm going to ask ocuk for a refund. Just need to decide what card to replace it with, specificity, what 7970
 
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