Bizarre watercooled GPU buzzing noise...?

Legend

Legend

Legend

Soldato
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31 Dec 2006
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During some games, I seem to have a noise emanating from my EVGA 1080 FE GPU (which has an EK block on it and is NOT overclocked)... at least I think it's the GPU based on sticking my ear close to it. It's quite loud, relative to everything else in my case anyway, and is a buzzing electronic sound almost. It only happens with SOME games, not ALL, and sometimes fluctuates in and out. For example, it's rather loud in Battlefield, but in Doom very quiet, but still there slightly. Really puzzled by this as I'm not sure what could be causing it? Is it simply coil whine?? I can't see it being the loop itself, especially as my temps are so good... GPU peaks about 50 during heavy gaming. It's definitely NOT fan noise by the way, I turned them all off (briefly) just to check!

I have linked a recording below... may need to turn volume up. To my ear in person, it's louder and more 'whiny' than it sounds in this recording. It's just background noise at first, then you'll hear mouse click at 5 seconds which is me opening game window which was minimised, and then the noise starts, so it's undoubtedly triggered by games as it doesn't occur at any other time.

https://clyp.it/sili0qcy

:confused:
 
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Think you may have coil wine. I have the same on a amd r290 did not notice it till i water cooled it as the fans masked it.And like you say some games its worse than others.
 
Attempting to cap FPS (IE VSync )
can help lower Coil whine as the card isn't working as hard.

Well done at getting a pc quiet enough to hear it!
 
yes on previous cards i've had issues with coil whine in menus and other places where the FPS goes crazy. Capping it helped.
 
I think it is linked to FPS actually, as older games seem to suffer worse. Very annoying. Well at least it's nothing 'wrong' per se, but I suppose there's nothing that can really be done about it?
 
I believe MSI Afterburner allows you to cap FPS, so you can tell the card to not go above a certain value (say 100 or 150).
 
Bantu said:
I believe MSI Afterburner allows you to cap FPS, so you can tell the card to not go above a certain value (say 100 or 150).
Click to expand...

I have an X34 which is limited to 100Hz, but I'm guessing that is a separate thing to what the card will try and do, because it doesn't know what monitor I have.

That said, it is happening in BF1 to some extent, and I'm only hitting around a max of 90FPS in that (on ultra).
 
It might just be when the cards is under heavy load rather than high fps since yours is still noisey at 90fps, just use 2xDSR or frame scaling to push your cards while keeping a low FPS.

I found when i pushed some cards to their max overclock in the past they would start getting noisey under load. Probably some components screaming for help :)
 
Welcome to coil whine, the thing that you mostly don't notice when its buried between a fan and heatsink. Its really noticeable when you strip all that out unfortunately, some worse than others but yes you are correct with your FPS theory.

Load up something like valley and run in small res windowed and it will scream.
 
So there is no way to solve this I guess? It's just 'in' the card, and that's that? And there's also no way to know before you buy a card how bad it's going to be of course... what a pesky nuisance!
 
Well certain manufacturers claim to reduce coil whine, there was even mention at some points during early 980 Ti's of people sending them back for RMA... No idea what the results were thou as thankfully mine is pretty much completely silent.

might be worth a conversation with a EVGA rep maybe... ? Not sure.
 
VKleita said:
Well certain manufacturers claim to reduce coil whine, there was even mention at some points during early 980 Ti's of people sending them back for RMA... No idea what the results were thou as thankfully mine is pretty much completely silent.

might be worth a conversation with a EVGA rep maybe... ? Not sure.
Click to expand...

I RMA'd my 980Ti with EVGA as it was crazy, replacement was better but still had the issue. There are some modifications you can make to reduce the noise, stuff like hot glue the coils etc but it's obviously a risk.
 
Yeah people used to do all sorts to try and reduce coil whine, glue, nail varnish etc. Don't see people doing it so often anymore, i guess because in the past nobody expected to keep their warranties very long with overclocking and watercooling etc. Nowadays the manufacturers expect everyone to be overclocking and changing coolers so it doesnt void the warranty as often.
 
Exactly the same issue I have with my EVGA 1080 SC. It's straight up coil whine. The only "cure" is to not use the card to it's fullest by putting a limit somewhere which isn't acceptable.

I have spoken to EVGA and they classify it as grounds for RMA, so I requested a new card via advanced RMA. Tested the new card in my daily system and it buzzed like hell, tested it in a 2nd system and it buzzed like hell. Put an old titan in both systems and it has no coil whine. Now I am sending the RMA card back to try for a 3rd time.

Royally ****ed off
 
Disco_P said:
Exactly the same issue I have with my EVGA 1080 SC. It's straight up coil whine. The only "cure" is to not use the card to it's fullest by putting a limit somewhere which isn't acceptable.

I have spoken to EVGA and they classify it as grounds for RMA, so I requested a new card via advanced RMA. Tested the new card in my daily system and it buzzed like hell, tested it in a 2nd system and it buzzed like hell. Put an old titan in both systems and it has no coil whine. Now I am sending the RMA card back to try for a 3rd time.

Royally ****ed off
Click to expand...

Mmm, yeah that's certainly annoying! Given mine is in a loop, it would be proper PITA to go to the effort of draining, disassembling, putting block on new card, reassembling loop and refilling... only to find it was just as bad lol!
 
Legend said:
So there is no way to solve this I guess? It's just 'in' the card, and that's that? And there's also no way to know before you buy a card how bad it's going to be of course... what a pesky nuisance!
Click to expand...

What particular FPS does it require to be making this noise? One of my 980ti will whine at stupidly high fps, which actually isn't a problem.

In Nvidia Control Panel:
Gsync - ON
Vsync - On

In Game:
Vsync - OFF

It should limit you to 100fps and below, which is all you need (unless you are competitiive FPS). If you're still getting coil whine at that fps, then yea you're stuck with it.

This is the second thread I've posted this in, and it also involved a 10 series card from Nvidia.
 
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