Coil whine harmless?

[Armadillo]

My 290 Vapor-X seems to have started to whine/buzz. I'm pretty sure it's the card and not the psu.

Basically, when the card is under load and all 6 power phase leds are on, it buzzes. At high fps, the buzz is louder at lower it's almost not there. I'm playing Rocket league at the moment and at locked 120fps, there is the buzz, if I put the fps limit down to 60, there is less of a buzz. When transistioning between menus, the pitch of the buzz changes. Running something like Realbench, or a video encode there is no buzz. So pretty sure it's the gpu.

I assume this is coil whine, but I thought cards either whine or do not, I didn't think they just develop it.

Anyway actual question, coil whine is an annoynance but harmless right? It's not a sign of the card going out? As I was hoping to keep this card until nearer Christmas before changing it out to a 1070.

Thanks.

 

[Doogles]

I had coil whine on both my card and PSU when I was using a CX 750 awhile my G2 was RMA'ed, when I got the P2 back it has no coil whine at all. Coil whine isn't bad it just means cheap components or the glue on the coils isn't there or not that good. I don't think you will have any issues, how old is the PSU and what make?

 

[Armadillo]

I had coil whine on both my card and PSU when I was using a CX 750 awhile my G2 was RMA'ed, when I got the P2 back it has no coil whine at all. Coil whine isn't bad it just means cheap components or the glue on the coils isn't there or not that good. I don't think you will have any issues, how old is the PSU and what make?

Corsair HX750i, I think it's about 11 months old. I'll double check tomorrow, but quite sure the noise is only from the gpu.

 

[Aretak]

It's only harmful to your ears. Other than that it's nothing to worry about.

 

[eddiew]

It's only harmful to your ears. Other than that it's nothing to worry about.

May also harm your sanity if you're a bit sensitive to small noises

 

[wedrum]

It's only harmful to your ears. Other than that it's nothing to worry about.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

When the GTX 1080 was whining it definitely caused "hiccups" the game would glitch fps would drop and then recover and the whine would momentarily stop at the same time then the pitch would change. Harmless? Probably, but irritating definitely.

 

[Scougar]

When the GTX 1080 was whining it definitely caused "hiccups" the game would glitch fps would drop and then recover and the whine would momentarily stop at the same time then the pitch would change. Harmless? Probably, but irritating definitely.

That's because the FPS drops, so the stress on the GPU isn't as high, hence the pitch changes. Not saying it might not do some bizarre interference, but I'm never personally seen evidence of that.

 

[r7slayer]

Nothing to worry about the health of your card but your sanity may be affected. I had a AIO which the pump would make a sort of whining noise after a 6+ hours of use. You couldn't really hear unless it was silent but i knew it was there which drove me insane lol.

That reminds me just order a noise dampening kit from OcUK. Seems to be taking it's sweet time to be dispatched

 

[Armadillo]

It's only harmful to your ears. Other than that it's nothing to worry about.

May also harm your sanity if you're a bit sensitive to small noises

Ok, thanks. If it's harmless other than being annoying, that's fine.

Seems to definitely be the card. Stuck my phone up against the psu recording and there is no buzz, buzz becomes audible closer the mic is to the card. So pretty sure it's card only. Strange it just started, I did change case recently, I wonder if something got disturbed.

Oh well, main thing is it's harmless. It's not that loud once the side panel is on and I game with headphones anyway. So I'll just put up with it, until new gpu (planning on a change soon anyway, hoping maybe for 1070 deals nearer Christmas) and if it still does it and turns out to be the psu causing it, I'll just get a new one, current was an rma replacement, so out of warranty now and is my 5th (I think) Corsair psu. So if it turns out it's that, then I don't think it'll be 6th time lucky .

 

[Kaapstad]

I really miss the coil whine on my 290Xs.

In normal use they were not too bad but when they are overclocked you could tell how hard the cards were working from the coil whine. I thought this was quite useful as the sound was not that unpleasant anyway.

The funny part was I did not realise the cards had coil whine until I removed the noisy reference coolers to fit waterblocks.

 

[Doogles]

Corsair HX750i, I think it's about 11 months old. I'll double check tomorrow, but quite sure the noise is only from the gpu.

Yeah that is a quality PSU, it'll be the GPU which is nothing to worry about just annoying.

 

[Scania]

I built a rig for my girlfriends 9 year old and dropped a GTX 260 in it, it has coil whine which unless it's sat on the desk with the case open you can't hear it, my two German Shepherds won't go in his room when the PC is on mind you so it certainly bothers them!

 

[beany_bot]