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Electrical whine from Radeon GPU

darkfader

darkfader

darkfader

Associate
Joined
28 Mar 2009
Posts
9
Hi Guys...

I've just put a new system together from scratch - an i7 with Sapphire Radeon HD 4870

When i first switched on yesterday (Thursday), everything was great... but slowly over the course of about 12 hours, a very high pitched whining noise appeared

I looked in the case and could see nothing untoward, figured it may be a fan 'bedding' in

Today i switched on, and it was even more noticeable - so again I've looked inside for a closer investigation... i 'tap-stopped' each fan (not recommended i know) and realised it was definitely not any of the fans

Then.. back on the computer itself, i noticed stuff i was doing on screen was effecting the noise... for example... scrolling down a long web page would stop the whine... also resizing a window on the desktop... i confirmed this by quickly rolling the mouse wheel back and forth on a web page, and the sound stopped completely until i stopped moving the mouse wheel... and i grabbed the bottom right corner of a window and quickly moved the mouse back and forth, which made the sound stop

So i positioned the case in such a way that i could get my head right in for a listen.. and the whine is definitely from the GPU (and defo NOT the GPU fan)

And close up it definitely sounds very 'electrical'


So after all that waffle... i guess what i want to know is... does this sound like a fault with the card? - Should i be pursuing a replacement?

- remember i pointed out, that it never made this noise for the first few hours... and it does seem rather odd that just some PCB and Chips could make such a noise.... I've never come across a GPU that's done this before


I went out of my way to build a whisper quiet PC as i suffer from tinnitus (high pitch squealing in the ears) and so I'm more sensitive to noises like this and these type of frequencies actually aggravate my condition... I shall be disappointed if this kind of noise is considered 'normal'


Thanks for reading - ADE
 
Coil whine or capacitor squeal.

Very common problem with both graphics cards and PSUs, and unfortunately it's pretty much pot luck whether you get it or not.

Usually doesn't point to a fault in the card, so RMAs are a no-go, but you can probably return it under DSR if you can't deal with the noise.
 
Hi, thanks for the reply..

Could you just enlighten me some more... what is RMAs & DSR


I really don't think i can live with this with my 'condition'.. i'm sat here and all i can concentrate on is this noise :(

I can actually hear it stood up to 12ft from the case!
 
My 4850 does this when its working hard. As the above poster states its from a coil on the board. Easiest way to tell is listening to the pitch. it will change as the workload changes e.g. Desktop to game
 
darkfader said:
Hi, thanks for the reply..

Could you just enlighten me some more... what is RMAs & DSR
Click to expand...

Wikipedia said:
A Return Merchandise Authorization or Return Material Authorization (RMA) is a transaction whereby the recipient of a product arranges to return defective goods to the supplier to have the product repaired or replaced or in order to receive a refund or credit for another product from the same retailer or corporation. In practice, an RMA is only issued after a series of tests.
Click to expand...

RMA is basically a return for replacement/repair under warranty. So they have to prove your claim an item is faulty.

DSR = Distance Selling Regulations. Just like a normal shop, you can return an item to the shop you bought it from for a refund if you've changed your mind. For example, I did this recently with a CoolerMaster PSU, which didn't have PCI-E cables long enough for my case.
 
r0undb0y said:
My 4850 does this when its working hard. As the above poster states its from a coil on the board. Easiest way to tell is listening to the pitch. it will change as the workload changes e.g. Desktop to game
Click to expand...

So yours is opposite to mine... as mine stops whining when it's under load

In some ways yours would be easier for me to live with, as i don't do a lot of heavy load work
 
^^ Although off topic I'd suggest taking gingko biloba and extra zinc for the tinnitus. There is other stuff, diet related etc but I don't want to hijack any further here. Email me, only if you want. :)
 
darkfader said:
Hi Guys...

I've just put a new system together from scratch - an i7 with Sapphire Radeon HD 4870

When i first switched on yesterday (Thursday), everything was great... but slowly over the course of about 12 hours, a very high pitched whining noise appeared

I looked in the case and could see nothing untoward, figured it may be a fan 'bedding' in

Today i switched on, and it was even more noticeable - so again I've looked inside for a closer investigation... i 'tap-stopped' each fan (not recommended i know) and realised it was definitely not any of the fans

Then.. back on the computer itself, i noticed stuff i was doing on screen was effecting the noise... for example... scrolling down a long web page would stop the whine... also resizing a window on the desktop... i confirmed this by quickly rolling the mouse wheel back and forth on a web page, and the sound stopped completely until i stopped moving the mouse wheel... and i grabbed the bottom right corner of a window and quickly moved the mouse back and forth, which made the sound stop

So i positioned the case in such a way that i could get my head right in for a listen.. and the whine is definitely from the GPU (and defo NOT the GPU fan)

And close up it definitely sounds very 'electrical'


So after all that waffle... i guess what i want to know is... does this sound like a fault with the card? - Should i be pursuing a replacement?

- remember i pointed out, that it never made this noise for the first few hours... and it does seem rather odd that just some PCB and Chips could make such a noise.... I've never come across a GPU that's done this before


I went out of my way to build a whisper quiet PC as i suffer from tinnitus (high pitch squealing in the ears) and so I'm more sensitive to noises like this and these type of frequencies actually aggravate my condition... I shall be disappointed if this kind of noise is considered 'normal'


Thanks for reading - ADE
Click to expand...


my 4870x2 used to be bad when under load had a high pitched squeel.
 
a lot of the high end cards now do this. After a few days it disappeared on my 4870 so maybe just wait and see what happens. On my friend's gtx 280 it didn't and he ended up selling it :p
 
Its the Chokes that are squealing & its common.

Example of some manufactures trying to address the issue so that its not the luck of the draw as to whether yours squeals.

MSI 4890 Cyclone 1000MHZ Stock !!!
MSI is working on a special HD 4890 card that should feature, Hi-C CAPS, Solid State Chokes NCC PSF solid caps and of course non-reference cooler. The card should be called MSI R4890 Cyclone and we expect it to be quite an overclocker.

The new MSI HD 4890 will use Hi-C CAPS around the GPU which should enable it to have clean and stable power for the GPU, and it should imply that this one might be a very good overclocker. The rest of the known features include Solid State Chokes, also known as the anti buzz chokes, and NCC PSF solid caps.

The card will be cooled by MSI's well known SuperPipe cooler which uses 8mm heatpipes, and according to the picture which we managed to get, it will have four of these.

The card should be ready in time for Computex show, and this might be another card with a GPU clock set at 1GHz, but it is still early to talk about clocks as the card is still under development.

Here are some pictures of the MSI R4890 Cyclone, which will show its face at Computex show in Taiwan.
Click to expand...
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13533&Itemid=1
 
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