Gigabyte R9 280X hell!

PowerPie5000 · 14 Dec 2013 at 21:05

Does anyone else here own a Gigabyte R9 280X Windforce OC card (rev 1)? I've gone through two of them so far and both have the same issues! I even tested my replacement in another PC and it didn't make any difference. The problems are:

* Coil whine (replacement card has a more pronounced squealing sound)

* Loud fans... I can manually lower the fan speed at the expense of having slightly higher temps, but the fan speeds reach 80% when left on auto which is unbearable!

* Fan sensors give out false readings... I've used OC Guru II, HWinfo, HWMonitor and GPU-Z and they all give out the same dodgy readings such as 84736378234RPM or nothing at all.

* Solder flux left on PCB... This annoys me as it gives the card a crap 'weathered' look and feels slightly sticky/tacky

I always thought Gigabyte were better than this. I'm going to email them and see if there's anything they can do about it... The least they can do is replace it with a rev 2 (which they must have released so soon for a reason!).

imginy · 14 Dec 2013 at 21:14

I think there is a bios update to lower fan speed.

If you like the quiet you would be better of with an Asus or HIS.

Randomface74 · 14 Dec 2013 at 21:15

PowerPie5000 · 14 Dec 2013 at 21:45

imginy said:
I think there is a bios update to lower fan speed.

If you like the quiet you would be better of with an Asus or HIS.

I had an Asus 280X DCII TOP before the Gigabyte cards... It was quiet, but it also ran way too hot and sometimes would artifact when gaming (it hit 83C in no time when gaming, which doesn't fall inline with the reviews). Gigabyte have updates for cards using the F1 and F10 series bios (F3 and F12 updates available with lower fan noise), but no updates for cards using the F30 series bios (mine is F31).

billysielu said:
psu?

My PSU is a 600W Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold... A highly rated and capable PSU (gigabyte recommend 600W or higher for their R9 280X cards). The other PC i tested it with has a 750W XFX PSU (rebranded Seasonic unit i think?).

arknor · 14 Dec 2013 at 22:01

Yea I sent one back under DSR
80c playing BF4, 98% fan speed and sounded like a hairdryer....

I picked up an asus DCUII Top edition instead. (2 slot new one)

about 68c playing BF4, much quieter and the build quality is far better, also the fan profile is very relaxed the default one only goes up to around 50% until it hits 80c

BTW these cards love a side case fan

Rroff · 14 Dec 2013 at 22:09

Coil whine is hit and miss and may not be caused by the GPU itself even if its coming from it. Its not even that unsual for it to go away after a few days though most cards will do it when rendering at higher framerates.

PowerPie5000 · 14 Dec 2013 at 22:44

arknor said:
Yea I sent one back under DSR
80c playing BF4, 98% fan speed and sounded like a hairdryer....

It was the opposite for me as i had high temps with the Asus 280X card (83C gaming) and i get around 65C with the Gigabyte card using the default loud fan profile. I can easily lower the fan speed to max out at 50% and still maintain a max temp of around 75C, but the coil whine gets on my nerves!

I wonder what else Gigabyte changed with the rev 2 card apart from the cooler shroud and PCB colour? I'm hoping they used better quality chokes that don't squeal! And hopefully they properly clean the new boards too as flux residue will look worse on a black PCB.

Is it true that coil whine can go after a while? Some people mention leaving a game running overnight that causes the card to squeal and it sometimes cures it... Not sure if it's just a myth though?

OvEr_KiLL · 14 Dec 2013 at 23:36

arknor said:
Yea I sent one back under DSR
80c playing BF4, 98% fan speed and sounded like a hairdryer....

I picked up an asus DCUII Top edition instead. (2 slot new one)

about 68c playing BF4, much quieter and the build quality is far better, also the fan profile is very relaxed the default one only goes up to around 50% until it hits 80c

BTW these cards love a side case fan

side fans blowing in air into the case or blowing out the case, might be a silly question but i would like to know for when i get a 290 with custom cooling

arknor · 14 Dec 2013 at 23:47

OvEr_KiLL said:
side fans blowing in air into the case or blowing out the case, might be a silly question but i would like to know for when i get a 290 with custom cooling

I have a 550d with the fan mounts behind the silenced panel that attaches is like this

I did intend to fit a 120mm at the top and have it sucking air out as my card exhausts a lot of hot air out the side to such an extend that the side of my case gets quite warm to the touch at the middle of the bit where I can mount side fans, Unfortunately my heatsink sticks out a few mm to far and stops me putting the side back on with a fan at the top...

So instead I've installed the fan at the bottom blowing air so it hit's between the psu and the gpu.

both the windforce and dcuii cards blew a lot of hot air towards the side of my case so if it's possible to have a fan either at gpu level or slightly above pulling the hot air out I'd imagine you would get a decent reduction in heat build up around the card. if you had a fan blowing directly at he card it would probably just mess up the airflow from the gpu fans

PowerPie5000 · 15 Dec 2013 at 00:03

My case has a mesh side panel and i can feel the hot air being blown through it by the Gigabyte card... I didn't bother putting fans on the side panel (it has space for 4 x 120mm fans). I have 2 intake fans on the front, 1 exhaust on the rear and 1 exhaust on the top/roof of the case.

arknor · 15 Dec 2013 at 00:26

PowerPie5000 said:
My case has a mesh side panel and i can feel the hot air being blown through it by the Gigabyte card... I didn't bother putting fans on the side panel (it has space for 4 x 120mm fans). I have 2 intake fans on the front, 1 exhaust on the rear and 1 exhaust on the top/roof of the case.

It's crazy how much they blow out the side lol..

I just switched the fan to suck instead of blow to see if it does actually make more of a difference even though it's under the GPU like so

poop quality pic but you get the idea

if it was mounted about 1/4 of an inch higher it would almost be perfectly in like to suck what the GPU is blowing

EDIT 1c lower at max load mining ltc lol...... (scrap that lol now 2c higher than before)

I might try to find a 200mm fan that could fit in the middle, might just get away with mounting one if it were the same depth as a 120mm

actually LOL I could mount a side top fan on the outside of the case

PowerPie5000 · 15 Dec 2013 at 10:37

It might be better having the side fan as an exhaust, otherwise you'll be pushing the hot air back to the GPU (that's what i think anyway). The motherboard must get quite warm too with all the hot air being blown from the GPU directly to the motherboard. I also use plastic cable ties to help hold up the GPU as these Gigabyte cards sag like nothing i've seen before! Even my HIS 7950 IceQ Boost doesn't sag like this and that's a huge card!

mushtafa · 15 Dec 2013 at 11:41

I've got the rev.2 version of this card, can't complain about anything. I tried some mining the other day, the card ran at 91 degrees at 100% fan speed.
While playing games, never seen it get that hot.

Posted from Overclockers.co.uk App for Android

BaDBoY_uK · 15 Dec 2013 at 12:05

MSI 280X is amazing. I recommend that one

Hopefully your problem is fixed with the change of fan poisitons

GL

arknor · 15 Dec 2013 at 12:47

I don't really have a problem just trying to get it low for mining.

68c @ 100 load in bf4
78c running scrypt @ 58% fan speed just below the threshold where the fan gets pretty loud

others have said mining makes their cards hotter as well, I guess it's all the shader abuse.

I pity anyone without a side fan or atleast a grill , the side of my case feels around 40-50c just in one spot next to the gpu if I put the foam silenced panel on over the grill
the majority of hot air being pushed out is from above where the heatpipe is on this asus with cooltech fan

bleh embedding videos seems broken
wtf the forum is acting like the youtube url is a sweary lol can't even direct link it :O
"ASUS CoolTech Fan Technical Demonstration" on youtube

BaDBoY_uK · 15 Dec 2013 at 12:58

Only the portion of the link past the v bit is needed

Example v=Sc32YdEWHzo - only put

Gregster · 15 Dec 2013 at 13:07

All those posts and been a member this long and doesn't know how to post a youtube vid?

Permaban I say

Edit:

LOOOOOL, I thought I would add the vid and it done the same Arknor. Site is playing up

arknor · 15 Dec 2013 at 13:21

BaDBoY_uK said:
Only the portion of the link past the v bit is needed

Example v=Sc32YdEWHzo - only put

BaDBoY_uK · 15 Dec 2013 at 15:05

Ah, okay, fair enuf. Perman lifted haha