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Is coil whine just a way of life now?

AdladUK

AdladUK

AdladUK

Associate
Joined
6 Jan 2007
Posts
1,509
Graphics card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 GAMING 8G
PSU: Corsair RM750i 750 Watt 80 PLUS Gold
Speccy for system: https://i.imgur.com/1QDtr2g.jpg
Speccy for graphics: https://i.imgur.com/FSk9lh0.jpg

Hi,

I've recently built 2 systems, both with 1080s. I had some initial issues, but everything is now completely silent at idle. The PSU and graphics card fans don't even run in Windows and the CPU one is so quiet you can't hear it.

The problem is the moment I start a game I get coil whine. Whether it's within menus or the game itself. It's the same sound you get when you have a bottle of soda that isn't quite closed.

Anyways I've tried turning on VSync within the games and within the NVIDIA Control Panel. I've even tried undervolting the card. It helps a bit, but it's still very audible.

It's such a shame too because the graphics card fans are amazing, they barely make any noise, even under load.

Before anyone says "you got unlucky", bear in mind this exact problem is on both systems, each with their own 1080. And also bare in mind I've had coil whine from pretty much every single high-end graphics card I've ordered within the last 5 years, so I really don't think it's a question of luck.

I've read it can be the PSU. Has anyone here changed their PSU and had coil whine go away? Or maybe there are some other methods to deal with it?

Thanks
 
I've gone through a MSI 290x Gaming, Fury Tri-x, GTX 1080, RX560, Vega AIO, GTX 1080, RX470 and Vega AIR over the last 3 years and the only time I experienced gpu coil whine was when I bought and fitted a Corsair HX850 PSU with the Vega AIO I had. The Vega AIO didn't have the whine with my old Corsair TX850 or with my EVGA G2 650 watt psu but with a brand new Platinum rated Corsair HX850 it did. Maybe that say's something about Corsairs newer psu's?


Some people on this forum have used the Heaven benchmark for several hours on a loop to fix their whine issues, I'm unsure how reliable that is but it can't hurt to try.
 
nashathedog said:
Some people on this forum have used the Heaven benchmark for several hours on a loop to fix their whine issues, I'm unsure how reliable that is but it can't hurt to try.
Click to expand...

When I first got my GTX670 I noticed it had coil whine and I done that exact process. I run the Heaven benchmark overnight and when I checked on it the next morning it had fixed the issue. I can't say for sure it guaranteed to work in all situations but it's worth a shot.
 
My 1080 had some coil whine running it on an 750 XFX black edition.
Switched to a Seasonic 650 plat. Very occasional marginal noise but nothing like what it was with the XFX.

Now got a 1080ti running with the 750 XFX black edition no whine.

Trail and error.

I was just going to retire the x.f.x p.s.u and bought a new evga 750 to go with 1080ti. Marginal whine with the Evga it's sitting as a spare. I assumed as the xfx whined with a 1080 it would do so with a 1080ti.

I was wrong.

If you have two systems and two p.s.u's I would swap them over. May do nothing but with this you never know.
 
I have coilwhine on my Vega64, doesnt bother me as I've headphones on while gaming anyway.

I might try running Heaven benchmark for several hours to see if it helps.
 
Freddie1980 said:
When I first got my GTX670 I noticed it had coil whine and I done that exact process. I run the Heaven benchmark overnight and when I checked on it the next morning it had fixed the issue. I can't say for sure it guaranteed to work in all situations but it's worth a shot.
Click to expand...

Cheers, I knew I'd read about it working in some instances which was why I thought I'd mention it.


Rroff said:
I've been lucky with coil whine personally - partly I put it down to my choices of PSU.
Click to expand...

Same here, I've been very lucky with it as I don't want any noise coming from my PC(which is why my Vega AIR is now on the MM).
 
No, its not a way of life... They are supposed to be fairly quiet. If I bought a GPU and it made coil whine, I would send it back and buy another.
 
nashathedog said:
Some people on this forum have used the Heaven benchmark for several hours on a loop to fix their whine issues, I'm unsure how reliable that is but it can't hurt to try.
Click to expand...

Oddly looping Heaven benchmark whilst stress testing a couple of GPUs fixed a whine from one of my PSUs (XFX Core 650w) as well - can't explain why, but it has healing properties lol.

GPU coil whine is related/affected by PSU choice though - so worth checking with a different unit - a quick google suggests that the Corsair RM series aren't the best in relation to causing Coil Whine.
 
Armageus said:
Oddly looping Heaven benchmark whilst stress testing a couple of GPUs fixed a whine from one of my PSUs (XFX Core 650w) as well - can't explain why, but it has healing properties lol.

GPU coil whine is related/affected by PSU choice though - so worth checking with a different unit - a quick google suggests that the Corsair RM series aren't the best in relation to causing Coil Whine.
Click to expand...

I have a BeQuiet 650w and I sleeved every possible cable for it, the thoughts of swapping to a new PSU is killing me. :(
 
nashathedog said:
I've gone through a MSI 290x Gaming, Fury Tri-x, GTX 1080, RX560, Vega AIO, GTX 1080, RX470 and Vega AIR over the last 3 years and the only time I experienced gpu coil whine was when I bought and fitted a Corsair HX850 PSU with the Vega AIO I had. The Vega AIO didn't have the whine with my old Corsair TX850 or with my EVGA G2 650 watt psu but with a brand new Platinum rated Corsair HX850 it did. Maybe that say's something about Corsairs newer psu's?


Some people on this forum have used the Heaven benchmark for several hours on a loop to fix their whine issues, I'm unsure how reliable that is but it can't hurt to try.
Click to expand...

Okay thanks! That makes sense regarding Corsair, as I've read a lot of bad stuff about them too now I've started to research coil whine.

I'll give the Heaven benchmark a try tonight, if that doesn't work I'll look into getting replacement PSUs
 
Badfish said:
No, its not a way of life... They are supposed to be fairly quiet. If I bought a GPU and it made coil whine, I would send it back and buy another.
Click to expand...

The cards function absolutely perfectly aside from this. A lot of suppliers won't even accept the card back just for coil whine, plus even if I did get replacements, it might be another component causing the issue and I'd be back to the start and then what? Send them again for replacement?
 
Any particular settings I should have for Heaven? Quality? Anti-aliasing? Full Screen?

Is it worth also running their new benchmark Superposition?
 
I believe coil whine is often caused by electrons moving through a wire or conducting material, and having a frequency equal (or close) to the resonant frequency of the material.

Unfortunately, this can be hard to counter, as you have to know the frequency of both to change it.

Power supplies with less ripple, less variation and better, cleaner power delivery can help, as you're decreasing the chance of a frequency being produced that's equal to the resonant frequency.
 
I have the same GPU as you (MSI 1080 Gaming Plus) and a EVGA supernova g2 850w PSU. I get a tiny amount of coil whine on menus when I'm getting nutty FPS (300+).

I've actually heard the MSI cards are among the worse for coil whine.
 
Last edited:
Armageus said:
I just used it on fullscreen, highest settings (Ultra?) and Antialiasing on highest setting.
Click to expand...

Here are the results for the benchmark...

Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0

FPS: 144.8
Score: 3648
Min FPS: 36.4
Max FPS: 266.5

System
Platform: Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700K CPU @ 4.20GHz (4199MHz) x4
GPU model: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 23.21.13.8813 (4095MB) x1

Settings
Render: Direct3D11
Mode: 1920x1080 8xAA fullscreen
Preset: Custom
Quality: Ultra
Tessellation: Disabled

I'll leave it running tonight and hopefully that will solve the coil whine.

On a side note, something I noticed when running the test is when a new scene would load, or the camera would pan around a corner, the FPS would sometimes dramatically drop and you get a stutter for a second or so. Is that normal? I've noticed it in games now and again as well...
 
Qitarah said:
I have the same GPU as you (MSI 1080 Gaming Plus) and a eggs supernova g2 850w PSU. I get a tiny amount of coil whine on menus when I'm getting nutty FPS (300+).

I've actually heard the MSI cards are among the worse for coil whine.
Click to expand...

That PSU looks really good. I'll probably order that as a replacement as last resort.

Honestly the brand of GPU seems to make no difference for me. I've had multiple generations of cards, multiple brands and even used completely different suppliers. I ALWAYS seem to get cards with bad coil whine when I purchase performance cards. I guess I upset a gypsy at some point and she put a coil whine curse on me
 
It's possible to have no coil whine, I have an EVGA FTW3 1080ti with an old Corsair AX1200 and it's totally silent most of the time until it's being hammered which is when the fans start turning but no coil whine.
 
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