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Is coil whine just accepted now?

R.C.Anderson

R.C.Anderson

R.C.Anderson

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Finally played some more demanding games with my new GPU (7900xtx taichi), and it's got fairly obvious coil whine. I had a google search, and this seems to be a fairly common problem, with most people saying they just put up with it.

IMO with GPUs being 3-4x the price they were 10 years ago, it shouldn't be accepted that they whine like they do, but it seems this is just seemed as accepted.

Do manufacturers accept RMA for coil whine? Has anyone had any sucssess with RMAing a card for it & getting a better card out of it?
 
Some accept rma for really loud coil whine, but I've seen it refused for that in the past. Seems more or less just accepted now as long as its not too loud.
 
Pretty much yes, It's a very good reason to keep your PC on the floor not on your desk, for me that means I can't hear it anymore as the case needs to be raised up and have an open path to my ears for me to be able to hear that frequency.
 
Getting a silent card is almost impossible. Some models are better than others, but it does seem like most high end cards these days exhibit it. Generally worse at higher frame rates.

My original 4090FE was swapped by Nvidia because it had insane coil whine. The replacement does too, but not quite as bad. Usually more noticeable on benchmarks etc rather than most games especially if I cap the frame rate.
 
R.C.Anderson said:
Finally played some more demanding games with my new GPU (7900xtx taichi), and it's got fairly obvious coil whine. I had a google search, and this seems to be a fairly common problem, with most people saying they just put up with it.

IMO with GPUs being 3-4x the price they were 10 years ago, it shouldn't be accepted that they whine like they do, but it seems this is just seemed as accepted.

Do manufacturers accept RMA for coil whine? Has anyone had any sucssess with RMAing a card for it & getting a better card out of it?
Click to expand...
I would not accept it. When you by a card you have 14 days for getting your money back should you have any problem.
 
It’s difficult because it’s often the combination of PSU+GPU and most people don’t seem to care too much so manufacturers get away with it.

I RMAd mine twice, had to pay because the shop didn’t accept it as a problem… but they all had loud coil whine, a few years later switched to a new PSU and it went away. Switched PSU again (to a high quality PSU) recently and it came back so went back to the old one
 
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PaulM said:
It’s difficult because it’s often the combination of PSU+GPU and most people don’t seem to care too much so manufacturers get away with it.

I RMAd mine twice, had to pay because the shop didn’t accept it as a problem… but they all had loud coil whine, a few years later switched to a new PSU and it went away. Switched PSU again (to a high quality PSU) recently and it came back so went back to the old one
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This really.

Some of the ATX 3.0 power supplies are notoriously bad with coil whine which can easily cause other components to whine as well. It's not as easy as just pointing at one culprit when there's many factors involved.

I trialled 3 different Asus Loki SFX-L PSU's before i settled as they all exhibited loud coil whine.
 
Agree about the psu can be a problem. I replaced knackered psu and the new one caused a good GPU to coil whine really bad. That psu went straight back.
 
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If your PSU has more PCIE power connectors than what you're using then perhaps try switching them around. I found in doing this I was able to reduce coin whine on my GPU from extremely annoying to barely noticeable.
 
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andshrew said:
If your PSU has more PCIE power connectors than what you're using then perhaps try switching them around. I found in doing this I was able to reduce coin whine on my GPU from extremely annoying to barely noticeable.
Click to expand...
I'm using 3 of the 4 8-pin connectors, but my PSU is a single 12V rail, so I doubt it'll make any difference swapping these round
 
Jay85 said:
I've also heard that APC's help with coil whine, don't know if its true though as i've never bought or used one at home.
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I assume you mean UPS (as APC is a large manufactuer of these)? If so, I guess it's possible, if the UPS removes some noise from the input, it might help reduce whine (depending on the route cause of it)
 
I had it really bad with an RX7600 and RMAd it, new one has it but not as bad (using a decent NZXT PSU)
Seems worse at high fps in menus etc and sometimes does it when scrolling in a browser and large changes occur in screen.

Annoying yup, but I just have to put up with it unless copious amounts of hot glue still works?
 
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R.C.Anderson said:
I assume you mean UPS (as APC is a large manufactuer of these)? If so, I guess it's possible, if the UPS removes some noise from the input, it might help reduce whine (depending on the route cause of it)
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry meant UPS lol, had APC in my mind as it was the brand i looked at buying to test this theory before.
 
R.C.Anderson said:
Finally played some more demanding games with my new GPU (7900xtx taichi), and it's got fairly obvious coil whine. I had a google search, and this seems to be a fairly common problem, with most people saying they just put up with it.

IMO with GPUs being 3-4x the price they were 10 years ago, it shouldn't be accepted that they whine like they do, but it seems this is just seemed as accepted.

Do manufacturers accept RMA for coil whine? Has anyone had any sucssess with RMAing a card for it & getting a better card out of it?
Click to expand...

For high end cards (300w+), yes absolutely. Since owning several 3080, several 3090 and now a 4090 strix, all have had coil whine when running at 100% load (4k etc).

Some are definitely worse than others, though it's simply not possible to get one that's completely silent.

Bear in mind that many claiming to have "no coil noise" simply have age related hearing loss (or have damaged their hearing via loud music etc), so to them, they're telling the truth.
 
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