[SOLVED] coil whine on MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X - is my setup causing it?

[colbs2411]

Hello all,

This is probably going to be tricky to answer but all help is appreciated. I have been running my current setup for about a year now and have had no issues, but in the last few weeks I noticed that my cooling could use an upgrade and bought 2 Venturi HF-14 fans for my computer to help with cooling in the hot weather. but now my GPU has developed a ridiculously loud coil whine for - in my mind - no apparent reason.

My concern is that - by trying to keep costs down in certain areas - that my setup is causing this issue. I am running the card on a Asrock z370 extreme4 motherboard, which is all powered by a Corsair Corsair TX-M Series 650 Watt PSU. As I said, this has been fine for around a year, but ever since installing the new fans I have got immense coil whine - even when I go back to my cases stock fan setup (meshify C with 2x dynamic gp-12 fans).

Is it likely that the PSU or Motherboard are - for want of a better phrase - too cheap to do the job in the long run? I have read many forum posts stating that I should be looking at a better motherboard or PSU, but that made little sense to me given that they have served me perfectly for nearly a year.

I am thinking of sending the PC away to be checked over by a specialist to see if they can diagnose the cause - or whether it is just the GPU deciding after a year to make a racket - but I wanted to see if anything can help before spending more money that (tbh) i don't have spare.

thank you in advance for any help you can give.

 

[Satan-IR]

I'm assuming you mainly use the PC and get whine while gaming?

Is anything overclocked? If yes you can try changing things back to stock/default and see if that helps. Can you test with another graphics card, is one available?

Also try playing games with vsync on.

Do you have any noise on audio? Does the whine affect audio, can hear noise through headphones or speakers maybe?

 

[colbs2411]

Thanks for replying so quickly!

No the noise does not come through the earphones and yeah it is when gaming, especially at high usage. the noise is inaudible when browsing/playing games like sims 4.

Iit is when running stuff like the Heaven benchmark that it is worst, wherein i have noticed that by turning down the settings - and hence using less memory - the noise can fade away around 4500 mhz. but I bought a 1080 so I could run at least high settings, so its been a really upsetting issue. vsync had very little effect.

I havent got any extra tech to use annoyingly, hence I was considering sending it to a specialist to look at it who could try a different psu/gpu to isolate the issue. the sound definately somes from the gpu though, just to be clear.

 

[Satan-IR]

Yes coil whine when coming from graphics card is more intense when the card is working harder. Unfortunately when whine is there it's there to stay.

There are some DIY solutions like applying silicon to damp then vibration and even tightening or loosening backplate screws on card etc to reduce it but many of them are not really that effective.

You say you're sure it from the card PCB but since they started after adding fans, are you 100% sure it's not coming from other component? Does the whine sound/pitch change when you move camera around in games like panning etc?

I guess you can take it to a shop to test with a different PSU and GPU and see if changing either of those gets rid of the whine.

 

[colbs2411]

Yeah the sound changes based on camera angle or when the rendered scene changes - I assumed this would point to the GPU but are you saying that it wouldn't? although the noise is from the GPU i am aware this could be due to a PSU issue or motherboard, but all seems fine and is completely unchanged besides 2 fans (0.3 amp each so nothing mega on voltage).

Yeah I was thinking of taking it to a shop to see if they could check it quickly on a different PSU. I still have the warranty and an option to RMA it from Ebuyer, so I won't try any DIY on it.

 

[Satan-IR]

Yeah the sound changes based on camera angle or when the rendered scene changes - I assumed this would point to the GPU but are you saying that it wouldn't? although the noise is from the GPU i am aware this could be due to a PSU issue or motherboard, but all seems fine and is completely unchanged besides 2 fans (0.3 amp each so nothing mega on voltage).

Yeah I was thinking of taking it to a shop to see if they could check it quickly on a different PSU. I still have the warranty and an option to RMA it from Ebuyer, so I won't try any DIY on it.

No not saying it's not GPU just wanted to make sure and when sound changes with camera angle or when scene changes it's the card.

Yes sometimes another card or PSU eliminates it. I actually forgot to say that if you can, RMAing the card might help unless they send you another exact same card/model which might develop that with your setup (mobo/PSU) over time. Sometimes whines are quite prevalent with certain models of certain brands as it is a PCB/design issue etc.

If you can return and get another card that would probably eliminate the whine. If possible search reviews/comments on sites like Newegg to see if a lot of people are complaining about coil while on the brand/model you can get from seller or not. That's the way which can help prevent you from buying a while-prone card in the first place.

Also as I said not a bad idea to check with a shop to see if using another PSU helps or not.

 

[colbs2411]

Yeah RMA from Ebuyer would just be another of the same. I have a MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X which seems to be a problematic one for this from an online search, but not like universally. Will likely RMA if the issue still persists to annoy me, but on lower Mhz I've somehow managed to make it quite ignorable for now.

Thanks for your help @Satan-IR , really appreciate it.