[SOLVED] GPU coil whine(tuf 3070)

[BarderoJ]

Bought asus rtx 3070 tuf a week ago. Da was my first time building a pc and also a first time hearing da kind of noise from a gpu. At first tried to get another pu, didnt help.
So i returned my 3070 and abt to buy rtx 6800 xt(power color red dragon rx 6800 xt) afraid that it can also whine.

So a question is- why do it sound like that and what can i do abt it

 

[LinuxDevice]

This isn't necessarily "wrong" so much as it is annoying (although it could be an issue in some cases). Power supplies and regulation on devices like this use a "switching mode" power supply. This consists of rapidly pulsing power through a magnetic coil at a high rate (a rate which happens to coincide with the frequency of the whine you hear). Often there will be more than one coil, and "whine" might get worse when two or more coils "heterodyne". As power requirements change there will be increases or decreases in the current through the coils, and under load it is more likely to become a stronger magnet (which in this case also acts like a speaker without a speaker cone). Some manufacturers will use something like glue to encase the coil and reduce the noise. That glue can sometimes dislodge and allow noise, but it is also not unusual that the coil is never encased like this to help in heat dissipation. If the glue came loose, then this would be an issue, although likely it wouldn't stop function. I use some GPUs which were once considered power consuming (Titan RTXs), but you'd never hear the coil whine because of the fan noise (it isn't much fan noise, and the CPU is water cooled, but the noise is sufficient to mask the whine in this case).

 

[Phaaze88]

The solution - besides returning it - is to use fps caps and lower power limits.
Don't let the gpu just pull power all willy-nilly for as much fps as possible, producing frames over the monitor's refresh rate. That's the most common scenario coil whine appears in.

 

[BarderoJ]

This isn't necessarily "wrong" so much as it is annoying (although it could be an issue in some cases). Power supplies and regulation on devices like this use a "switching mode" power supply. This consists of rapidly pulsing power through a magnetic coil at a high rate (a rate which happens to coincide with the frequency of the whine you hear). Often there will be more than one coil, and "whine" might get worse when two or more coils "heterodyne". As power requirements change there will be increases or decreases in the current through the coils, and under load it is more likely to become a stronger magnet (which in this case also acts like a speaker without a speaker cone). Some manufacturers will use something like glue to encase the coil and reduce the noise. That glue can sometimes dislodge and allow noise, but it is also not unusual that the coil is never encased like this to help in heat dissipation. If the glue came loose, then this would be an issue, although likely it wouldn't stop function. I use some GPUs which were once considered power consuming (Titan RTXs), but you'd never hear the coil whine because of the fan noise (it isn't much fan noise, and the CPU is water cooled, but the noise is sufficient to mask the whine in this case).

My issue with 3070 was that if i connect my headphones to a case i could hear this whine in left ear, and everything is fine when i connect them in motherboard.

 

[BarderoJ]

The solution - besides returning it - is to use fps caps and lower power limits.
Don't let the gpu just pull power all willy-nilly for as much fps as possible, producing frames over the monitor's refresh rate. That's the most common scenario coil whine appears in.

So basicly i need to return gpu until i get da one then dont whine?

 

[Phaaze88]

So basicly i need to return gpu until i get da one then dont whine?

If you really want to go out of your way to do that... up to you.

 

[LinuxDevice]

My issue with 3070 was that if i connect my headphones to a case i could hear this whine in left ear, and everything is fine when i connect them in motherboard.

If it is the audio with this whine, then it is EM interference (still caused by the way the switching power supply works). To fix this one would need to shield the audio traces. I suspect this is a motherboard design issue in part. It might be there is no simple way to find out if that is the case. If this weren't a motherboard I'd suggest testing grounded aluminum foil around the wiring or devices on the motherboard to see if noise is reduced, but considering it is a motherboard, that isn't easy. It is quite possibly the motherboard's fault for not being sufficiently shielded in lane routing, but of course a higher strength power supply also implies higher levels of EM interference..

There is actually one possibility. PCIe offers something called spread spectrum clocking. I don't know if you can go into the BIOS and look for PCI options and see if there is something listed as "spread spectrum" or not, but if you do find this, and if it is disabled, then try enabling it. It is harder for a clock to time correctly with this enabled, but when it is, it tends to reduce EM output (or at least the nature of it).

EDIT: Forgot to mention that yes, some video cards route power differently, so it is a valid idea to try different video cards for different interference. It won't necessarily be the video card's fault, but changing power routing might change the interference.

 

[BarderoJ]

Bought a new gpu today, still can hear da sound.
About headphones: when gpu whine in dying light for example i cant hear odd sounds, but in ready or not there is some kind of white noise and happens only on ultra, when gpu starts to whine louder.

So do i need to change my motherboard, cuz people say it can also whine? Or what do i need to do?

 

[Multyspeed]

3.5 mm headphones or USB ?
If they are 3.5mm buy yourself a USB to 3.5mm adapter and you are good to go. Had an issue with me old headphones - hearing wierd aounds from the PC. After buying new ones using USB - no problems at all.