[SOLVED] Is loud coil whine OK

[NightHawkRMX]

I have been trying to overclock my 580 and it has been getting loud, even with fan speed set to minimum. I believe this is loud coil whine.
Ok or not?

 

[Darkbreeze]

I mean a fan on the graphics card. If you stop the fans on the graphics card, the noise continues? I don't know then unless it's the PSU fan. It sure sounds like bearing clatter to me.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Yup. I put my fingers on the fan center stopping them, and the noise doesnt change at all.

The psu seems quiet. I just stuck my ear to the psu fan and there's just a slight hum of it spinning.
I might call sapphire and see what they say. I doubt they will help me without a warranty tho.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I doubt it too. Might just be a new card in your future. I don't suppose you have or can borrow another card just to see if the problem goes away?

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Well, it didn't do it with my old 1050. I sold that for a whopping $75

I may be able to bum off the 960 out of a relatives pc.

 

[Satan-IR]

The first one, "paused whine", sounds a bit like a whine to me and it changes in pitch, like whines do with varying load on GPU.

The second one though is too constant for a whine unless the scene/camera in the game was stationary and card load didn't really vary?

I also wanted to say a fan can be a possible culprit too but as Darkbreeze mentioned it and you said you checked, that one is moot.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Is it possibl3 this noise origonates from within the die or one of the mosfets or something?

I think ill havw to deal with the issues.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Im always CPU bound in gta so thats why gpu usage is lower and whine is quieter

 

[Satan-IR]

Yeah inductors can whine too and no I don't think the die (GPU?) can whine. There's quite a current going through those components on the cards VRM.

What are the markings on the IR power thingies? I can't make them in the photos.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Im not sure what you mean. Im not an expert at identifying things.

 

[Satan-IR]

The IR power stages things on the board, almost flat black, between inductors and the bigger caps on right. They should be marked with IR followed by some number I think.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I can't see them from the pic and the card is reassembled. However, actually, hardcore overclocking to the rescue!

They are IR3553.
https://www.infineon.com/cms/en/pro...ted-power-stage/ir-mosfet-power-stage/ir3553/

 

[NightHawkRMX]

WOW. Even though this has a nerfed 5 phase VRM, it can still deliver 200A. I think if it actually drew that my PSU would have exploded or the card would melt into my desk.

 

[Satan-IR]

Yeah those are cool parts. They are buck gates and low/high MOSFETs and diode all packed into a package also do current sensing and each can handle 40 amps. So 5 phases and 5 of those means that GPU of yours can get up to 200 amps!

I think the only nitro+ with higher is the Strix which has 3555 each of which can handle 60 amps.

 

[Satan-IR]

BTW, I forgot to mention about the whine.

Since you opened the cooler and back plate I've seen whine getting better or worse by tightening or loosening the screws on the pack plate and heat sink/cooler assembly. More or less pressure might disrupt the harmonics of the oscillation therefore reduce the noise a bit.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I'd just run it with the cooler off.

(Yes, I'm kidding.)

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I know some people that would do that.

 

[Darkbreeze]

LOL. Yeah, probably quite a few of those out there in the world.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I think I'll keep the card for a while and deal with it. I doubt it is something life-threatening for the card.
In the meantime the Ryzen 5 1600 for $90 and the 2600 for $120 are tempting.

 

[Satan-IR]

Coil whine is almost always not a problem and does no damage to the components. Caps hissing must be taken seriously as it's warning that the cap is going to blow soon. No worries with coil whine.

If it was intact I wouldn't touch it but since you already opened the cooler and back plate up I would try tightening or loosing the back plate or cooler screws a very very small amount to see if it changes the whine. So small a change that does not change the proximity of the card/cooler to avoid imapcing the whole cooling process of course.

 

[Satan-IR]

I just remembered something that's relative to the whine issue. You can try and see if this happens we can know this is a tool that might work in some cases to identify whether the noise user hears is a coil whine from GPU.

Only thing that has made my card whine is some 3D demos/tests that come with the GPU Caps Viewer by Geek3D. You can get the latest portable version from here and see if they make your card whine too. It'd be worth experimenting I guess.

If you like get the software and I'll check on my desktop later to see which demos it was.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

No coil whine from the GPU on any tests. But, my psu seems to coil whine in the Vulcan test.

AARG the plot never stops thickening.
Edit: ran hwmonitor while running tests. No wander my psu is crying in pain. The card draws 170w

 

[Satan-IR]

Did you try it?

Mine is quite audible in GeexLab demos OpenGL 4.0 Tessellation v3 v2 ad v1 in smaller window size.

If I maximise it it goes really silent or I'm not able to hear it anymore.

On the rest it's almost nothing or nothing at all.

Now that you mention it I'm not sure whether the whine is coming from GPU or PSU. I'd have to check closely later.

Edit: Noticed something else. Their previous version as soon as you closed the demo/test window GPU and VRAM clock would jump back to idle but with the new version you have to go to other tan in GPU Caps viewer or close it altogether.