PNY GTX 980 TI High Pitch Noise when loading EveOnline and Heaven Benchmark

[bossoscar]

I would like to throw this out to the community for comment. I have two GTX 980 TI cards, purchased together Oct 12th 2015. Lifetime warranty. One card began emitting an electronic whine when launching games like EveOnline in early December 2017. To make a long story short, I can swap my cards between PC's, and the whine follows the card. It is NOT the fan. I contacted PNY Support, and downloaded Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0 as directed.

While running the Heaven Benchmark application, I could hear the whine begin. During the tests the whine would stop only during the transition time (about a second) between one graphics test to the next. I discussed this at length with PNY Support, was issued an RMA (1/11/18), and returned card as directed. I received the card back today (2/5/18) with the result PASS TEST. When I contacted PNY by phone for explanation, I was told the card passed testing. They had no explanation for the noise, other than maybe a coil. The card passed testing.

1) So I am to believe this issue is normal for this card at two years use?
2) Has anyone else had a similar issue with this card?

I expected better of the PNY lifetime warranty than PASS TEST.

 

[Techron]

The whine you are hearing is called "Coil Whine" basically a component vibrating due to the electrical signals passing through it. It is a fairly common phenomenon and is not truly classified as a defect. Many review samples of graphics cards have coil whine.

And as your card is now almost two and a half years old the phenomenon is not unexpected. The fact that it passed testing means that it does not have any defects other than the coil whine. What you should monitor if it shows irregular temps or weird utilization and clock behavior. Those are the more telling signs of a card about to die.

 

[Techron]

And PNY is not really a big brand so it is to be expected that they would not have good RMA or customer support.

 

[Greeko85]

At times coil whine becomes more prevalent when fps climbs at very high numbers. Loading/transition screens would cause an uncapped framerate to skyrocket resulting in more noticeable coil whine.

 

[bossoscar]

This coil whine is quite pronounced. I play eveonline primarily on the PC the card is installed in, and the whine kicks off the moment I hit the character selection screen. The whine will continue as long as the game is active. If memory serves, minimizing the game instance stops the noise while minimized. I'm only running one account.

It is unfortunate that this issue is the new normal for the card. In all other respects the card is performing well, but I'm not going to move forward and listen to that noise in the background.

Is there a brand that this issue is less likely to occur with?