What is coil whine?

[Teddy Evelynn Mosby]

I just got my MSI GTX 1060 and when i am on certain screens i hear like a whirring sound. Is that normal? And what is coil whine?

 

[Justiceinacan]

At least in my experience it's a buzzing noise frequently occurring on cards with dual/triple fan setups.

 

[Autocrat]

Coil Whine is nothing to be concerned about.
Its just annoying sounding :/

 

[Themastererr]

Coil whine is the same sound you hear from old T.V sets. A very annoying high pitch electrical wine caused by vibrations.

It's usually high pitch, but sometimes it does sound lower. I had an XFX R9 380 that had a low buzz instead of the usual high.

Yes, it usually sounds "whirring" because it's going up and down with the load put on it.

I wouldn't say it's nothing to worry about. If it's bad enough either return the card or RMA it. Using a high quality PSU can alleviate the issue as well.

 

[Gam3r01]

I agree with the above.
Coil whine is acceptable grounds to request an RMA. If its enough to bother you, send it back.
My 760 does it, but I have to listen for it.

 

[Shaun o]

Basically all electronic components work at a Hz frequency when power is applied to them.

In the case of graphics cards what you hear, or people call coil whine is to do with the voltage regulators of the graphics card consuming more power.

You can hear coil whine when the Gpu of the graphics card has computing load put on it such as running a very demanding game with high screen resolutions set and the graphical effects in the game in question set to there highest possible settings such as Ultra.

The harder the Gpu works the more power it needs to be fed to keep it stable when running under 99% gpu loading.
And the more power a voltage regulator has passing through it to feed the gpu, the higher the frequency it operates at in Hz Teddy.

The electrical component such as a voltage regulator module starts to Oscillate, due to the higher Hz range it is forced to run at, basically move back and forwards in a wave type movement say for example 500Hz it would move peak and dip 500 times per second.

You hear it via the human ear when doing this and an audible high pitched sequel to screech.
I guess the easy way to explain it is to imagine a cricket. it rubs it`s legs together up to 200 time per second.
And why you hear a chirping sound from the cricket.
because its hind legs are vibrating at such a high speed, where the speed is measured in Hz for electronic components.


High voltage or hz frequency is often the cause as to why you hear coil whine.
But in some cases it can be down to very badly soldered electronic components, or cheap ones used where the oscillation is down to the solder points for the electronic component to the circuit board of the card.

 

[skit75]

Coil whine happens when the wire carrying electrical current around a magnet produces an electromagnetic field around the coil that can actually vibrate the wiring coils and\or magnetic core of the coil. It can be extremely annoying. You can RMA it or live with it.

Alternatively, if you know just few things about electronic components, you could have some success applying some non-conductive epoxy on the coils, yourself.(may void your warranty)

 

[aquielisunari]

MERGED QUESTION
Question from Teddy Evelynn Mosby : "Is this normal?"

My brand new MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X started to have coil whine while i play games. Is that normal?

Normal? No. Precursor to it blowing up? Not likely. RMA it? I would. The 970 from Nvidia were notorious for whining. I apparently won the lottery with my FTW version. Are you alone? No. Gigabyte users and MSI users alike are having that issue. It's a lower power card. 120W card whining? What happened to QC???

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3150344/msi-gtx-1060-gaming-coil-whine.html

 

[TJ Hooker]

And the more power a voltage regulator has passing through it to feed the gpu, the higher the frequency it operates at in Hz [...]
The electrical component such as a voltage regulator module starts to Oscillate, due to the higher Hz range it is forced to run at, basically move back and forwards in a wave type movement

I'm not sure, but I don't think switching frequency actually changes with load.
As mentioned above, electric current creates a magnetic field around the conductors. An alternating current causes an alternating magnetic field, and this alternating field can result in vibration. Higher loads means more current means stronger fields means more vibration. There are components called inductors that are deliberately designed to create magnetic fields, and are key components in voltage regulator modules.

 

[Teddy Evelynn Mosby]

And the more power a voltage regulator has passing through it to feed the gpu, the higher the frequency it operates at in Hz [...]
The electrical component such as a voltage regulator module
starts to Oscillate, due to the higher Hz range it is forced to
run at, basically move back and forwards in a wave type movement

I'm not sure, but I don't think switching frequency actually changes with load.
As mentioned above, electric current creates a magnetic field around the conductors. An alternating current causes an alternating magnetic field, and this alternating field can result in vibration. Higher loads means more current means stronger fields means more vibration. There are components called inductors that are deliberately designed to create magnetic fields, and are key components in voltage regulator modules.

So is it normal that my brand new MSI Gtx 1060 has coil whine?

 

[TJ Hooker]

No idea. Some card models may be more prone than others, but it seems like it's pretty random. Can vary based on what game you're playing, what settings, your PSU apparently...
I have no experience with coil whine myself, just commenting on the mechanics behind it.

 

[skit75]

Some GPUs come with software that allow you to adjust for Performance, Quality or Power Savings modes. I have seen a few threads where people claimed to reduce or eliminate coil whine by just tinkering with this setting, without much of a hit to performance at all. It doesn't fix coil whine... I suppose it can choke or change the variable rate of current flow to the circuits that are hitting their resonance frequencies.