Coil Whine? 1070 Mini

[kirin]

Hello, I recently upgrade to Gigabyte 1070 mini, my experience with it has been rather good except for the ridiculous coil whine. I never had issue in the past because it would only happen in startup/ start menu. This card coil whines during full load. I have tried capping my framerate with no luck. Usually I am ok a with bit of coil whine. But it's just so god damn loud that it drove me ocd.

I'm at a loss really. RMA would be the last resort, don't have much confidence in Gigabyte customer support. I am running an HDPlex250w with Dell330w btw.

 

[Zuuk]

Ugh..I was eyeballing the Gigabyte 1070 mini to replace my Zotac 970. Coil whine is something I don't cope well with, since it is super annoying.
My confidence in Gigabyte motherboards went down the toilet after a few bad experiences with their Z170 boards. But I thought their GFX cards were pretty decent overall.

 

[jeshikat]

Certain combinations of hardware can cause coil whine. The only way to know for sure is to try the card in a different system and if it still whines then you'll know that your card whines in general and not just in combination with your particular motherboard/PSU.

 

[Josh | NFC]

Certain combinations of hardware can cause coil whine. The only way to know for sure is to try the card in a different system and if it still whines then you'll know that your card whines in general and not just in combination with your particular motherboard/PSU.

Unfortunately this has been my experience as well. Seems to be a build by build thing...

I use mainly the Gigabyte boards in my customer's builds and have been pretty lucky so far, but it does seem random when you get a box that whines.

I've done two 1070 minis with HDPLEX with no whining, and I just bought another that I will get in today that now I am anxious to see if it whines in my video render box....


*UPDATE*

This one is pretty quiet too. But it was definitely a return and it smells like smokers deodorizer. Gross. I don't hate you, smokers, but just embrace your ash and stop using ZAPP.

*MORE UPDATE*

After applying my overclock to the CPU, the GPU started whining. They might be completely unrelated, but that is the only thing that has changed and now its a buzzer. It's nowhere near the worst whining I've heard, but it is audible.

 

[MarcParis]

Are you sure it was gtx 1070 whining or hdplex? ( i remember my hdplex was whining like hell powering r9 nano...before crashing..)

 

[Josh | NFC]

Are you sure it was gtx 1070 whining or hdplex? ( i remember my hdplex was whining like hell powering r9 nano...before crashing..)

Good question for Kirin. In MY case I am using my testbed PSU, which is definitely not whining. I am using a ZOOM recorder to find the source.

 

[MarcParis]

With my new define nano s, i discovered (rediscovered as i was no longer using closed case since 8 years) that closed and sound dampening cases are also effective vs coil whining.. logical but hard to find in mini itx form factor..
After my r9 nano is not that loud in coil whining..

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

My coworker has had to return several GTX 1070s due to coil whine and other issues here. He finally gave up and tried the 1080, he had luck on the 2nd one. He told me he also has experienced serious issues which many people on Chinese forums are blaming on poor quality Micron GDDR5, they're saying the GDDR5X on the GTX 1080 is Samsung made and does not have these issues (apparently its poor frame rate or inconsistent frame rates).

Not sure what truth in this but it's what he has told me. I have another coworker with a GTX 1080 in his workstation, he has not reported any issues but mostly its used for hardware acceleration in Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects.

 

[MarcParis]

Strange, i thought GDDR5x was a specific product coming from Micron, waiting for HBM2.

 

[GuilleAcoustic]

I have severe tinnitus in both ears and coil whine is something I can't tolerate, even at low noise level.

 

[MarcParis]

however, in my personal experience, coil whine is spreading largely on modern GPU, whatever OEM..

 

[TheHig]

I feel for you kirin and everyone else who has had to suffer a whining GPU. Its not a great feeling when you shell out for some high end hardware and it seems lacking in quality. The EVGA 1070 SC that is in my daily driver was an open box return from Microcenter. It too suffered from terrible coil whine while under heavy loads such as benching or gaming with no fps limit/ V sync applied. Could be why it was returned? Anyway, I tried many different ways to tame it with clock adjustments/limits and power targets with MSI afterburner. Just as I was about to give up I read that some people have had luck with benching the whine out of the card and I can tell you it worked for me. I launched Unigine Heavan and let it run on and endless loop( don't click that benchmark button if you didn't know) and went to bed. In the AM some 9 hours later it was not as loud. I repeated this process for 4 nights in a row and it is all but gone. It may not work for everyone but its something else to try! Good luck!

 

[iFreilicht]

I have tried capping my framerate with no luck.

In the application or in the nVidia control center? For my 970 turning on adaptive VSYNC (effectively frame limiting) has helped heaps with coil whine, the only place where I still get it is in the Steam Big Picture mode, why ever that is.

 

[MarcParis]

On my r9 nano, setting power limit at 25% almost reduce coil whine at 0, with no performance loss in 1080p ( loss in upper resolution)

 

[kirin]

In the application or in the nVidia control center? For my 970 turning on adaptive VSYNC (effectively frame limiting) has helped heaps with coil whine, the only place where I still get it is in the Steam Big Picture mode, why ever that is.

Rivatuner. It still whines even capped and vsync in Witcher 3. The only solution I found was limiting the power limit and underclocking the gpu, there no coil whine under 1500mhz .

Are you sure it was gtx 1070 whining or hdplex? ( i remember my hdplex was whining like hell powering r9 nano...before crashing..)

That what I thought originally. Though it sounds like coming the gpu, it really hard to tell. Going take everything out and put it on a test bench to find out.


Thank for the suggestions.

Edit*
After some limited testing. I am now 99% sure that its hdplex250. I can still hear some slight whining from the 1070 but it definitely the HDPLEX.

 

[MarcParis]

Hehe, hdplex coil whine...I'm not the only one then..
Can you rma your hdplex?
Is it like mine?

That's also why i prefer external sfx psu..more reliable..

 

[kirin]

Yeah pretty much what mine's sound like, maybe be less loud... HDPlex has a pretty generous rma/support though. I believe it a three year warranty.

 

[MarcParis]

But i'm not sure coil whining is part of acceptable reasons for rma, to be checked

 

[kirin]

Hey, Marc I've spoken with HDPlex support about my situation with the coil whining. They have agree to do an exchange. You could contact them yourself and ask.

 

[MarcParis]

Hey, good news.. thanks for the tip