Alright. So i've lived with coil whine on my EVGA GTX 960 for a while now. And it's actually really annoying. Though at times i'm unsure of whether or not it's coil whine to begin with. And i'm 99% sure it starts when fans start working at a certain speed. Or when they're working period. Whenever i play a more GPU heavy game, i'll notice it. Whenever i play an older Bethesda game such as Oblivion or Fallout 3, it doesn't happen. Anything that requires a decent amount of GPU power gets it going.
It is annoying as hell, and it overpowers the sounds of all fans at max speed in my Phantom 820, which really aren't even noticeable when i've got a game's sound effects playing. It doesn't bother me at all. But this coil whine is borderline insane. From what i hear, GTX 960 coil whine is not common at all. While on the 970, it's supposed to be fairly common, as i've seen from searching around. It doesn't seem out of the ordinary for that card. And interesting to note is the sound itself. I've heard plenty of coil whine before. And this is a little different. Sound is similar to that of old PCs from the 90s. Very interesting. But more frustrating than interesting, in my case.
PSU: EVGA 750 GQ, Card: EVGA GTX 960 4GB SSC.
OK, I'm going to ask. Are you sure it's coil whine and not simple vibration noise?
As much as I love my case, there are some vibrations here and there and yes, they can drive a person insane.
Oooohhh... hell no. It's SOMETHING coming from inside. Vibrations? No, no. The Phantom 820 simply has so much mass weighing it down that it can't be anything vibrating. The thing is massive, and heavy. Something is causing the noise. It'll subside a little, then come back with full force. No, no. DEFO not vibrations. It doesn't sound like anything vibrating. Like coil whine, but none that i've really heard. AH! You know what it sounds like? A LOT like an old Dialup connection. The phone-line type sound. PERFECT way to describe it!
So you're absolutely certain that heavy games on the GPU cause it. Did you try to test it while looking at the screen with a performance monitor on to spot at wich temperature or load it happens? Also what I would try is put the card into a totally different system to see if the whining is due to a not so clear 12V rail or how the card is built. Another thing that could've happened is that EVGA is recycling the whining power delivery of the 970s and using it for the 960s, especially now that even the 960 uses 4GB or RAM so the layout on the PCB I guess needs almost no change whatsoever.
Yeah, i'm definitely noticing that whenever the fan spins up to speed, the coil whine starts. It's quite bothersome. I have no idea what to do. I'd hate to have to send it back. It's working great, and it's working cool. But ho-ly-shit, is it annoying.
Why dont you try a software like afterburner to speed up only the fan (without stress card) and see if is fan?
Mine system have a humming, like "ve ve ve VE" with a stronger one and is harddrives, more that 3 spinning I got a vibration humming clock...
Yeah, i played around with my fan when i first got EVGA Precision X. Cranked it up a lot. Nothing.
And what's interesting about the sound is that it sort of normalizes after a bit. It's not so loud.
I noticed coil while on my 960 but only on certain loading screens. witch im not sure why only then.
Ill have to test more. it only seems to happen on the first loading screens, in game cinematic don't seem to be affected. I was running a low end benchmark that was running in the thousands of fps and it didn't whine earthier.
Could be the power delivery of your GPU shitting itself?
What do you mean?
Also, i have Vsync disabled in the Nvidia control panel. So i guess it's working correctly. Unless i've missed something else that's crucial.
If the power delivery on the card is having a hard time it can coil whine.
my evga 970 has coil whine like a bitch too
anything past 30% load
to help alleviate the issue, ive set its clock speed in msi afterburner negitive 400mhz
Sorry, i meant enabled. Fuck sakes... Yeah, it just goes away abruptly, when it does go away. On the bright side, the card performs very well.
Oh, my dear lord...
Alright. So, after doing some walking around my case when then noise came on, i just decided to press the metal grating where the read exhaust fan is... and the noise stopped completely.
And then i thought... "OH?!" Awesome! So it's just my fan! Then i turn off the fan using the Phantom 820s handy fan controller. And it still persists.
So, i'm unsure right now of what's causing then noise. Some sort of vibration? The CPU cooler during load? I went into Precision X and CRANKED that fan up. It sounds nasty... but not like that. It's not the fan. And i'm starting take my suspicion elsewhere, away from the graphics card.
Any ideas, folks?
Did you tried to remove the dust filters on the underside of the case?
My Phantom530 has a rattle issue caused by those dust filters.
Nah, not the 820. I pulled the front one. it has to do with certain amounts of load brought onto... something. As i typed this reply and switched the window off of my game to the web browser, it died down.
Damn, is it a persistent little biznatch.
Very odd how when the rear grating is pressed in, the noise stops.
The only way to find it out if its the case or the card.
would be to take your motherboard etc out of the case lay it on its box.
connect everything and fire it up outside the case.
If you dont have any noise then its most likely cause by a fibration in the case somewhere.
did you use the rubber anti fibration nobs if you have a mechanical HDD?
Did you allready tried to disconnect all the case fans?
Behind the mobo tray there is a fan hub, which you could disconnect the power cable from.
@MisteryAngel
Is it really necessary to disconnect the fan hub? Keep in mind the Phantom 820 has its own fan controller. I can literally turn every case fan off.
When i did take a peak into the rear, it really did seem as if it was somewhere in the CPU area. I suppose i'll try and plop the case onto the desk on the opposite side, and try running something with the side panel off. Ugh....
If you can turn the fans totaly off, then you dont have to disconnect the fan hub.