Weird noise from my 7800 GTX 512MB

Hi All,

I have just got my Point of View 7800 GTX 512MB card and am a little annoyed. I went for the 512MB version for a number of reasons - one of which was the fact that it had a good quiet cooler on it.

Everythingseems to be fine with the card as it runs games and 3D mark without any problems but it gives off a squeal wihich increases and decreases but is always there.

Now the card looks like its just a refrence design as the sticker on the fan doesn't even say Point of View just Nvidia. Can anyone who has a 7800 GTX 512MB tell me if there card makes this noise?

If a remove the PCI Express power lead from the card then the noise goes away. I am worried that I have a dodgey card. The card is part of a brand new build and is powered by a Hiper 580 modular PSU.

Any opinions would be great.

Also when I play Age of Empires III and set the Shader Quality to very high the screen goes black and white and only goes back to colour when I change Shader Quality to high

Describe the noise? is it like a light whine squeal(Soft high pitch whine?)?

Are you sure it's the video card?
It could be those coiled wires on the motherboard.
Just touch them with your finger while the computer is on so the coils stop squealing.

if you record that sound, and play it backwards, a ghostly voice says"you just paid $1 per megabyte for 256mb extra gddr3"

just kidding. sorry, wish i could be of help.

ok now, U are just showing off !! hehe

sounds to me the bearings in the fan are bad...either rma it or just buy a nice copper aftermaket gpu cooler and whola problem fixed. Personally I would just spend 30-50 bucks get a nice pure copper gpu cooler and oc the sucker

it's prolly a tiny little man in there going "LUDACRIS SPEED"

some video cards make some humming noises... the caps and or voltage regs can make noises... you might have a card with a marginal cap or mosfet... hrm... hard to tell... just keep an "ear" on it and if it gets notably louder then maybe RMA it...if nothing else, for peace of mind. you might want to start a case with POV right now... just to cover your bases... good luck!

Personally I always order the aftermarket cooler with the video card. Why wait.

Merc said:

Personally I always order the aftermarket cooler with the video card. Why wait.

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you do know the 512MB one is the souped-up one with crazy core and memory speeds, right? The stock cooling on that thing is a beast, it's the same one the G70 based Quadros use....... not sure those aftermarket coolers would be better for it, IMHO....

I can hear a faint squeal from my 512s when they load data if I have my ear near them. It is extremely high pitched and nothing at all to do with the cooler. My guess would be strain on the power supply circuitry when there are massive amounts of IO on the card. Such as loading texture data at the beginning of a level. Might be a little feedback at audible frequencies generated in the electrolytics used in the PWM regulation.

If it's really loud it could be a bad cap that is exaggerating the effect and might want to consider an RMA. It's doubtful it would get any louder/worse in the relatively short time period you would own the card (short compared to how long it takes caps to age). You could try very lightly pressing on various electrolytic caps (tall silver cans) with a q-tip while you hear the noise, particularly the one by the SLI connector since it is so far away from the rest of the power supply. It also could be a poorly potted wire wound inductor, of which there is only one on the board in front of the PCI-E power connector (big black box slightly shorter than the silver cans).

Merc said:

Personally I always order the aftermarket cooler with the video card. Why wait.

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Personally, I'd want to keep the warranty on something I just dropped $700 on.

nobi125 said:

Personally, I'd want to keep the warranty on something I just dropped $700 on.

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QFT - even though some companies now honor their warranty even after aftermarket coolers have been installed - before you can RMA you have to restore the card to default - and it cannot be damaged in any way or the gig is up.. if you think you card may have a bad cap or something - working your self into more work if you want to RMA it is not the answer... Anyways - as stated unless you are going water, the default cooler on the 7800GTX 512 is about as good as your going to get... anyways... my GTX 256s make a tiny bit of noise when their loading data also.. so I think this is somewhat normal... if it get noticably louder maybe it should raise some concern...