A GeForce GTX 470 that does not squeal

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DarkUltra

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 8, 2006
Messages
116
Hi!

I have returned my GTX 285 because it squeals, and they will replace it. I'd like a GTX 470, but I don't want one that squeals, buzz or whine during heavy load, ATI tool, GPU folding or high FPS. I am thinking about electrical noise (coil noise?) not fan noise as it will be watercooled.

I thought about a EVGA 470 as EVGA have rumor of good quality, but it was reported to squeal in these threads so I don't know
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1036140966
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/857642-evga-gtx-470-fermi-soc-irritating.html

Anyone have a suggestion?

I have these to choose from
http://www.netshop.no/Search.aspx?q=gtx+470
 
I had H3850 and 4850 that used to squeal. It is pretty normal. Yes it is electrical noise when GPU is under heavy load. It surprise me that they replaced it thou.
 
you never know what your going to get with any company. Coil whine is pretty common now-a-days. If i had to I would go ASUS over EVGA

my 4890 has very low coil whine & my 5850 has high coil whine. I also have an 8800gt that has coil whine. some are quieter then others. I only hear the Coil whine in the Menu's on Stalker & Crysis only. no where else
 
Maybe check your power supply and the amp rating. I once had a Ultra PSU and my old GTX 280 squeal when I ran Crysis but fine with COD4.
 
Get the cheapest 470, paying more wont gaurantee it wont squeal
There are remedies to fix squealing components
 
There are several cards out there that are supposed to fix the coil whine issue. For example, check out the Gigabyte Geforce GTX 470 Super Overclock. It has special components which are supposed to reduce the noise. According to a review from hardwarecanucks:

There are also five black squares that look a lot like memory ICs but are actually Prodalizer film capacitors made by NEC’s subsidiary Tokin. This 4+1 setup (four capacitors for the core and one for the memory) is supposed to provide high switching frequency and current capacity with lower ESR which results in extremely clean power delivered to all of this card’s components. In addition, these “super capacitors” can also eliminate the high pitched “whine” that characterizes some high-end graphics cards.
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They don't mention anywhere in the review if the card does or doesn't have any whine. But cards that feature this at least should have a lower chance of whine occurring.
 
It takes two to squeal. For the video card to squeal from coil whine, it must have interplay with another component that has coils. This is most commonly the PSU, but can also be the motherboard.
 
I have the GTX 460 version of that SOC card and there is no whine on mine.(Hey I'm a poet and didn't know it!)
 
I have 2 EVGA GTX 470's and they don't whine. I use MSI After burner to control the fans.
Having 2-470's in SLI is just amazing. They overclock very well too.
 
I picked up a MSI for $190 (after rebate) and it is very quiet. Granted I have never had a "squeal" from any of my cards, but the MSI fan makes less noise than my GTX260.
 
Sounds like a fan problem.

On reference design GTX470s all of the cooling looks the same.


On my MSI GTX470 it doesn't squeal and under auto control doesn't spin that fast but does get hot so I overide fan control settings for higher fan rpm and then fan does get loud. Doesn't sqeal though.


If you want quiet cooling on GTX470 look at a different cooling system for it.
 
evilsofa said:
It takes two to squeal. For the video card to squeal from coil whine, it must have interplay with another component that has coils. This is most commonly the PSU, but can also be the motherboard.
Click to expand...
Interesting. The xfx GTX 285 I had was pretty quiet, I could just barely hear it squeal/whine originally. But I got a different PSU, and then it got very noisy. It is not fan noise; the xfx 285 was watercooled. The first PSU was a MSI 650W rev 3.3, the second was a MSI 650W rev 4.0. The major difference between them was the last one (that made my 285 squeal) had one 50A 12V rail. The 3.3 had four 20A 12v rails.
 
EVGA sells reference parts. So the quality isn't different between other competitors reference boards.
 
SonDa5 said:
Sounds like a fan problem.

On reference design GTX470s all of the cooling looks the same.


On my MSI GTX470 it doesn't squeal and under auto control doesn't spin that fast but does get hot so I overide fan control settings for higher fan rpm and then fan does get loud. Doesn't sqeal though.


If you want quiet cooling on GTX470 look at a different cooling system for it.
Click to expand...

You have no idea what you talking about , do you?
 
UG_PL said:
You have no idea what you talking about , do you?
Click to expand...



I've never experienced any type of squealing from electrical components on any video card. Only thing noisy on my GTX470 card is the fan.
 
I had 2 4870's that used to squeal when above 50% GPU usage, so annoying!

My Asus GTX470V2 does not squeal at all, or not so much that i can hear it with the case open anyway.
 
My Galaxy 470 squeals when folding. Doesn't seem to squeal while playing games. You can't really hear the squeal over the roar of the fan at 100% anyway - I'm pretty sure this is the loudest card ever produced.
 
thefreeaccount said:
My Galaxy 470 squeals when folding. Doesn't seem to squeal while playing games. You can't really hear the squeal over the roar of the fan at 100% anyway - I'm pretty sure this is the loudest card ever produced.
Click to expand...

Change the fan profile or give the card some air. No idea why people have to run their fan at 100% unless they've seriously overclocked and have room temp 30c+
 
Rossi~ said:
Change the fan profile or give the card some air. No idea why people have to run their fan at 100% unless they've seriously overclocked and have room temp 30c+
Click to expand...
Yeah really, it's December man.
Crack a window and you can turn off your fans entirely. Herp derp.
 
Crack a window and you can turn off your fans entirely. Herp derp.
Click to expand...
I have a window fan going full blast; the room is quite chilly when I'm not at home. At max OC (770Mhz / 1.075v), folding a 6811 WU takes my 470 all the way to 110C.
This card is simply an electricity guzzler - it runs very, very hot. 100% fan is necessary even at stock speed.

At least it's not like the 450 where the card will overheat and kill itself at stock even with the fan at 100%.
 
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UG_PL said:
I had H3850 and 4850 that used to squeal. It is pretty normal. Yes it is electrical noise when GPU is under heavy load. It surprise me that they replaced it thou.
Click to expand...
You should exercise your consumer rights to return for a replacement or a refund. You should not be expected to put up with a squeal when you use the computer either because of GPU folding, high FPS during movies or menus, or high settings in the game. Teach the card manufacturers that squealing is not acceptable.

I haven't read anything about this issue in reviews of the GTX 470, 480 or 580. Theres some mention of analogue vs digital power regulation circutry on this page
http://theovalich.wordpress.com/200...w-and-how-to-fix-it-no-more-gtx280-squealing/

but id rather see a more professional look into the issue, for instance from anandtech.

Thank you for the posts so far, keep reporting about your findings.
 
DarkUltra said:
You should exercise your consumer rights to return for a replacement or a refund. You should not be expected to put up with a squeal when you use the computer either because of GPU folding, high FPS during movies or menus, or high settings in the game. Teach the card manufacturers that squealing is not acceptable.

I haven't read anything about this issue in reviews of the GTX 470, 480 or 580. Theres some mention of analogue vs digital power regulation circutry on this page
http://theovalich.wordpress.com/200...w-and-how-to-fix-it-no-more-gtx280-squealing/

but id rather see a more professional look into the issue, for instance from anandtech.

Thank you for the posts so far, keep reporting about your findings.
Click to expand...

I agree with this guy totally. Coil whine should be addressed in the engineering phase if the design process. Anything else is bullshit frankly. While my 470's don't whine I do get some of the known whine from my high end ax1200 ps. It comes and goes pending on what I'm doing. It doesn't affect anything except for being slightly annoying at times. I know corsair will replace it for me should I care to bother with an rma but I really don't feel like pulling it out of the case and all that. Bottom line is these high end parts shouldn't be having this issue once they reason a consumers possession.
 
Savoy said:
I agree with this guy totally. Coil whine should be addressed in the engineering phase if the design process. Anything else is bullshit frankly. While my 470's don't whine I do get some of the known whine from my high end ax1200 ps. It comes and goes pending on what I'm doing. It doesn't affect anything except for being slightly annoying at times. I know corsair will replace it for me should I care to bother with an rma but I really don't feel like pulling it out of the case and all that. Bottom line is these high end parts shouldn't be having this issue once they reason a consumers possession.
Click to expand...

I think we are universally talking about overclocked speeds with regards to the 470's, which means it isnt the companies fault at all. They build a product to run at X, anything else is on us.
 
thefreeaccount said:
I have a window fan going full blast; the room is quite chilly when I'm not at home. At max OC (770Mhz / 1.075v), folding a 6811 WU takes my 470 all the way to 110C.
This card is simply an electricity guzzler - it runs very, very hot. 100% fan is necessary even at stock speed.

At least it's not like the 450 where the card will overheat and kill itself at stock even with the fan at 100%.
Click to expand...

Wow... That's way too hot, i'd actually look at reseating the heatsink with some better TIM
 
MSI uses coils that aren't supposed to squeal and FWIW mine doesn't.
 
Oh no, please keep the reports coming.

I got a evga 470 012-P3-1470-ER as they didn't have a MSI, but it is squealing just as much as if not more than the xfx gtx 285. I'm going to contact them and see if they would start selling the MSI one and refer to this thread.
 
R-Type said:
MSI uses coils that aren't supposed to squeal and FWIW mine doesn't.
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Do you have the N470GTX Twin Frozr II or the "more stock" one? An european version or the pherhaps USA version? N470GTX-M2D12 vs N470GTX-M2D12-B. I guess it does not matter since they all say SSC (Solid State Chock) for No Buzz noise on msi website.

Anyone have the GTX 570 and does it squeal? It does not have the "SSC (Solid State Chock) for No Buzz noise" spec
http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=892&cat3_no=&prod_no=2215
 
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I was thinking of this thread when I head coil whine coming from my case the other day, turns out to be my TX750 under load.

If it isn't one thing its another... :p
 
My video card whines at some main menus (Crysis) when it's rendering 999fps or whatever.
My PSU whines in Furmark/Prime95.
 
UtopiA said:
My video card whines at some main menus (Crysis) when it's rendering 999fps or whatever.
My PSU whines in Furmark/Prime95.
Click to expand...

I used to not care if a PSU whined under load because I was likely doing some gaming that would prevent me from noticing it. Since I started folding however, components that whine under load are now making that noise ALL DAY LONG.:mad:

Its hugely annoying.

I will say however that for at least video card whine, a lot of it seems to be caused by the quality of power coming from the power supply. There are plenty of threads on here where people upgraded to a nice Corsair or Seasonic and the card whine went away. On the other hand some of these cards are just whiny little bitches.
 
DarkUltra said:
You should exercise your consumer rights to return for a replacement or a refund. You should not be expected to put up with a squeal when you use the computer either because of GPU folding, high FPS during movies or menus, or high settings in the game. Teach the card manufacturers that squealing is not acceptable.

I haven't read anything about this issue in reviews of the GTX 470, 480 or 580. Theres some mention of analogue vs digital power regulation circutry on this page
http://theovalich.wordpress.com/200...w-and-how-to-fix-it-no-more-gtx280-squealing/

but id rather see a more professional look into the issue, for instance from anandtech.

Thank you for the posts so far, keep reporting about your findings.
Click to expand...

BUT If i may add to this. Most companie's find that Coil Whine even who very annoying will no give you a replacement for the product because its NOT doing any harm. Coil Whine believe it or not is VERY common these days.

These are my cards & all of them have "coil whine" xfx 5850, xfx 4890, MSI 8800, The wifes Gigabyte 450. Now I only hear the coil whine in the Menu's Of Stalker & Crysis. Not in game or anywhere else. I dont Fold but im sure Folding would cause them to Whine. Now if you purchased the card Retail at a Retail store then you could just Return it
 
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I had a 5850 for a short time,it whined like a pack of dogs chasing a cat,I replaced my aging 850 Silverstone with a new model it went away.Not sure if this is a remedy for all though..
 
Well given that the whine is caused by harmonic resonance on the coil (solid state ones seal them to prevent movement), the PSU cause makes quite a bit of sense. If your psu is aging and the voltage ripple is getting bad or the voltage is moving out of the atx spec that the coils are balanced for you would get the whine. Now there are also just cheap coils that whine anyway and when those are in your PSU there isn't alot that can be done other than rma.
 
Haven't checked if there are any for the 470, but the MSI "Hawk, Cyclone, Frozr style," etc cards have the awesome & quiet fans.

edit: NVM just noticed about the coil whine :x
 
my evga 470 doesnt squeal at all...play max settings with BCB2 and SC2... i just have MSI afterburner set with fan profiles for every 10 degrees (40% fan - 40c). i have it oc'd at 700/1675 right now. trying to see if i can push it more but i believe my power supply cant handle it... :T
 
DarkUltra said:
Hi!

I have returned my GTX 285 because it squeals, and they will replace it. I'd like a GTX 470, but I don't want one that squeals, buzz or whine during heavy load, ATI tool, GPU folding or high FPS. I am thinking about electrical noise (coil noise?) not fan noise as it will be watercooled.

I thought about a EVGA 470 as EVGA have rumor of good quality, but it was reported to squeal in these threads so I don't know
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1036140966
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/857642-evga-gtx-470-fermi-soc-irritating.html

Anyone have a suggestion?

I have these to choose from
http://www.netshop.no/Search.aspx?q=gtx+470
Click to expand...

Are you sure it's the videocard squealing? I ask the question, because I recently had a very faint squeal...which I thought was coming from my videocard.Upon investigating further, I found that it was actually coming from my PC Power & Cooling Silencer750 X-Fire power supply. The computer doesn't exhibit any symptoms...and actually runs great. If it becomes persistent or the ampereage start doing anything 'silly', I'll simply RMA it. It only happens during initial heavy 3D loading, so it gives the impression that the card is at fault.
As to the GTX470...I like and own the Galaxy. I have the 'GUX' model...NOT the one with the swing out fan. It is extremely quiet and run much cooler than all the others I've seen....including the EVGA.
 
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