eVGA 470 GTX squealing noise

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Weenis

I said WEENIS, not...
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Apr 10, 2006
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So... As some of you might know... I have the absolute worst luck ever when it comes to hardware.

my BRAND freaking new GTX470 now makes a high pitched squeal. I thought it was fan noise, so I decided to screw with fan speeds... its independent of fan noise from 30% all the way to 100%.. it always squeals.. but 100% obviously drowns it out since it sounds like a box fan at anything above 80%.

It's the GPU3 client.. as soon as I pause it, it stops squealing, the SECOND I turn it back on.. it comes back.

Anyone know wtf this is happening?

I can't figure it out... at this point I'm debating just RMAing it.

I mean that would be two fold awesome.. it would potentially deprive some evga buckwhore from folding.. and get me a card that does not make me want to put my foot through it.
 
Classic coil whine. There's very little you can do to stop it. Supposedly hot glue on toroidal coil will fix the problem, but that'll probably void your warranty ...
 
It's definitely not PSU :/ The frequency is always the same
 
My Galaxy 470 whines with the GPU3 client as well. I'm not sure whether to RTV it or not...the Galaxy warranty policy is pretty generous wrt/overclocking, 3rd party coolers etc, but they might consider the glue a form of damage.
 
So the Galaxies have some whine too? So far I have not heard that from my 465 GC but it's getting a little too loud in general for me. I took one of them offline for a fan mod. Stay tuned.
 
I get a little bit of coil whine on both of my 470's when I'm folding on them. Not super loud and not anything I can't tolerate but thats just me.
 
My original GTX 260 made my PSU squeal during gaming and certain game menus. I tested my system with two different PSUs, and both times the squeal was without a doubt coming from the PSU. After days of research and posting, my best answer was that the video card had a lame voltage regulator that caused the PSU to squeal.

It never caused any problems though. Just super annoying. I did RMA the card, but only because the fan was going bad. The first replacement card caused a little squealing. The second one doesn't cause any squealing at all. Both were made in June 2008, while my original was made in July 2008. Not exactly consistent.
 
hmm, all my 2xx series cards, 3 260's and 2 295's all had the whine (7 cores doing it got annoying!!) but my EVGA 470 doesnt, thats odd
 
I have just sent back a GTX 285 that started to squeal when I changed my PSU. I changed the PSU from a Mist 650W rev 3.3 to a Mist 650W rev 4.0. The only difference I know of those is that the rev 3.3 had four 20A 12v rails while the 4.0 had one 50A 12v rail.

I could hear the squealing with the 3.0 PSU but it was very faint. The squealing is when I run ATI Tool or have 250+ FPS in games, or of course game menus where I get FPS is the thousands (checked with fraps). So I guess the more powerful 12v rail on the 4.0 PSU simply gives the GTX 285 more responsive power. So if you have a stronger PSU, your faulty 3d card may squeal more.

I have sent it back and they are replacing it, I just wonder which 3D card I should choose now to avoid more squealing. I am looking at a EVGA GTX 470 vanilla but after this thread i'm unsure.
I'm sure it is the graphics card that squeals, not the PSU.

the card was an XFX GeForce GTX 285 670M xXx 1GB 670MHz I dont remember the product code.
 
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My 280 just recently started whining under certain WU's on the GPU2 client, as others have said its more an annoyance thing.

If you absolutely want to avoid the whine, get a board like what MSI makes with solid state coils. From their literature, these components are expressly chosen because they do not whine and I can confirm that my overclocked 470 makes no noise other than a tremendous whooshing of air.
 
My EVGA GTX 470 012-P3-1470-ER is squealing too. It was replacing a xfx geforce gtx 285 that was squealing. I'll send it back and see if I can replace it with a msi gtx 470 they are supposed to not squeal due to SSC (Solid State Chock) for No Buzz noise.
http://global.msi.eu/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=717&prod_no=2039

- MSI uses coils that aren't supposed to squeal and FWIW mine doesn't.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1036530305

BTW I have discovered my psu with a single 50A 12V rail is makes my gpu squeal a lot while my psu with four 20A 12v rails make the gpu almost quiet. They are both a Mist 650W but one is rev 4.0 and the other is rev 3.5.
 
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I think nvidia GPU squealing is mostly PSU related or the sound comes from the PSU itself, it is very hard to directionalize such high frequencies. Changing my PSU fixed squealing with my GTX 460.
 
My squealing is definitely my GTX 260. My original one squealed like a pig. My first RMA replacement squealed a little, and the second RMA replacement barely squeals at all. All other components have been the same.
 
Zink said:
I think nvidia GPU squealing is mostly PSU related or the sound comes from the PSU itself, it is very hard to directionalize such high frequencies. Changing my PSU fixed squealing with my GTX 460.
Click to expand...

As others have stated above, the cause is the card itself, not the power supply...This has been an issue every since the old GF4 days, depending on who makes the card.

 
The cause can be either the PSU, the video card, or interactions between both of them. It depends on the situation and on the particular assortment of hardware you have. Coil whine is basically unpredictable.
 
I have an HX620 and also get the squeal on two 460s, the 260 when I had it and I think even back when I had 2x 4850s on it. I don't know if it is just due to the PSU by itself, but it seems to definitely play a part. Maybe mine isn't as loud as some though, as I am now used to it (also in P180 tower, could also be dampening it).
 
It seems to be the power hungry graphics that begun with gtx 8800 that is stressing the PSU making its coils whine. Some PSU are immune to this abuse it seems, while certain 3d cards have been provided with extra power regulators to to even the load.

I exchanged the Mist 650W Rev. 4.0 with a Corsair AX850 and my brother bought a Corsair AX650 to his new sandy bridge pc.

Corsair AX850
Is completely silent during ati tool, folding at home, crysis menus and other games.
evga gefrorce gtx 470 at stock and OC to 730/1880
gigabyte ga-965p-ds4
core w quad q6700 @ 3.4ghz

Corsair AX650
Completely silent with ati tool.
MSI N450GTS Cyclone
ASUS P8P67 B3
core i5 2400s
(btw this system is utterly silent, he has an old single-platter fluid-bearing wd harddrive)
 
Change the card's clock frequency, does the whine change pitch?

If so, it's most definitely the video card. My cards whine, but it disappears when it set it to my overclocked frequency.
 
ive found that its the chokes that whine. my msi's have an epoxy coated choke and there fine where as the zotac and evgas that have not had the epoxy coveredd chokes squeel when loded 100% . never did it gaming but would on f@h and when running kombustor.
 
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