"Coil Whine" from my video card is so intense, it comes through my headphones

[3DVagabond]

No problem. Also there is a sale going on today: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088 If you are looking for allegedly higher build quality (some of the reviews scare me but it has a good rep overall). $100 for an X-650. "$30 off w/ promo code EMCYTZT2242, ends 9/23"

+1 for a Seasonic X-650 @ $100. That Seasonic should be silent most of the time if run in hybrid mode.

 

[Bill Brasky]

No problem. Also there is a sale going on today: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088 If you are looking for allegedly higher build quality (some of the reviews scare me but it has a good rep overall). $100 for an X-650. "$30 off w/ promo code EMCYTZT2242, ends 9/23"

I own the X-750 and it's incredibly quiet. There is a very small amount of coil whine at full load, but I literally have to get down on the floor and put my ear right next to the exhaust vent to barely hear it. This PSU is completely inaudible from my desk at idle and load. I highly recommend it.

edit: And that's an amazing deal for an X series PSU.

 

[Dankk]

Well, I'm disappointed to report that the new PSU does nothing to fix the noise... it's definitely still there. I'm in a bad mood right now. I just dropped $70 on a PSU for nothing. I should've bought the USB adapter or the noise reducer that kingfatty linked.

Part of me wants to return the PSU and get my money back, but the other part of me wants to keep it simply because it is, in fact, a pretty nice PSU. It has virtually no coil whine compared to my OCZ unit. I'm tempted to sell of my OCZ PSU and keep the Rosewill one.

So... is the problem definitely my video card then? The interference I'm hearing is identical with the new PSU. Is my card faulty?

I'm just a little sick to my stomach right now. I don't want to keep spending money on stuff that isn't going to fix my problem. This, combined with other problems my card's been having, is making me really hate my video card right now.

 

[Keysplayr]

Nah. It's just a bad ground somewhere. It's the reason the noise is lessened when you plug your speakers/headphones into the front audio jack. I have mine in the front because I'm too lazy to chase down a bad ground or short. That isn't an option for you, so if your system is homebuilt by you, I'd say dismantle the entire rig and properly ground the PSU to the Chassis if there is a wire for that. Some higher end PSU's have it.

 

[sze5003]

My corsair 750w did not line up correctly with my NZXT Phantom 410 holes. I will have to check that later. But I don't have a video card right now and I don't get any coil whine from the PSU.

 

[Yuriman]

I have a similar issue. I have a discreet sound card and when I open a 3d game on my HD4870, I get a buzzing over my headphones that varies with my framerate. It doesn't happen when I use the HD4000 in my 3570k. I also had this buzzing when I used the same HD4870 in an older system. It's without a doubt caused by the video card.

I made an EM shield out of some aluminum foil and cardboard and wrapped it around the sound card to no effect. I suspect the crosstalk is over the PCI-E bus instead... can't think of any way to fix it. The nature and loudness of the sound does change depending on which PCI-E slot I have it in.

 

[blackened23]

Well, I'm disappointed to report that the new PSU does nothing to fix the noise... it's definitely still there. I'm in a bad mood right now. I just dropped $70 on a PSU for nothing. I should've bought the USB adapter or the noise reducer that kingfatty linked.

Part of me wants to return the PSU and get my money back, but the other part of me wants to keep it simply because it is, in fact, a pretty nice PSU. It has virtually no coil whine compared to my OCZ unit. I'm tempted to sell of my OCZ PSU and keep the Rosewill one.

So... is the problem definitely my video card then? The interference I'm hearing is identical with the new PSU. Is my card faulty?

I'm just a little sick to my stomach right now. I don't want to keep spending money on stuff that isn't going to fix my problem. This, combined with other problems my card's been having, is making me really hate my video card right now.

What keys mentioned about grounding could very well be the cause. It will be an EXTREME pain in the neck but you could probably disassemble and re-assemble it, and ensure everything is properly grounded as you go.

You could also do what he mentioned - use the front panel connector on your case as opposed to the speaker / line out port on your audio card.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Most onboard soundcards suffer from coil whine or other noise. It's more noticeable on better speakers/headphones.

I bought an external DAC and have never looked back. One of the best investments I've made. You'll get great sound quality out of external DAC's as long as you're ok with stereo sound.

 

[KingFatty]

The ground-loop isolator will remove those sounds, only $13 and gives you a useful device that you can also use on other things that introduce headset noise.

 

[bononos]

Nah. It's just a bad ground somewhere. It's the reason the noise is lessened when you plug your speakers/headphones into the front audio jack. I have mine in the front because I'm too lazy to chase down a bad ground or short. That isn't an option for you, so if your system is homebuilt by you, I'd say dismantle the entire rig and properly ground the PSU to the Chassis if there is a wire for that. Some higher end PSU's have it.

Why do you need a separate grounding wire for the psu? Aren't they already touching the case(by the the exterior and the screws) and being grounded that way?

 

[Yuriman]

The ground-loop isolator will remove those sounds, only $13 and gives you a useful device that you can also use on other things that introduce headset noise.

I fail to understand how this item can separate noise sent from capacitors from noise intentionally sent from the sound card. Have any links?

 

[KingFatty]

I fail to understand how this item can separate noise sent from capacitors from noise intentionally sent from the sound card. Have any links?

I'm assuming it's a grounding issue - the sounds described seem to be more consistent with a grounding issue. So, even if moving from rear audio port to front audio port doesn't help, I think this will.

I'm not just speculating from an arm-chair, I'm speaking from personal experience where my computer started making funny sounds in the headset, like a noisy squealing with some static mixed in, but it was very low volume so it was tolerable but got on my nerves. The issue in this post was described similarly. We also see other people citing parallel experiences, but solving the issue by moving to another audio input. My PC didn't always make this sound, it only happened after messing around with changing my PC fans, video cards, fan controller, SSD installation, and maybe some other changes.

In my case, I suppose I could track down the component that is causing the funny sounds, but on a lark, I grabbed the ground loop isolator from my car (I use it to provide clean audio from my phone to the AUX jack of my car when charging - without it, my car would add noise to the signal that changed with car engine RPM). And sure enough that fixed the sound issue on my PC too. It's fully silent.

Now your question: how can this device "tell" the difference between intentional sounds coming from the sound card, and funny sounds introduced by noise? The two signals have different electrical characteristics due to where they originate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_(electricity)

 

[SWDescent]

I know this is a pretty old topic, but I'm having the exact same problem with my MSI 7870, but I've gone out and bought a PCI-E 1X sound card (Asus Xonar DSG 5.1) and still have the problem, no matter what I used to play sound I got the interference whenever the card ramped up, did seem like it got higher pitched as the fps went up, and most people say to use V-Sync but I get horrible lag input in almost every game I use vsync on :/

I've also swapped out everything as the MSI's tech support told me to do, Motherboard got rma'd, then upgraded from an MSI z77a-GD45 to a Z77A-GD65, still there. RMA'd CPU, then tried a different PSU as well (had a Corsair HX850, tried my PC Power & Cooling 750 Watt Silencer PSU, still there), tried the card in my wife's computer, problem was there. Tried my Geforce 9800GTX+OC in the Computer and guess what? NO NOISE!!

Called up msi, and first call the guy told me to try a different video card (this was before trying 9800) and then immediately hung up on me, never took my name or anything. 2nd call, guy told me to underclock the card because all of the ghz chips can't handle any oc (which mine is a 50mhz oc FROM MSI), tried that and it's still there. Called a 3rd time and the guy flat out told me "Yeah I'd avoid AMD for the time being, they're not making anthing good at all right now." And then I asked what I could do, "well you can exchange it for another one and probably continue to have the problem" and I asked if there was anything else they could do like swap for an Nvidia equivalent, he said he'd have to get it approve and he'd call back that night or the next morning, ok hung up and waited, then by 6pm the next night I finally called back and got back to the person, "Oh yeah." was his reply..... Then he finally tells me, we can exchange it for a 660 (non-ti, hence slower than 7870....) And then I asked could I do something better and I'll pay the difference? and he replied with "our company doesn't do something like that" and basically said take it or leave it and tough luck. considering I've only had the card for 3 months and paid $240 for it, sure it's gone down 30 bucks but I told them I'd pay the difference for a better card on it's current value not on what I paid and they still blew me off.... Definitely will be avoiding MSI from now on, which stinks because I've been getting Motherboards/Video Cards from them for over a decade, this has been my only technical problem I haven't been able to solve on my own, and first time having to contact them and then find out they treat their customers like garbage is horrible.

Also I even tried putting ferrite chokes on my sound cable and it did nothing... And also the whine from the speakers matches the whine from the video card itself, and like I said, installing the Geforce 9800GTX+OC in there the noise completely went a way, Klipsch Speakers, Headphones, and Monitor speakers were all silent on that card...

 

[Makaveli]

Are you guys sure its his PSU?

I never had any with my 6950 sapphire card and with my Msi 7970 card I have coil whine now its gotten better as I have stressed the card the last few months. I also usually play with vsync on.

But If I run a benchmark with Vsync off its noticable.

Or is it a combination of PSU and GPU?

 

[Dankk]

Are you guys sure its his PSU?

I never had any with my 6950 sapphire card and with my Msi 7970 card I have coil whine now its gotten better as I have stressed the card the last few months. I also usually play with vsync on.

But If I run a benchmark with Vsync off its noticable.

Or is it a combination of PSU and GPU?

This thread is a year old. The guy before you necro'd it. The machine I owned which exhibited this problem isn't even in my hands anymore.

 

[SWDescent]

Yeah and most of the time when you start a thread on something that's already had one people complain, I even went out of the way and started a new account since I haven't touched anandtech forums in over 4 or 5 years, but I guess it's lose lose no matter what someone does, since you never really said what you did to fix it, which I'm guessing is just replaced the system?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Yeah and most of the time when you start a thread on something that's already had one people complain, I even went out of the way and started a new account since I haven't touched anandtech forums in over 4 or 5 years, but I guess it's lose lose no matter what someone does, since you never really said what you did to fix it, which I'm guessing is just replaced the system?

well each case is different. :whiste:

 

[Dankk]

Yeah and most of the time when you start a thread on something that's already had one people complain, I even went out of the way and started a new account since I haven't touched anandtech forums in over 4 or 5 years, but I guess it's lose lose no matter what someone does, since you never really said what you did to fix it, which I'm guessing is just replaced the system?

It was never really fixed. Ultimately I just ended up using my crappy headphones that didn't pick up the interference as well. I upgraded my PC some months later, and sold the other one (with a different video card) on ebay. I sold the problematic video card separately.

Here's something you can try: Go into your motherboard's BIOS and disable your processor's Core C6 state. I did some more research and that's been known to fix the electrical noise in some people's computers.

 

[sxr7171]

Buy an external USB soundcard. No more interference.

I use this: http://www.amazon.com/HRT-Music-Stre...streamer+ii%2B

There are much cheaper alternatives, but I got bit by the audiophool bug.

This is the answer. Even the cheapest one is better than most internal sound cards.

 

[SWDescent]

Update for mine, problem solved, ditched the 7870 and ordered a Superclocked 760 today. I tried a usb sound "stick" that I had and it worked, but wasn't complex enough to get the sound to be directional correctly on BF3, kept hearing gunfire that sounded in front of me and getting shot in the back, but I figure scrap the card and move onto something that should have less chance of it doing coil whine since I got a non-reference board with slightly better power management setup. (Reference requires two six pin, this has 1-6pin and 1-8pin). Thanks for the help though.