Coil whine - RMA vs. Deal with it Poll

[wand3r3r]

Just curious as to the opinions on this.

Personally I'd say if they want to save $5 at the risk of a high pitched sound then they can deal with an RMA.

Brand agnostic, I don't care whose card you've had it in etc.

 

[Stuka87]

If it only whines when it hits 200+ FPS, I don't really care. My cards only whine when the FPS shoots way up.

If it does it at lower frame rates, I typically just try and find the coil and put a dab of epoxy on top. Have to do this when working on RF circuits as a matter of procedure otherwise you can induce distortion.

 

[UNhooked]

I have had it on both my cards and as I game they have significantly gotten better. Also if you limit FPS to 60 or have Vsync enabled it isn't that bad. Besides the volume of the game would drown the coil whine anyways.

Before this I had a 4870X2 and that too had coil whine.

It isn't worth to RMA a card just because of coil whine since I strongly believe stick with the devil you know

Never know what you might receive back. I don't think companies are obligated to send you a new card, they can send you a reworked card etc.

 

[wand3r3r]

Oh shoot, that would have been a good option. (high FPS vs low as well as EPOXY)

 

[djsb]

I think a big reason that people notice coil whine is because a lot of games have certain parts (think loading screens, main menus) which aren't vsynced by default even if the rest of the game is, hence the squeal because you're hitting 900 fps without realizing it.

I bought Serious Sam 2 for kicks and even though I can vsync the game, the ingame video cutscenes run at about 2500fps. That is not hyperbole.

 

[wand3r3r]

That should have been another option, "No, if it's less than 5 mins of gaming.". Oh well at least the comments capture that.

 

[Xarick]

My card would whistle even if it was just installing direct X and you could hear it across the room. So.. if it is loud enough.. YES.

 

[Eureka]

In Xarick's case, that was definitely unacceptable. Also if it's audible over everything else, it's an issue. My 7950 has whine, but it's only audible inside the case and with a few fans on, you wouldn't hear it.

Now, here's a little trick if you just suffer from mild whine during high FPS... you can use the drivers to force Vsync always! Even for those games that render 1000s of frames in menus, you're not actually pumping them out so it doesn't matter. So unless you're trying to bench for the highest fps, you can live whine-free.

 

[dkm777]

I voted that my sound is louder than coil whine, but it really depends on the level and character of the whine. My MSI GTX570 Power Edition started whining after I overclocked it, but it only does that when running a game so the fans mostly drown it out. My Sapphire HD7970 also whines a little, but also only under high loads. I don't hear them whine unless I open the case and put my ear close to the cards, so I don't bother with an RMA. However, my brother's Zotac GTX560 Ti 448 Core whines even under idle, and gets really noticeable under load but he doesn't give a damn. If I were him I'd RMA that card.

 

[Zxian]

I had coil whine on a ASUS DC2 670 a few months ago. It was there sitting at both idle and load.

I returned the card.

 

[nickbits]

depends