Solved - 5870 high pitch whine under load - video link included

[littlezipp]

Solved 4/13 - For those plagued by the whine in the video it may be caused by your power supply!!! I installed my new Seasonic X750 today and the whine under load issue is GONE.


This is driving my nuts. At idle and basic graphics processing the card is silent. As soon I load a game where any kind of processing is required it starts making this obnoxious sound. To put the volume into perspective it is as loud as the 5870 fan running at 100%...

This is card #2, so either I got 2 bad cards in a row or it is something else. Motherboard? Power supply? I don't have extras of either, so does anyone have experience with this or know of any online resource with the answer? I am using HDMI to a Samsung PX2370 LCD and have also tried DVI with the same results.

Card makes this sound overclocked and underclocked. I have also tried testing with the CPU at stock speeds with no differences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RsGY-6x824

System specs:
XFX 5870
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3
i5 750 (at 4.0ghz) (1.26v)
Kingston HyperX KHX2000C8 (1.64v)
Thermaltake TR2 750w
Samsung SSD
Netgear PCI WiFi card

 

[Udgnim]

probably VRM whine. it might be PSU whine.

I'm pretty sure all video cards have some level of whine to them with varying degrees of loudness. in terms of how it affects video card performance, I think there is no effect. I have a first gen 4870 512 that whines and runs fine.

I believe you can RMA the 5870 for the whine though. doesn't necessarily mean the replacement won't whine as well.

if the XFX 5870 is non-reference, then XFX's custom design might have lower quality VRMs than the reference design and you might have better luck finding a low whine 5870 by purchasing a reference design 5870.

 

[Ben90]

probably VRM whine. it might be PSU whine.

if the XFX 5870 is non-reference, then XFX's custom design might have lower quality VRMs than the reference design and you might have better luck finding a low whine 5870 by purchasing a reference design 5870.

This problem is rampant with XFX 4890s so I'm sure it carried over to the next generation. Even PowerColor uses better VRMs than XFX

 

[jaggerwild]

This is driving my nuts. At idle and basic graphics processing the card is silent. As soon I load a game where any kind of processing is required it starts making this obnoxious sound. To put the volume into perspective it is as loud as the 5870 fan running at 100%...

This is card #2, so either I got 2 bad cards in a row or it is something else. Motherboard? Power supply? I don't have extras of either, so does anyone have experience with this or know of any online resource with the answer? I am using HDMI to a Samsung PX2370 LCD and have also tried DVI with the same results.

Card makes this sound overclocked and underclocked. I have also tried testing with the CPU at stock speeds with no differences.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RsGY-6x824

System specs:
XFX 5870
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3
i5 750 (at 4.0ghz) (1.26v)
Kingston HyperX KHX2000C8 (1.64v)
Thermaltake TR2 750w
Samsung SSD
Netgear PCI WiFi card

Not SAYING YOUR PSU isn't up to snuff so don't take it that way! BUT some hardware items have incompatibility issue's, only reason I offer this is it's the second GPU. So on the outside chance it may be, if you have another PSU that is about the same power ratting. It could be incompatibility with the PSU and the main board making you think it's the GPU as many I7 platforms have issue's with incompatibility.

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&ei=JOO...mpatibility+issue&spell=1&fp=a2c66d4f91169d04

 

[Kenmitch]

Have you eliminated the V8 as the cause of the noise? Do you have it set to max fan speed? Try turning the knob to low or 1/2 way. From memory on highest speed it does sound like your video. Also maybe slightly spread the outer 2 parts of the V8 away from the center part as vibration can cause the fins to have kinda like a rub the finger around the crystal glass effect.

About all I can suggest for now.

 

[NumericalMethods]

Following on from what Jaggerwild said. I had two Tagan 700W psu's that howled they asses off when connected to GTX200 cards but no noise if I used an equivalent ATI 4000 card! Switched PSU's to a Seasonic and lo, the noises were gone with all the cards I tested. In that case the noise was coming from the PSU circuitry but it was caused by the manner in which the nVidia cards interacted with the PSU.

 

[MrWizzard]

Yeap I had some cards do that. Well actually in both cases it was the power supply that I replaced to fix the problem. Multiple cases replacing, the power supply with something overkill fixed it. VRM, make sure your PS has enough on the rail going to the card.

I had the exact same type of problems too "only when the card was under load"

Way you can find out for sure is pop the card in a friends computer and test it. One that hopefully has a better PS than you. Good Luck

 

[jaggerwild]

Following on from what Jaggerwild said. I had two Tagan 700W psu's that howled they asses off when connected to GTX200 cards but no noise if I used an equivalent ATI 4000 card! Switched PSU's to a Seasonic and lo, the noises were gone with all the cards I tested. In that case the noise was coming from the PSU circuitry but it was caused by the manner in which the nVidia cards interacted with the PSU.

Yeah,
I didn't have a noise issue but lost two good EnerMax 1000Watts PSU to the compatibility issue with an I7? I guess certain MB have it. I RMA'D both working now no problems, under one of those I was highly over clock. I have read the EVGA X58 board has issues with Enermax PSU, I even talked to one of the tech's at EVGA he assured me no issue's. I have read that all of them had it so, it is common with all X58 as fair as I have read. I may have missed a certain brand that had none but.........

 

[Binky]

My 4890 was unbearable under load. Oddly enough, after I slapped a new cooler on it, the whine almost stopped completely.

 

[littlezipp]

Have you eliminated the V8 as the cause of the noise? Do you have it set to max fan speed? Try turning the knob to low or 1/2 way. From memory on highest speed it does sound like your video. Also maybe slightly spread the outer 2 parts of the V8 away from the center part as vibration can cause the fins to have kinda like a rub the finger around the crystal glass effect.

About all I can suggest for now.

V8 was added after the fact, so I have eliminated that. Good question though. Same sound when the OEM Intel fan was installed.
Also to note that 5870 #1 was a Gigabyte and not XFX, but I think they are both standard reference design cards.
Spoke to XFX tech support today and they said it's the power supply after telling me that "electrical whine is normal" for any video card...

Seasonic X750 power supply on order... I will let you all know if that fixes it!

 

[NumericalMethods]

Pimp! I love Seasonic. I hope you will not be disappointed

 

[zerocool84]

My Corsair 650 gives off a whine as well. It never did it when I had my 9800GTX+ but right when I installed my 5870 it did it. I even reinstalled my 9800 and it kept doing it. I contacted Corsair and they said that it's nothing that will hurt anything but I could send it back for a replacement but never did cus I can't be without a computer for that long.

 

[tweakboy]

Your fan is busted, you need to RMA or something,,

 

[NumericalMethods]

Your fan is busted, you need to RMA or something,,

No! Why would you say that?

 

[Tempered81]

2nd identical non-ref XFX card with the same problem? Ouch. And that doesn't even sound like the traditional coil whine, which is high-pitched. This sounds like some sort of combo coil whine, cap whine, fan scratch, whizzing garbage sound. It sounds horrible.

I would get a reference ASUS or Sapphire or another reputable vendor

 

[Nox51]

To me that sounded like the fan made that noise, not coil whine.

 

[zerocool84]

To me that sounded like the fan made that noise, not coil whine.

It's easy to tell if it's the fan or the coils. You can stop the fan very quickly to tell what it is. My PSU does this and I've read tons of threads on PSU sites that do this as well.

 

[plonk420]

here's a friend's fix: http://www.overclock.net/ati/646050-hd5970-fan-rattle-solved-valid-5850-a.html#post8149593

 

[littlezipp]

It's easy to tell if it's the fan or the coils. You can stop the fan very quickly to tell what it is. My PSU does this and I've read tons of threads on PSU sites that do this as well.

I stopped the fan on card 1 and 2 and still have the whine. Will know Tuesday when my PSU arrives if this is power supply related. Thanks for the idea though.

 

[Nox51]

Well I was wrong. I hope the psu fixes it.

 

[HalfCrazy]

I own two XFX 5870's which don't whine like that. I'm using a 750w corsair psu in my system.

 

[jaggerwild]

I stopped the fan on card 1 and 2 and still have the whine. Will know Tuesday when my PSU arrives if this is power supply related. Thanks for the idea though.

I would suggest borrowing one before purchasing to make sure but it's kinda late, the only alternative you would have had was to try using two PSU to take the load off the first one thus making certain if it is in fact the PSU. I assume the old one is covered under warranty if it proves to be the culprit, so you would recoup some investment, keep us posted.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

if you have a HDD as a storage drive, that's what it might be

 

[littlezipp]

UPDATE - For those plagued by the whine in the video it may be caused by your power supply!!! I installed my new Seasonic X750 today and the whine under load issue is GONE.

 

[ronnn]

Nice you got a solution and thanks for posting!