Whining noise on 460 GTX

[A_Dying_Wren]

Is anyone else finding that their 460 GTXs start whining under load regardless of fan speed or is it particular to my cards from Palit? They absolutely only whine when under load as in when running F@H, Furmark or games in general. I'm very sure it isn't the fans as I can monitor the fanspeed via msi afterburner (plus subjective observation) and the whine only happens when an intensive program is running. The whine is a constant high pitched sound which isn't too loud but irritating nonetheless and dissuades me from running F@H at night.

Is it a common problem or should I look into RMA'ing my cards? Both of them have a similar whine which happens OC or not.

Thanks

 

[FalseChristian]

What are your temperatures? This is the most important thing. My old 8800GT whines like mad but I'm having no problems in games.

 

[A_Dying_Wren]

The whining starts straight away when I turn on say F@H. At that point the temperatures are more or less at their baseline of 30 (staying under 60 for F@H) The maximum they reach is under 80 with furmark although I have accidentally driven them higher with an overenthusiastic OC but they would shut down at 100C.

It instantly stops when I stop the program loading the GPU regardless of the temperatures at the time.

 

[Markfw]

I bet the fan speed really is changing. BUT there is also a possibility that the vrm's or something like that may be making noise ? not such a guru at the electronics part.

 

[Cerb]

Coil whine, maybe?

 

[tweakboy]

It's the fan, its defective or needs cleaning. good luck or use lower speed, gg and gb

 

[Kenmitch]

You could as long as your careful stop fan with your finger and see if noise goes away under load

 

[thilanliyan]

I think it's coil whine. I get the same from my Gigabyte GTX460.

 

[Skurge]

How loud is coil whine? Is it that noticeable? Can you hear it above the fans?

 

[coldmeat]

Hear it from my Gigabyte 460 too. It's not very noticeable.

 

[thilanliyan]

How loud is coil whine? Is it that noticeable? Can you hear it above the fans?

My comp is watercooled, so it's quiet and I can definitely hear the coil whine.

 

[Skurge]

Is it loud enough to make you replace the card? If you didn't have to drain you WC setup.

 

[thilanliyan]

Is it loud enough to make you replace the card? If you didn't have to drain you WC setup.

I wouldn't have to drain the WC setup to replace it...just take the block off.

But no I wouldn't replace it. I assume most cards will suffer from this. I can hear it but it isn't annoying enough and I get used to it while gaming. Although, my old 4870 only had this coil whine when it was running very high fps like in menus and such.

 

[Markfw]

I think it's coil whine. I get the same from my Gigabyte GTX460.

I agree...^^^^The above

 

[Skurge]

I agree...^^^^The above

This is off topic, but whats with all the CPUs in your sig?

 

[A_Dying_Wren]

Thanks a lot for the reason guys. Never heard of coil whine before but I guess it would make sense. Its quite annoying but not so bad if music's playing or something.

I'm 100% sure its not the fans as the whining starts well before the fans kick in (say 5 minutes before). I can manually force the fans to stay at their lowest speeds and there would still be a whine.

Do all graphic cards have this problems or is it more of a 460 GTX/Fermi/Nvidia issue? I don't remember my aged 7900 GT whining nor my laptop 9700m GT.

 

[thilanliyan]

^A lot of cards do have this problem...not only Fermi cards.

 

[theAnimal]

This is off topic, but whats with all the CPUs in your sig?

Folding farm.

 

[Skott]

Palit seems to have the larger portion of complaints when it comes to noise and heat from what I'm hearing and seeing posted around the net. Gigabyte are supposedly the quiet and coolest of whats available so far. I'll find out soon for myself when my Gigabyte GTX460 1GB arrives Monday. It will replace the ole 8800GT in my SG03.

 

[Cerb]

Do all graphic cards have this problems or is it more of a 460 GTX/Fermi/Nvidia issue? I don't remember my aged 7900 GT whining nor my laptop 9700m GT.

It's a problem where wires, coiled around something, physically move as voltage changes, and hit or rub against other wires, whatever they are wound around, or something else (I've heard whine from potted coils, where the 'sleeve' assembly is touching the PCB, FI).

Now, I'll have to stop my fans under load a bit and make sure my GB GTX 460 isn't doing it, because I don't want to go voiding the warranty in the future, with silent cooling, and then being annoyed to death by something like this.

 

[ViRGE]

I think it's coil whine. I get the same from my Gigabyte GTX460.

That would mean they're using regular chokes though, and not solid state chokes. From the board shots from reviews, the reference design certainly doesn't use coil chokes.

 

[TourGuide]

I had a card, an 8800GTX that squeaked on shutdown. It was a bad cap - which was not a problem on the replacement card. My guess, you've got a singing cap in there somewhere and the only way it will get better is if you rma the card.

 

[imaheadcase]

You can safely turn 460 fan speed down to 45 when running F@H. It still run around 70c.

Seems like its more noticable when they start going over %50, but i just keep mine at %45 no matter what i do, be it games or folding and no problems.

 

[thilanliyan]

That would mean they're using regular chokes though, and not solid state chokes. From the board shots from reviews, the reference design certainly doesn't use coil chokes.

The Gigabyte design is not entirely reference I think. The PCB is definitely different compared to the reference boards. I'll try to find a pic.

EDIT:
Here is the pic,
http://lab501.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/GBT460OC1G-10-580x385.jpg

Are those solid state chokes? If they are then I guess the sound could be coming from one of the caps...it's definitely there though and even more noticeable since I took the fan off and watercooled it.

 

[ViRGE]

The Gigabyte design is not entirely reference I think. The PCB is definitely different compared to the reference boards. I'll try to find a pic.

EDIT:
Here is the pic,
http://lab501.ro/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/GBT460OC1G-10-580x385.jpg

Are those solid state chokes? If they are then I guess the sound could be coming from one of the caps...it's definitely there though and even more noticeable since I took the fan off and watercooled it.

Those are solid-state chokes. Regular chokes have exposed coils. As for whether it could be the caps, that's definitely possible although I don't know a lot about whether solid state caps can whine.