Hardware & Technical Any nvidia GTX 1070 cards without buzzing/screaching noise (coil whine)?

[RadiKyle]

Hi, I bought an Asus 1070 Dual and it had a terrible buzzing / screaching noise, like a fan was dying. Research indicated it's something called coil whine, and that a lot of cards have it (began around the 9xx series?). I'd never heard of it before (my Asus 660 was really quiet). I returned the 1070 Dual for another copy and it's got the same issue, though slightly quieter (and slightly cooler).

It makes the noise during normal ED gameplay, and it's worse when running a benchmark such as Heaven. Basically anytime it's under load it makes noise, which is almost always.

Has anyone found a good 1070 card yet that does not make this noise?

Thanks!

 

[Asp Explorer]

Have you tried a different power supply?

 

[Insomnia]

Coil whine usually happens when the GPU produces a huge amount of frames per second, way more than what's needed. So to try to counteract the GPU working its butt off to produce an unnecessary amount of fps, turn on VSYNC or enable a fps limiter and set it to a decent number.
Unfortunately, due to cheap components, coil whine does occur.

 

[Jon flint]

Well I used to have a 970 so I'm very used to coil whine, got a founders 1070 and don't notice any at all but that may be due to the hefty aluminium shroud on the founders card blocking it out.

As insomnia said, turn on vsync or a frame limiter. Coil whine gets worse the higher the FPS.

 

[Porina]

Maybe I've been lucky but I've not noticed coil whine on any of my current or past GPUs (1070, two 980Ti, 970, two 960). I did have a Fury X that did make a similar noise, but it was a known problem with the pump in early samples and I returned it. The 1070 I have is the Zotac FE one, chosen purely as it was the cheapest one at the time.

 

[RadiKyle]

Thanks everyone

VSnyc already on in game at 59.95 Hz (monitor limited to 60Hz).

Frame Limiter was not on in game, however turning it on and setting to 60 Hz or lower had no effect on the sound.

I had been wondering about the power supply as well. Today I confirmed that much of the noise I hear is actually coming from within the PSU itself, not the 1070 card. The loud groan/buzz noise is from the PSU. The higher frequency whistle may be coming from the GPU, but I can't pin down the source at the moment over the PSU noise.

So, I'm now shopping for a new PSU. Current unit is an Antec Truepower New 750W modular PSU, about 4-5 years old. (It's still in the 5-yr warranty but I doubt they will RMA for the noise during GPU load.) Any firsthand experience with a good 750W modular unit that doesn't make noise with a 1070?

Thanks!

 

[RadiKyle]

Happy to report that a new power supply fixed the problem!

I bought a eVGA Supernova 750W G2 PSU based on the review on JonnyGuru and local availability. The new PSU is pretty much silent under the same load conditions.

The 1070 GPU is almost completely silent as well. Under high load / frame rate combinations in benchmark software only, a very faint high pitched coil whine can be heard, but only with open case and sticking my head in there lol. It's way quieter than it was before with the old PSU.

It's so quiet now that I've just discovered my smallest case fan is rattling a little, lol