I figured it out for my setup !!!!!!! I have the same card, eVGA GTX 460 SC, and the squealing was driving me CRAZY It was mostly a squealing under heavy load (folding).
I figured something on the card was vibrating at a certain frequency that was causing this problem. So I changed some frequencies around in afterburner and the noise is now completly GONE
I have it set to 800/1600/3800 (Core/Shader/memory). And the best part is : only one ot two °C change in temps (69°C @21°C ambiant, instead of 67°C), and no change in noise (35% fan speed) !
I think the vibration is still here, but at a higher frequency. In fact, when I tried lowering the clocks, the squealing started to turn into a buzzing.

Hope that helps !

[EDIT : certain work units while folding still produced a faint whine, so I bumped the frequencies a little more and I have yet to hear the whine again: Core/Shader/memory @830/1660/4000]

As promised here are the pictures of my case. The Gigabyte GZ-M2


Sitting under my desk


90 holes drilled in the bottom. Fan grill cut out.


The inside. There is a low profile sound card (Audigy SE) right under the graphic card.


I padded every surface possible with carpeting and sponge. Unfortunately the right side panel and top of case are made of one piece and bolted on hence most of it is not padded.


Front panel fan grill cut out.

My Gigabyte card has different values at 000660h line, Bios F10. Any ideas?

yes, the correct line is '00006600h'. are you sure you were looking at the right spot?

Yes. It's Gigabyte GTX460 OC1, 2 fans.

Hrm, interesting. I guess there is a bit of variation in the bioses between different brands of the 460.

Okay, I have an idea for you to try. Open up your bios in UE and do a HEX search for this string "47 04 01 21 00 06 26 C4 09 20 00 00 22". Without quotes, of course. The byte right after the 22 *should* represent your minimum fan speed. Do a quick HEX -> BIN conversion to see whether that number actually does represent your minimum fan speed. If it does then its most likely the correct byte to edit.

Check out the attached picture of me looking at the bios from some version of the Gigabyte 460 (its not necessarily the same one that you have though). As you can see, the string is in a slightly different location, but it otherwise matches exactly to other bioses that I've seen. The 28 would represent a minimum fan speed of 40% in this case, which makes sense.

I have no way of testing this myself because I no longer own the Gigabyte card, so I strongly suggest if you test this out yourself to have an extra video card handy should you need to restore your original bios to the Gigabyte card.

Hope this helped.

Yes, it helped. I found it as you said, and the byte next to that string is 28, which corresponds to the real minimum fan speed of 40%.
Thank you.
I'll try it soon.

What do you mean by have an extra video card handy? How would that help in restoring the original bios to the gigabyte card?

I also have a Gigabyte 460 OC and am thinking of lowering the clock speed. How has everyone's experiences been so far after lowering the stock speeds? Any performances issues?
In the original post, there was something about changing the voltage to around 0.7v. Is a lower voltage or higher voltage riskier?

If you perform a bad flash on your video card and you have an extra non-modified, working video card handy (could be any video card that works in your system, even on-board) it is easier and usually possible to re-flash the improperly flashed video card with a good, working bios. Its just a good precaution. For example, I have two GTX 460s, so when testing out different bios configurations, I'll only flash one card at a time to make sure the first one works, and then if it doesn't I can always boot up with the second non-modified card to fix the first one with a non-modified bios.

There are no performance issues for me after modifying the fan speed and voltages on my cards. Just cooler/quieter running cards when they are idle or in low 2D mode. Of course, your results may vary depending on whether you're overclocking the cards and also perhaps the brand and model of card that you have.

I would say simply modifying the fan speed to a reasonable value (i.e. not below 20% fan speed) and not touching voltages yields pretty good results, and as long as you modify the bios correctly it is reasonably safe to do. Even modifying the voltage going down in small steps is probably pretty safe.

What are you trying to accomplish exactly? If its just to make the card quieter then judging from others experiences with the Gigabyte card you may only need to play around with the fan speed. If you want the card to run cooler in 2D mode as well then you might need to play around with voltages.

I was just wondering if the voltage drop would have any stability issues.

Anyway, I tried downloading the gigabyte GTX460 bios from the website. The version included there is F3, while I have a F12 version. I don't believe those two are compatible based on the FAQ. Could I just modify the backup bios (and make another backup of course) and use it to reflash my card?

Yes, do exactly that. Flashing a bios that is not a backup from your own card will only increase the risk that it won't work.

It appears that Gigabyte [email protected] does not want me to flash the modified bios. When I try to modifiy the card's bios and re-flash it, it says that the version is the same and would not do anything.
Seems as it it does not want me to do anything funny to the card...

Please see the first post for instructions on which software to use.

Just flashed the bios and set the min speed to 20%. While in 2d mode (is that normal windows 7 surfing the net etc stuff?) the temps is around 43 degrees Celsius. Do you think i need to run furmark just to be sure my mod is working fine?

Yep.


Might as well.

Ran furmark for about 5 minutes, temps were around 72-73 degrees. However, it made this high-pitched whine, which sounded pretty irritating. Is that a sign of a faulty card?

[Edit]
There is also this interminent buzzing noise coming from my PSU (Seasonic S12-II 620) when I am in Windows 7, surfing the net etc. Just noticed it... is this (and the whine) a by-product of changing the RPM and voltages of the card?

It's not necessarily faulty. Coil whine in video cards just happens on some cards, but it doesn't usually mean there is something physically wrong with the card. When I had Gigabyte GTX 460s I had the same problem when running Furmark, but only with one of the cards (I had two of them in SLI).

Yes, coil whine from the PSU could be caused by power draw of the video card. Again, it is not necessarily a problem unless its really loud an annoying.

I have read that some people have been able to fix coil whine in video cards and other electronic components by coating the coils in paraffin wax or clear nail polish, but I don't really know too much about it so I can't really help you with that.

This coil whine doesn't necessarily manifest itself during 3d gaming right? I have yet to get a game (I know, I'm slow) for my desktop. As long as it doesn't whine during gameplay, I guess I can live with it. If it does whine during gameplay, is it a good enough reason to RMA the card?

My experience with the Gigabyte card was that the coil whine only occurred when the card was stressed to the max, i.e. while running Furmark or other benchmarking programs.

I didn't really notice any coil whine during gaming, but it might vary from card to card.

Personally, if I still had the Gigabyte card and it whined during gameplay I would probably return it. I exchanged my Gigabyte cards for EVGA, but that was for a different reason (the Gigabyte cards, when in SLI didn't exhaust heat very well from my case and kept overheating).

Personally, if I was still able to exchange my EVGA GTX 460s I would probably get EVGA 560s. From the reviews I've read it sounds like they run cooler than the 460s, and give slightly better framerates.

Nah, The 560 is over my budget. I might get the ASUS Radeon HD6850 DirectCU though. It seems like a quiet and cool card, going by the reviews here.

Does anyone know of any after-market coolers which are compatabile with the Gigabyte gtx 460 card?

Are you kidding? The Windforce is fully able to cool that card: and moreover, do you need more quietness or more cooling power?

I'm fully aware of the windforce's cooling prowess. If it could be quieter, it would be nicer.

I guess it's the Nvidia BIOS, under certain values it won't go: you may try to undervolt the fans, which connectors do they sport?
And at which speed are they currently spinning?

At stock Gigabyte settings, the fans run at 40% minimum (1800 rpm). If I use a 30% setting, it spins at around 1200 rpm.

At 25% and below, i don't think it spins at all. MSI afterburner gives a weird rpm reading of 130819 rpm.
I am not sure what connectors the card sport though, sorry.

Follow the fans wires, then let some firm (such Sidewinder or Petra) let you make a suitable downvolting tail.

I also think that SpeedFan could be able to read your fans speed.

Object -Gainward GeForce ® GTX 460 768MB Green - http://www.gainward.com/main/vgapro.php?id=451
Purpose - Fan speed 40% to 20%
Method - After a string "47 04 01 21 00 06 26 C4 09 20 00 00 22" I found "28" and changed to "14" with HEX editor
Result - Silence ;]
Temp - 32 degrees at idle and 1100-1140 RPM
The next step - change the 15%(recommend to try?) and reduction voltage in 2D mode

Question - lower voltage in 2D mode affects the performance of such films or simple flash games?

I don't think it would because you aren't changing the clock speed, just the voltage that a particular clock speed uses. Also, if your card needs higher performance it should automatically adjust its performance profile to keep up with whatever you're doing.

I'm still running my GTX 460s at the settings I noted in the first post for at least half a year now without any issues. I did, however, replace the heatsinks with the AC Accelero xtreme, but it was because the fan bearings on the stock coolers started to rattle a bit from time to time (I guess the bearings were getting a bit worn).

I lowered the voltage to 0,75 V, and the computer after 5 minutes during playback of the new Spiderman trailer hung with looped sounds of... :/

Your mileage may vary. 0.7v works for my cards, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will work for every GTX 460. Different brands use difference components, etc., and may not even use the reference design. It's best to lower your voltage in a step-wise manner, just like as if you were overclocking, to see what is stable for your particular card.