8800 buzzing coil sound

They make noise, too.

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qstoffe
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8800 buzzing coil sound

Post by qstoffe » Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:17 am

I bought a MSI 8800GTX just before christmas last year. The idle sound is actually pretty quiet. @Idle the fan rotates around 1400rpm and I would say it is about equal in noise to Nexus 120 fan @ 8-9V.

I've build my own wooden case to ensure noise/airflow is superb. At first I tried the card in my old Chieftech dragon case and then the fan would ramp up during load making a "soft" but not silent air-noise. In my new wooden case the fan of the 8800gtx never ramps up from it's idle speed no matter how hard I stress it. I will post about my about custom wooden case later (maybe this weekend).

So far everything is good... BUT when I started playing oblivion I noticed a high pitch coil noise coming from the computer. When I checked, it was comming from the 8800gtx card. After further testing I have concluded that the high pitch coil noise is there all the time but the sound level of it varies. Further testing revealed that the fps rate is directly tied to the noise (at least I belive so). The higher fps rate I get the higher the noise gets. Kind of ironic really :evil:

When I'm playing oblivion I get around 40-90 fps and the noise is low. I can't here it if I don't put my head near the card. However when I bring up the inventory screen or a menu in Oblivion the fps peaks at about 1400fps and the noise is very loud. I've heard coil buzzing from PSUs before and this is the best description I can give. I've had this kind of noise in a previous computer build and then it came from a passive 9700pro Sapphire card. Never solved that issue though. :(

Many many 8800gtx users (all that notices ?) seems to be affected by this but the strenght of the noise seems to differ from card to card. I suspect "some" people who have other loud components in their system will never notice this. Below are some links to threads in other forums about this problem.

First mp3s of how it sounds (not recorded by me):
http://www.nakijken.nl/marvin/noise.mp3
http://www.bullettimes.com/noise.mp3
http://flintz.no-ip.org/netzteil.mp3

Other links about the noise:
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1140549
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/139657- ... sound.html
http://www.evga.com/community/messagebo ... C_ID=21294
http://www.evga.com/community/messagebo ... ms=buzzing
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=496431
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/arc ... 23277.html
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46694
http://www.jonnyguru.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8950
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=210910
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/sho ... 7&t=123801
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=208804
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware ... 15434.html
http://www.overclock.net/intel-air-cool ... ing-4.html


If anyone here owns a 8800gtx, just start up oblivion (if you own it) and bring up the resting-dialog by pressing 't' and listen. Then post your comment here :!:
Last edited by qstoffe on Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Bobfantastic
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Post by Bobfantastic » Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:21 am

I don't have an 8800, but is there not a way to cap the fps?
Like maxframestorenderahead=xx or something? If it's quiet-ish at 90fps, then cap it at say 100fps.
You can't see more than about 30fps anyway, but due to sync issues many people can see the difference up to about 70fps. After that it's all a bit academic really. :wink:

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Thu Feb 01, 2007 8:50 am

Thanks for the detailed links. :)

It's a shame that's people's experiences all seem negative though. :(

I was seriously considering a 8800GTX card but maybe it'll have to wait now. :(

qstoffe
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Location: Sweden

Post by qstoffe » Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:00 am

WR304 wrote:It's a shame that's people's experiences all seem negative though. :(
Well so far I wouldn't exactly say it's a scandal. This problem with the 8800 cards seems to vary in it's severity (how loud the coil noise is). Most people probably just have a "little" noise like my card and thus in a normal "noisy" computer they may never notice it. However I suspect noise strenght varies from card to card.

I have a pretty silent setup...

- Corsair HX520
- 3 x Nexus 120 fans @ 6V
- 1 Scythe 120 fan @ 6V
- 2 x Seagate 7200.10 drives inside Alleycat hdd enclosures.

... and so far I've only noticed the coil noise in Oblivion dialog-menus. I've also tried 3D Mark 06, Star Wars KOTOR2, Never winter nights 2 and never experienced any problems with them. Until I played Oblivion I was extremely happy with this card. Now it's annoying but not disastrous.

Bobfantastic wrote:I don't have an 8800, but is there not a way to cap the fps?
I've not found any such setting in the driver settings :(

However turning on V-sync completely solves the problem for ME. No noise at all. The only downside is lower performance:

Without V-Sync: 40-90 fps
With V-Sync: 28-75 fps

But some people (in the threads I've posted) has reported that turning on V-Sync did not solve their problem. I'm guessing that they have louder coil noise from the card than I do because they here it in every 3D-application.

qstoffe
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Post by qstoffe » Thu Feb 01, 2007 11:40 am

Quote from a guy who had the same problem and got a replacement card:
The replacement card I received (green PCB) does make the same noise, but much more quietly. It's essentially inaudible at 100Hz frame rate (monitor refresh), unobjectionable white noise at 300-500Hz, and a barely audible squeal at 1000Hz+. The old one was really noticeable, whereas this one fades into the fan noise. Someone with a normal (non-quiet) PC wouldn't be able to hear it at all.

Bobfantastic
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Post by Bobfantastic » Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:16 pm

Again, this won't help the cause, but it should sort out the symptoms...
http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_13.html
I'm not sure if there's an updated version for 8800 series, of if you even need one. Useful though... :)

klankymen
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Post by klankymen » Thu Feb 01, 2007 1:23 pm

sorry, im too lazy to look through your external links, but is this also an issue with GTS's?

qstoffe
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Post by qstoffe » Thu Feb 01, 2007 2:24 pm

Bobfantastic wrote:Again, this won't help the cause, but it should sort out the symptoms...
http://www.tweakguides.com/Oblivion_13.html
I'm not sure if there's an updated version for 8800 series, of if you even need one. Useful though... :)
Thanks for your effort but "max frames to render ahead" does not cap the max fps -> noise still the same. This option only enables 0-3 extra backbuffers.
klankymen wrote:sorry, im too lazy to look through your external links, but is this also an issue with GTS's?
Well most post seems to be regarding the gtx but I'm pretty sure I read about someone owning a GTS with the same problem :(

I've added some more links to the first post. Some games seems to be affected more than others.

Here are some quotes from the threads by people who have tried more than 1 card:
Now I have a new card, I have exactly the same problem. And surprisingly this shop had recently 3 more bad cards with exactly the same problem with that card.
Strange, 3 at the shop, 2 from me that make the same strange noise. I think it's a production line problem. Everything about my previous card can be seen on http://www.nakijken.nl/marvin/info_card.jpg
I have the exact same problem, I get the sound in between load screens in 3Dmark 06, and in the FEAR Menus, it's the worst.
I got an evga 8800GTX, and just replaced it too, and the problem is still there. Sad
I went back to work today, and replaced my evga 8800GTX for the Asus 8800GTX and it still happened.
Tested another Leadtek card and it does the same thing. Then we tested the XFX, there's noise but it's softer..
Unfortunately, they'll charge me 10% of my card if I want to replace with another brand, what a rip off..
I've received yet another faulty card. I'm out of ideas and this just has to be it. I will be making another call to tech support and insist they give me another replacement.
My BFG 8800GTX does the same thing. High pitched squealing in games and bechmarks.
This is my second one. The last card (also a BFG) did it also, but not as loud as this one.
I have the same problem, and very noticeable with ATITool running. Tried with 3 different XFX 8800GTX cards!!
I too have this problem. I should mention that this is my second eVGA 8800GTX.
I have the buzz as well, And i tried it on 2x eVGA 8800gtx ACS3 KO same results
The replacement card I received (green PCB) does make the same noise, but much more quietly.
I just purchased and tested 2 New Evga 8800GTX ACS3 KO witht eh revised green pcb. and they both buzz in 3d apps (and im sure these are news as they get)
I have returned my card and they heared the sound to, so I a new one now.
But I have the same problem again. Some people think it's a screaming condensator or capacitor.
Surprisingly when I returned my card, there where 3 more bad cards with the same problem returned, so it's a common problem with these cards.
Anyway got my 3rd EVGA 8800GTX and it's doing the same thing so I'm taking it back to get a different brand, I think MemoryExpress just got a bad batch in or something.
Took it back and swapped it out for an Asus 8800GTX and guess what....it makes the same noise. WTF is going on here?!

Kaleid
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Post by Kaleid » Thu Feb 08, 2007 3:20 am

My Sapphire x1900xt 256MB makes similar noises if I overclock it too much. The card I had before that, a 6800NU had the same problem if overclocked too high.

Standard clocks are at 621/1440 and the card can be overclocked to 654/1602 without stability issues but starts to have the very annoying buzzing coil sound.

So I simply lower the clocks to 641.3/1584 to get rid of the problem. Seems to me Nvidia is really pushing those cards beyond the capabilities of the components.

jaganath
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Post by jaganath » Thu Feb 08, 2007 3:29 am

Seems to me Nvidia is really pushing those cards beyond the capabilities of the components.
I don't think coil buzz indicates that; it's just a question of the resonant frequency of the coil.

scorp
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Post by scorp » Thu Feb 08, 2007 4:59 am

While coil noise is certainly annoying, it is not a sign of a "weaker" component or of component run beyond its specs; the cards will most likely work flawlesly

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:42 am

I too am getting this on an 8800 Ultra. I am going to RMA the card and see what the new one is like.

Is there anything that can generally be done about coil buzz? Different brands of coil maybe?

Max Slowik
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Post by Max Slowik » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:16 pm

It's not uncommon. I even have a sample card direct from the manufacturer that buzzes. I'd say that's a valid reason to RMA.

Also, don't let it taint one particular manufacturer over another for you; all 8800s are re-badged Foxconn and MSI boards, IIRC.

That's one of the reasons why I like the HD 2900 XT (even if in all other respects it ain't great)--it has all solid-state power regulation. No noise...

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Wed Jul 25, 2007 2:04 pm

In the morning I am going to see if I can figure out which coils are doing it. I will put a pencil eraser against the various coils one at a time until it stops.

Maybe some hot-melt glue might be enough to damp the vibrations. They are quite hit pitch, probably not a lot of energy there.

Charnondall
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Post by Charnondall » Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:39 am

Any luck in finding a quick fix Mojo? Got the same problem with my BFG 8800 GTX and its annoying as hell

Kaleid
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Post by Kaleid » Mon Jul 30, 2007 4:55 am

A friend recently bought a 7900GS and that card too had the problems with buzzing coil sound... :(
Guess I'm going to have to wait for a 65nm or smaller Ati before I upgrade from my x1900xt...unfortunaly R600 is extremely disappointing.

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:52 pm

Charnondall wrote:Any luck in finding a quick fix Mojo? Got the same problem with my BFG 8800 GTX and its annoying as hell
No job with finding the buzzing components I'm afraid. The good news though is that I have at least eliminated the problem for myself, sort-of.

I noticed that the buzzing gets louder as the clock rate goes up. Thus, dropping the clock speed for low performance 3D (like Aero) gets rid of the noise. Even dropping by 10MHz can make a real difference to the volume and pitch of the buzzing.

At stock speeds, the buzzing on my card is inaudiable inside a P182 under my desk. Of course, YMMV.

Charnondall
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Post by Charnondall » Mon Jul 30, 2007 2:38 pm

did ya use rivatuner? And can i ask what you reduced your clock speed to m8?

kleung21
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Same here

Post by kleung21 » Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:19 pm

I found that I developed the same type of whine/buzz for my Ati 1950xt at high speeds with inadequate cooling

Try running a big fan over the unit as it runs to see if that helps.

In my case, it was the hot voltage regulating units. Since most cooling solutions only cool the GPU adequately, it was letting the VRM run hot and buzz/whine even though I had a heatsink on it and was still "in spec".

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:29 am

Charnondall wrote:did ya use rivatuner? And can i ask what you reduced your clock speed to m8?
It was a factor overclocked model, so I reduced the speeds to stock (612/1080).

I used the nVidia control panel and ATITool to set clock speeds.

kleung21: I am running a 120mm fan with a HR-03 Plus now, so perhaps that has also help reduce noise as you suggest.

tackle
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Post by tackle » Thu Sep 13, 2007 3:12 am

To all of you who've received whining 8800's, be it GTS or GTX's:

Have anyone of you returned your card for another one, and received a non-whining sample?

OR...

Have you applied that substance (my mind fails me to recall what it was, glue-like?) to the coil making the noise, and had it removed that way?

I'm really curious if really every single 8800 makes the sound, but only a third of the people using them notices/cares about the whining noise.

Earlier this year I bought a gainward 8800gts 320mb and returned it after one horrible day of LOUD whining.
I still want a 8800gts though, so I'm thinking about getting a XFX one, since it's the cheapest available here in sweden at the moment.
Yet I've heard people say that it's not really the brand that dictates the error rate, since they're all manufactured in the same factory or something like that.

Please, bring your experience! I've emailed several online computer shopping sites here in sweden asking them if they've had customers with this problem, and if they've gotten their samples returned for a better one, but they all refuse to reply with anything more than "We're aware of the problem".
Gah!

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Thu Sep 13, 2007 11:43 pm

I am going to exchange mine, will let you know if the new buzzes.

WR304
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Post by WR304 » Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:34 pm

My A3 revision 8800GTS 640mb card didn't seem to whine when I bought it in May 2007 but it certainly does now. :?

It is overclocked a bit though. :)

The whine is still there at stock clock speeds although nowhere near as badly. The higher the clock speed the worse it seems to be with my card.

It really whines badly in the usual 3D programs (ATI Tool test, Loading some 3DMark 2006 tests etc).

It seems to have gradually got worse over time as it's becoming noticeable in programs that I don't remember hearing anything before.

When it's running in 2D mode (100mhz core /300mhz shader/ 400mhz memory) the card seems to be quiet though so I can live with it for a bit longer.

When watching DVDs it seems to be ok as well: It's only when running 3D applications that you can't ignore the whining noise.

Alex
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Post by Alex » Sat Sep 15, 2007 1:10 am

I have read several fixes for coil noise.
I think the preferred substance was liquid silicone (dries almost instantly after application it seems).

My guess is that some Loctite fluid might be OK but it is probably less elastic when dry. Think it gets like lacquer with a little rubberlike structure.

Hot glue is cheap and you can easily use much of it. It might help screening off the coil whine.

Edit: PCB lacquer is supposedly quite effective.

I have no personal experience of these things. I'm just trying to give you some suggestions.

s-patrol
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Re: 8800 buzzing coil sound

Post by s-patrol » Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:09 am

qstoffe wrote:I bought a MSI 8800GTX just before christmas last year. The idle sound is actually pretty quiet. @Idle the fan rotates around 1400rpm and I would say it is about equal in noise to Nexus 120 fan @ 8-9V.

I've build my own wooden case to ensure noise/airflow is superb. At first I tried the card in my old Chieftech dragon case and then the fan would ramp up during load making a "soft" but not silent air-noise. In my new wooden case the fan of the 8800gtx never ramps up from it's idle speed no matter how hard I stress it. I will post about my about custom wooden case later (maybe this weekend).

So far everything is good... BUT when I started playing oblivion I noticed a high pitch coil noise coming from the computer. When I checked, it was comming from the 8800gtx card. After further testing I have concluded that the high pitch coil noise is there all the time but the sound level of it varies. Further testing revealed that the fps rate is directly tied to the noise (at least I belive so). The higher fps rate I get the higher the noise gets. Kind of ironic really :evil:

When I'm playing oblivion I get around 40-90 fps and the noise is low. I can't here it if I don't put my head near the card. However when I bring up the inventory screen or a menu in Oblivion the fps peaks at about 1400fps and the noise is very loud. I've heard coil buzzing from PSUs before and this is the best description I can give. I've had this kind of noise in a previous computer build and then it came from a passive 9700pro Sapphire card. Never solved that issue though. :(

Many many 8800gtx users (all that notices ?) seems to be affected by this but the strenght of the noise seems to differ from card to card. I suspect "some" people who have other loud components in their system will never notice this. Below are some links to threads in other forums about this problem.

Sorry to bump this ancient thread but I have the SAME EXACT PROBLEM that you have. The only difference is that its not a 8800gtx but a 8800gt. I hear the same low pitch whining noise coming from the card during certain 3d applications like 3dmark and ati tool. I am also experiencing the same noise you are describing when playing oblivion. The noise occurs during gameplay and is not loud but noticeable. I also hear this unbearable loud electronic whining noise coming the card when loading up Crysis, but turns silent when game starts. I would have RMed it but the card is running flawlessly, and gt's are already in short supply as it is. Another reason is that my old 8800gts had the same noise as described above, so I thought its normal. I am positive the sound is coming from the card, and not anywhere else. My psu has more than enough juice to run these cards.

Here are my specs:
Intel core 2 duo E6550 2.33ghz (oced to 3.15ghz)
Evga 8800gt 512mb
Asus P5K premium Motherbard
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX ATX 620W Power Supply
Antec 900 case
Western Digital Caviar 320gb HDD
2x 1gb G.Skill DDR2 SDRAM

DreamKiller
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Post by DreamKiller » Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:48 pm

klankymen wrote:sorry, im too lazy to look through your external links, but is this also an issue with GTS's?
Yeah, it happens with the GTS. It happens somewhere in the power regulating stage. It only shows up when the card is nearing its maximum stress point (when running ATITool for example). However, when running games, I never notice it at all.

Mine's more of a chirping sound, though.

Ohh, and my card is an EVGA 8800GTS 640 SC (P2-N825-AR) @ 675/1600/1000 (Core/Shader/Ram).

jwoolen01
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Post by jwoolen01 » Tue Dec 18, 2007 2:50 pm

I've had the same problem with my 8800GT(s), a 512MB and a 256MB version. I also had the ATI 3870 and 3850, and they both whined.

The 8600GTS I have runs fine, no whine at all. I started up a thread to see if anyone isn't experiencing this whine.

viewtopic.php?t=45208

s-patrol
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Post by s-patrol » Sun Jan 13, 2008 8:30 pm

srry for bumping this thread again, but i was wondering if anyone came up with a solution for this issue. my gt is running fine with no major problems so far but the only thing bothering me is the whining/buzzing noise :(

ngplz
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Post by ngplz » Mon Jan 14, 2008 8:29 am

This problem is so extremely annoying.

I have a Gigabyte P35C-DS3R and a Sparkle 8800GT 512MB.
I used to have a Radeon 2900XT and it did not whine at all in this pc (and obviously my Enermax 650W psu is more than sufficient).

My videocard whines CONSTANTLY, from BIOS to windows to in-game, and I can hear it in every corner of my (large) room.
When I run ATITool's artifact test, which generates high FPS, another screeching whine is ADDED to the continuous whine.
When I move my Razer mouse at 1000Hz, the whine becomes even louder with a higher pitch. When I set it to 125Hz it remains at its original noise level.
And no, the problem has nothing to do with any of the fans in my pc.

I tried countless ways to fix this. Disconnected all devices. Messed with IRQ and PCI latency settings in the BIOS...
I feel like throwing this thing out of the window.

The only thing I haven't tried is flashing another BIOS to the 8800GT.
Perhaps a lower GPU voltage might alleviate the noise level?

thejamppa
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Post by thejamppa » Tue Jan 15, 2008 9:22 am

Maybe you just have bad card sample?

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