Steps to deal with coil whine

[therealdippy]

Well about 6 months after a started building I have finally completed a new watercooled PC. When I managed to get a Gigabyte RTX 3090 with the integrated waterblock I found that decent PSUs were hard to come by so I bought a cheap 750W PSU to get me started. It was noisy at idle and noisier at load, but worst of all I got fairly bad coil whine with 3DMark and the Bright Memory Infinite RT benchmark. I pulled the PSU and put it on top of the case so that I could easier tell where the whine was coming from. My conclusion was that it was mostly from the cheap PSU but the RTX 3090 was whining too.

After a long wait I got a new PSU yesterday. I hope I can now claim that I have minimised the noise contribution from the PSU because it is the Corsair AX1600i. Indeed it is silent, but the RTX 3090 is still whining during the benchmarks. I have checked some reviews and it seems that this GPU and its RTX 3080 brother have whined to reviewers so I guess I have to be realistic on my expectations. Whilst I'll accept requesting RMA if I have to, the current issue with availability and the risk that a replacement would whine too leads me to consider alternatives first.

So can folks advise me on what are the steps to try to reduce coil whine? Does "whine-soaking" a GPU with a benchmark actually help? What about reducing boost clock or under-volting?

 

[CuriousTomCat]

So you only get coil whine when benchmarking? It's okay when gaming? If so, then just game and have fun.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

Wear headphones.

 

[supZ]

So you only get coil whine when benchmarking? It's okay when gaming? If so, then just game and have fun.

This.

You can also lock fps based on the resolutions you're playing at to help reduce whine at high fps. Under volting would help too, as it of course, will limit power draw to some extent but at the end of the day as long as it's not intrusive then just live with it.

You'll always have some electronic resonance, it's just the nature of high draw electronics.

 

[V F]

Wear headphones.

You can still hear coil whine with open back headphones.

 

[rare]

Pretty standard for benchmarks, the cards are under effectively 100% load. Under games you can mitigate it if it’s a problem by limiting FPS. If it’s benchmarks only I would personally live with it, it’s not like you run benchmarks everyday.

 

[varkanoid]

You can still hear coil whine with open back headphones.

You could then say dont wear open back headphones but noise cancelling ones.......

I would also say if you can hear coil whine in game whilst explosions are going all round you with headphones on then its RMA time.

Depends also where your case is if its sat right next to you at ear level then its going to be noiser than tucked away under the desk to one side whether it has coil whine or not.

 

[therealdippy]

In the gaming I have been doing with the cheap PSU I've had whine if I push the graphics settings, or during a higher load periods of the game. I'm happy to lose a bit of performance if I can ensure that it doesn't whine during gaming - I prefer nor to wear headphones. I shall look into under-volting or limiting boost clock.

 

[dave28]

i have tinnitus so can hear it very bad and it winds me up something rotton, i try to put distance between myself and the machine as much as i can, if its right next to you it can be horrible for sure.

 

[tyler_jrb]

Undervolt will help a lot.

Move case further away.

Otherwise not much you can do, a replacement card will have the same or worse.

Pretty much been through everything myself before to remove it. Multiple cards, PSU’s, motherboards etc etc. Moving my case was the only real solution to eliminate it.

Undervolting is pretty much recommended on 30 series anyway and depending on how audible it is, will help a lot in that regard. Could cut my 2080Ti power usage in half for 7% performance loss.

 

[Deleted member 66701]

You can still hear coil whine with open back headphones.

Don't use open back headphones.

 

[Purgatory]

Cheap PSU sounds so wrong with a 3090, also you want a decent 850w minimum with a 3090. I see you got a 1600w one now and well a bit overkill and that psu can run 2x 3090s. I guess better to go overkill than what you had before that was not really worth risking on a 3090.

 

[oldestgregg]

I get whine from my TUF 3090 in loading and splash screens when the FPS goes off the charts but under normal load in game its fine.

 

[oldestgregg]

Well about 6 months after a started building I have finally completed a new watercooled PC. When I managed to get a Gigabyte RTX 3090 with the integrated waterblock I found that decent PSUs were hard to come by so I bought a cheap 750W PSU to get me started. It was noisy at idle and noisier at load, but worst of all I got fairly bad coil whine with 3DMark and the Bright Memory Infinite RT benchmark. I pulled the PSU and put it on top of the case so that I could easier tell where the whine was coming from. My conclusion was that it was mostly from the cheap PSU but the RTX 3090 was whining too.

After a long wait I got a new PSU yesterday. I hope I can now claim that I have minimised the noise contribution from the PSU because it is the Corsair AX1600i. Indeed it is silent, but the RTX 3090 is still whining during the benchmarks. I have checked some reviews and it seems that this GPU and its RTX 3080 brother have whined to reviewers so I guess I have to be realistic on my expectations. Whilst I'll accept requesting RMA if I have to, the current issue with availability and the risk that a replacement would whine too leads me to consider alternatives first.

So can folks advise me on what are the steps to try to reduce coil whine? Does "whine-soaking" a GPU with a benchmark actually help? What about reducing boost clock or under-volting?

If its only doing it during benchmarks then what does that REALLY matter? You dont sit and chill with an 8 hour benchmark session do you? As long as its OK in game then just try to enjoy your card. I found buying a PSU with a wattage that was much higher than needed was good because the fans dont kick in untill its under a certain percentage of usage. This means my 1200wt Superflower PSU is quiet most of the time. I had 3 7970s in a row that absolutely SCREAMED with coil whine. There was no should I/shouldnt I about keeping it, it was just so noisy I couldnt do it.

Main point is though, if its only benchmarks you are getting it in then it doesnt matter. As long as you are not getting it when you are kicked back gaming theres no point stressing about it. It can lessen over time as well so something else to bare in mind.

 

[Besty]

Don't use open back headphones.

Open-back master-race>closed-back peasants

 

[V F]

Don't use open back headphones.

Closed you sweat like hell. They're horrible for suffocating your ears. More so this weather in the evenings.

 

[drakulton]

I didn't realize that 'H', Lisa, Claire, Lee and Faye, were into solving graphics card issues..... but fair play to them.

 

[Evil-I]

Just one of those things... Very high FPS tends to make it happen or very high load. Typically I don't hear it in game other than in menu screens on my Asus 3090 EKWB edition. It's quite loud doing certain video encoding tasks in Premiere Pro too. I'm not sure undervolting or 'whine soaking' will make a difference. I had 3 x gtx 970's in SLI a few years back and they always did it and never got noticeably quieter after several years usage. Again, only really noticeable in benchmarks or doing major encoding/ rendering tasks. If you consider how much wattage we're pumping into these cards it not suprising theres some resultant sound.

As you've found a decent PSU is a must and that can reduce it a little, but ultimately high end cards just tend to whine and when watercooled it's much more audible than air cooled...

 

[Major774]

Undervolting helped loads with my coil whine (3080 FE).

 

[Grim5]

Don't use open back headphones.

yeah but that's just wrong, closed back is for cheapskates