GTX970 coil whine is it the PSU???

steverebo

New member
Hi guys Ive just got my second pair of MSI GTX970 gaming gpu's as the previous 2 were RMA'd due to coil whine and these 2 also have coil whine.

When I returned the previous 2 Scan tested them and stated that they also experienced coil whine which made me think that it wasnt my Power Supply and now Ive got another pair and they make a clicking sound as well so Im sitting here thinking: could it be my power supply???

If it is my power supply I will happily buy another but I dont want to waste money when my power supply is running fine.

Im running the below system:

MSI Z97 Gaming 7 MOBO
Intel I7 4790k @ 4.6ghz 2.75v
2 x 8gb Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400
Creative Soundblaster Z
2 x MSI GTX970 Gaming GPU's
Corsair AX860 Platinum 2nd Gen PSU
2 x Samsung evo 250gb Raid 0
 
Have you tried running the rig with the 2 970's not installed in the system? I would't have thought that it would be your PSU since you have such a high quality PSU.
 
Its definitely not my PSU making the noise ive isolated it to the gpu's I was wondering the psu could be causing the 970's to whine
 
It isn't because you have a bad psu it's just the combination of type of psu and graphics cards that are causing the whine, you could possibly even run another psu from the same manufacturer and not have the whine it's just that you have some kit that doesn't agree with each other, and you could swap out the psu for a different brand and it could still happen so your choice is see if a different psu stops it or increase you fan noise to cover it or just put up with it.
 
I haven't been able to narrow down exactly what causes this (I just don't go through that amount of hardware) but Excalabur is right - It's just certain combinations of PSU and GPU seem to produce coil whine. Nothing to do with either component being bad (usually), it's just one of those things where they don't play nice together.

Maybe go for an RM unit, as (AFAIK) they've been build to exhibit as little electrical noise as possible. Probably not worth much, but every little helps, etc.
 
Im thinking of picking up a superflower leadtech 850w gold as they have fantastic built quality and extremely good 12v ripple suppression which should help minimise coil whine. Im just waiting to sort out another RMA to be 100% sure its not just bad GPU's

I took the plunge and bought the superflower psu and I can confirm that the power supply was not the culprit the cards still whine like my wife.

Now I've got to try and sell my AX860, what a nightmare
 
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