MSI 7870 Issues

[SWDescent]

I know this is going to sound like a rant but I know that it's coil whine and it's coming from my 7870 and I've already replaced it once, and even put my Geforce 9800GTX+OC into the said computer and not a peep, but here's the reason I can't stand it.

Built this new system about 3 months ago and was enjoying it for a few minutes after installing Win7/Steam/Games, then I went to start a game up and noticed this strange sound coming out of my speakers whenever the gpu actually started to get a load on it. I've never experienced coil whine myself before so I thought it was just interference on my Klipsch 4.1 setup, but I plugged headphones in and it was even louder. Then I was extremely desperate and tried plugging the cable in from the onboard sound to the built in speakers on my asus monitor, SAME PROBLEM, the noise is coming out of anything I plug in sound-wise. I immediately called up MSI (I had an MSI Z77A-GD45 Motherboard so was wondering which part was causing the trouble, so called them up), that was the biggest mistake of my life, they just told me the motherboards bad and to RMA it, called up newegg they let me setup a deal and get a new one shipped and then send the old one back, and then, same exact problem... Called up MSI, oh you just got another defective board...called up the egg again this time they let me upgrade to a higher end board (MSI Z77A-GD65) and guess what? Still there! So finally I opened my case and turned off any extra fans and started listening and could hear the whining, called up msi again, and this time they say oh your cpu could be doing it, rma'd the cpu, still doing it. The next thing msi told me was that onboard sound cards just do that, I actually bought an ASUS sound card a week ago and tried that, and the noise is still there, swapped video card and sound card into all the different slots with no help either....

FINALLY this next call they tell me it could be the gpu making the noise, rma'd that with the egg as well, and guess what still has the problem, now I tried contacting msi and the first two calls this time were a joke, the first guy didn't seem interested in talking, and his final words were, "try a different video card" and then hung up on me.... 2nd call, the guy just told me to try underclocking my GPU to 1ghz or less, because all of the 7000 cards can't handle being overclocked (mine has a 1050mhz oc from MSI, haven't had a reason to oc myself yet) at all. Tried it still not working.... :/

Now on my 3rd call I finally got someone that seemed polite and somewhat interested in helping me, but all he could tell me was "Yeah I'd avoid AMD for the time being, they're cards haven't been doing well." And then I asked if there was a way to swap for a different card or something, and avoid AMD and go with an Nvidia one (and yes I know nvidia cards whine as well, but I see a lot more about the AMD ones than Nvidia when I search at least...) and he said they could either send me another 7870 and probably continue to have the same problem or the best they could do was give me a regular 660 (not a ti) in exchange, and when I looked up benchmarks it's a lot slower than my 7870 is in games, so I asked why I can't just pay the difference to replace it with a 760 (and I meant current value of my 7870, not the 40 dollars more I paid for it 3 months ago) and they said they can't do that and I can take the regular 660 or just live with it.

This kinda (pardon my language) pi55ed me off considering I've been buying their products for over a decade and even my wife's computer has my older system in it (MSI P7N SLI Platinum) as well as stuck with their GPU's whenever I could to ensure compatibility (which I was also disappointed to learn the Z77A-GD65 was only tested with a 7970, no other 7000 cards in the compatibility list).

So yeah I'm stuck with a card I can't stand using because it whines non stop, is there anything someone can recommend doing? If it didn't whine in my wife's system I'd leave it in there or sell it, but I don't want to screw somebody over with this junk card, and Getting two in a row bad and told I'll probably continue getting bad ones is just terrible customer service on MSI's behalf (which I asked to talk to a supervisor, after being on hold for 20mins the guy came back and said "he's still on the phone with someone and we're not allowed to keep talking to people for this long, they don't like us doing that, so he'll call you back as soon as he's done, it's been almost 5 days now and still no call).

Thanks in advance and here's my specs and my wife's specs (I've swapped everything out trying to get rid of it, PSu, CPU etc. Nothing reduces the noise, I even tried Ferrite Chokes on the sound cord to dampen the sound with no help, also did hdmi instead of dvi and whine was still there).

Intel i7 3770
MSI Z77A-GD65
MSI 7870 1050 Factory OC
Mushkin DDR3 2400 2x4GB
Corsair HX850 PSU
WD 1TB Black
ASUS DVD-RW SATA
Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-E 1x

Wife's
Intel Core 2 Duo e8500
MSI P7N SLI Platinum
Mushkin 2x 4GB and 2x1GB (not sure on clock speeds right now)
PC Power & Cooling 750 Silencer Edition
WD 620GB
Asus DVD-RW

Again thank you for any help anyone can offer, this is my 9th personal rig and I've never experienced something like this before, I've had weird glitches and defective parts, but nothing like this and I've now decided I'll never buy or recommend MSI parts after the customer experience....

 

[jamesriley94]

Coil whine coming through speakers?

Coil/cap whine is the physical capacitors onboard the card squeeling under load. That can't come through speakers.

It is most likely interference issues being caused by the card (not entirely sure how), but there's not really any physical way that cap whine can come through the speakers/headphones.

Any chance of recording the sound coming through the speakers and putting it on youtube or dropbox or something and linking us to it?

I'd like to point out, that cap whine is never really seen by any company as a reason to RMA a card, and so flaming MSI for not giving you a more expensive card (the 660ti) isn't really right in my opinion - especially after they've replaced one board for you that wasn't faulty, and then replaced a second and given you an upgrade to a $50/60(?) more expensive board!

 

[SWDescent]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the card itself is making the whine that matches the sound out of the speakers. As well as the first card had the same problem. And newegg replaced them and MSI was the one that told me to replace them. Also the model they were willing to exchange my card for is only a 204 dollar card, Mine has dropped to only 210, but how does that seem fair when I was willing to pay the difference for the other one? Also thought this forum would be more helpful than having someone flame me for doing WHAT THE MSI TECH TOLD ME TO DO THE ENTIRE TIME, I replaced the parts as they told me to, so how the hell is it my fault? And I already said I tried my 9800gtx+ in the computer and no whine from the card or speakers. but when it's an MSI branded GPU AND Motherboard, you would think they'd be more compatible....

 

[jamesriley94]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that the card itself is making the whine that matches the sound out of the speakers. As well as the first card had the same problem. And newegg replaced them and MSI was the one that told me to replace them. Also the model they were willing to exchange my card for is only a 204 dollar card, Mine has dropped to only 210, but how does that seem fair when I was willing to pay the difference for the other one? Also thought this forum would be more helpful than having someone flame me for doing WHAT THE MSI TECH TOLD ME TO DO THE ENTIRE TIME, I replaced the parts as they told me to, so how the hell is it my fault? And I already said I tried my 9800gtx+ in the computer and no whine from the card or speakers. but when it's an MSI branded GPU AND Motherboard, you would think they'd be more compatible....

I'm not saying it's your fault at all dude...

I'm just saying it isn't really right to flame a company when they have been helpful and replaced motherboards, and offered you a replacement card - albeit not the one you'd personally want, but they have given you an option.

It's unfortunate that it's happening, but I can't really see how you can blame MSI for it (especially when the card in question has a reference PCB and so that's actually made by AMD themselves).

For the coil-whine to be coming through your speakers, it must be creating electronic interference, and passing that back through your motherboard - it's unusual that would happen when you added a soundcard.

Have a look at this thread:
http://forum.overclock3d.net/showthread.php?t=54264

That may offer you a solution.

One possible way to fix coil whine is by stressing the card for a day or so. You could try running something like Unigine Heaven benchmark on loop, which may fix it - but this won't always help. Another method is with hot glue - although I'm not entirely sure that works any more.

Other than that, your only other option really is replacing the card - which I'm sure you're aware of.

 

[S_I_N]

how is your monitor set up for input?? DVI or HDMI? if HDMI try disabling the HDMI sound options and just using the sound card. Just because you installed a card (sound) dont mean its doing all the controlling. You'll need to access the sound options in the control panel and simply turn off anything sound related to HDMI or the GPU

 

[SWDescent]

how is your monitor set up for input?? DVI or HDMI? if HDMI try disabling the HDMI sound options and just using the sound card. Just because you installed a card (sound) dont mean its doing all the controlling. You'll need to access the sound options in the control panel and simply turn off anything sound related to HDMI or the GPU

Again sorry for not mentioning that, I had all of the hdmi output's disabled as well as going under the sound output device options and disabling the amd option and it was still there, also I've tried two different DVI Cables as well as two different hdmi cables. I've even put extra grounding from all possible points on the case/motherboard/and even the brackets on the back of the case where the cards are mounted, all grounded to the powersupply and tested the ground on the outlet all is well.

I was just upset because MSI wouldn't RMA it, Luckily Newegg Let me rma all the parts, MSI was the one telling me to replace the parts. I listened to them, then I got the guys a few days ago that didn't even want to talk to me, that's why I'm complaining about them, the first few didn't ask for any info, and when the guy told me "Try a different card" and hung up is when I was ticked, and right now I'm waiting on a phone call from the supervisor that was supposed to call back within a day...that was 4 or 5 days ago now, and I know it's going to be more of a run around if I try calling back, since the first two guys just hung up on me and the 3rd guy that finally asked for my information never even started a claim when I called back the 4th time the guy couldn't find anything besides my initial call 2 months back about the motherboard being the possible culprit.

That's the part I'm mad about, like I said, I've been buying there brand of Motherboards/Video cards for over 10 years now and I've just been lucky enough to never of had to call them to fix the problems I've had over the years, then the one time I have a problem they treat me like I know nothing about computers and then hang up on me, and then their supervisor wouldn't talk to me on the phone and didn't call me back (literally tried waiting on the line for the supervisor, 20mins later the guy comes back on and said they're not allowed to talk to customers this long and hung up then so now I'm stuck waiting and I guess I'll try calling back again today). Sorry if I'm venting but I need to get this out before I kill someone


Also I've tried the vsyn thing like they were mentioning and then I get horrible input lag in almost 75-80% of the games I try to play. :/ Lose lose either way, Just upset my geforce card I put in there completely fixes the noise issue (had the speakers full volume and no strange noises at all, which is pretty good even my old computer you can hear a tick at full volume when hdd is loading), too bad it's a 9800GTX+OC so BF3 won't even hit 35fps on low settings :/

Update: Ditched the 7870, ordered a 760 yesterday, waiting for that in the mail, hopefully it's like my 9800GTX+OC was and wont have any noise.

Update: Ditched the 7970, ordered a 760 yesterday, just gotta tough it out with the wimpy 9800GTX+ till it arrives, so no 1080p gaming for a little while, oh well.

 

[jamesriley94]

Double posting isn't allowed here - you've posted 4 in a row. I've merged them all together.

If you want to add more information in future, please edit your previous post rather than making another one.

Thanks