Brand New GFX Card - Whine at load.

[MSwan]

Hi, having a bit of trouble with an order, could do with some advise. Three or so weeks ago I sent my computer in to be RMA'd. It had begun crashing on boot, and I wasn't sure what the cause was, so I went with the safer option of just having the entire thing sent back in. Turns out my GFX card had died, which I didn't find that surprising, and decided to buy a new 580GTX.

Got it back yesterday, wasn't really able to play about with it until today though.

So, like a fair few people today, I started up Skyrim and got to killing things. Which is when I noticed a light whine coming from the computer. I didn't think much of it, I know that my power supply has some noise issues sometimes, and kept playing. But it seems to have gotten worse in just the hour or so since. Fearing imminent bad things happening, I closed out of Skyrim and got to hunting down the cause.

I am fairly certain that it is the new GFX card. I went and got a copy of FurMark, put the card through its paces, and it got much, much louder as the card got hotter. This is not just a noisy fan, its a definite whine, like something is grinding against it. I had a look, everything is secure, nothing seems to have gotten knocked about in transit. When they stress tested it, by all accounts it was fine. It gets worse the higher the temperatures go (and I imagine the faster the fan spins) and it seems to start at 65 or so degrees (Which is basically whenever it is under load).

Not sure what to do next. I am not even sure on how to go about making certain that it is the graphics card (Although I am almost certain that it is). Is this something worth trying to get a replacement over, or am I stuck with a noisy card? Again, brand new card, so it must of either happened in transit, or while it was still away. I would have just sent a message directly to Pcspecialist, but not sure if they respond during the weekend. Advise?

 

[Gorman]

Is it cap whine?

Try setting vsync to on in the driver and running the same game and furmark, is the noise reduced?

 

[MSwan]

Is it cap whine?

Try setting vsync to on in the driver and running the same game and furmark, is the noise reduced?

Forced vsync on. It increased the amount of time it took for the graphics card to heat up, however as soon as the fans hit ~60% it is still whining. I am fairly sure this is not just me thinking that the normal fan noise is abnormal. It is an entirely different kind of noise. There also seems to be a few posts floating about the internet that suggest the Gainward 580 sometimes has this issue. Not sure : /

 

[Gorman]

Wanted to see if the card was over rendering, hence the vsync. Some games and furmark have been known to have missing frame caps so if a card can render a scene 6000 times a second it will, causes a lot of noise.

High end cards to make a fair amount of noise, if this one is whining loudly (not fan whine, cap whine) i would suggest discussing it with the call centre.

 

[MSwan]

Wanted to see if the card was over rendering, hence the vsync. Some games and furmark have been known to have missing frame caps so if a card can render a scene 6000 times a second it will, causes a lot of noise.

High end cards to make a fair amount of noise, if this one is whining loudly (not fan whine, cap whine) i would suggest discussing it with the call centre.

Aye, got off the phone with them, they think its cap whine. Which is fine, I was just a little bit worried that something was actually wrong. Wrong in that something was about to fail wrong. Thank you for the help though

 

[Gorman]

I used to fold on my gpu a fair bit, it would scream quite loudly and has no fan, its watercooled!

 

[MSwan]

So, my troubles seem to have developed a little bit farther. Should coil whine get worse and worse? Because, while before you could only hear it when the system was under a reasonable amount of load, it is now audible all the time. And it is quite loud. I don't really mind suffering through some noise, but this is getting a bit silly.

I understand that some cards just do this, but having just spent £350 on it, I am a tad frustrated that I cannot sit in the same room as the computer without developing a headache after a half hour. Is this an RMA'able type situation? Are separate graphic card orders subject to any buyers protections (like the 7 day cooloff policy)? Because at the moment, really not chuffed with my graphics card.