Asus r9 280x buzzing / coil whine noise

Gamerzzz

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Dec 4, 2013
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Hi, I recently purchased the asus r9 280x and have been experiencing major coil whine in almost every game that I've played. In bf4 and ac black flag the card makes a buzzing noise but when I start up gta 4 it makes a really loud squeaking noise which is basically coil whine. So I'm wondering if someone else has the same issue with this card because I'm not sure if I should RMA it risking to get one with even worse coil noise. Thanks!
 
Solution
The high pitched squealing is from rendering a large number of frames (presumably the in game menu doesn't have Vsync or a frame limiter enabled), and with regular game framerates it's not quite as high so it produces a buzz instead

Coil whine is normal for a GPU, though in your situation it would be a good idea to RMA it, perhaps you'll get lucky and get a replacement which doesn't have any whine

Enabling Vsync will eliminate the high pitched squeal, you could use Dynamic Vsync using Radeonpro (AMD's equivalent of adaptive Vsync) if your replacement whines as well

Gamerzzz

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Dec 4, 2013
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Well it has only been 2 weeks since I have it and I purchased it from newegg. From what I've read in forums they are pretty good with RMAs and since I've had it for less than 1 month they should send me a new replacement card... However I'm not sure if it's worth it. Yes the sound can get pretty annoying but I just don't want to wait 2 weeks for a replacement just to get a card with the same issue...So I just want to know if the coil noise for this card is normal or if it's just faulty (even though everyone claims it to be very quiet). :??:
 
The high pitched squealing is from rendering a large number of frames (presumably the in game menu doesn't have Vsync or a frame limiter enabled), and with regular game framerates it's not quite as high so it produces a buzz instead

Coil whine is normal for a GPU, though in your situation it would be a good idea to RMA it, perhaps you'll get lucky and get a replacement which doesn't have any whine

Enabling Vsync will eliminate the high pitched squeal, you could use Dynamic Vsync using Radeonpro (AMD's equivalent of adaptive Vsync) if your replacement whines as well
 
Solution

Gamerzzz

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Dec 4, 2013
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Yea I think I will RMA it because it's becoming even worse. When I played crysis 2 this morning my card was making the squeaking noise only while I was in the game menu and was buzzing a little bit while in-game. Now, it makes the same sound in-game as in the menu even though I'm getting around 80fps. So I decided to enable v-sync and guess what? It was still squeaking at 60fps. Really need to RMA it before the warranty expires! Thanks for your help guys!
 

Gamerzzz

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Dec 4, 2013
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I ended up exchanging my card for a new one and had once again the same issue...so I realized that there was nothing I could do about it. However after using the card for about 3 months the coil whine disappeared. I was getting coil whine in AC4, crysis2, crysis3 and in many other games but not anymore. Don't know what happened but right now it's dead silent. So just put your headphones on if it bothers you that much and hopefully the coil whine will disappear in the near future!
 

lordas

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Apr 10, 2014
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every card has coil wine, they are alcoholics. :p. seriously, my XFX 6850 did that too , but after they coilwine for some weeks then its not that loud. its caused by high fps, you can stop coilwine if you enable vsync, in crysis you need to download the patch. also you can stop it by using a software that will limit the fps of your card when they are not needed, msi afterburner, or nvidia inspector
in game menus is the worst, it renders ridiculously high amount of useless fps. i get fps of 2000+ in crysis menu, but i fixed it now with the patch and vsync . it drives the card crazy