7970 buzzing sound

Hi Forum,

So i've purchased a MSI 7970 recently and i've just noticed that it makes a wierd buzzing sound, bzzzzzz whenever

1. I run a game (BF3/Metro2033/Skyrim etc).
But if i'm not in any games, there is no buzzing sound.

2. This occurs regardless of me overclocking it or not

3. In Skyrim ==> only buzzes once i've loaded a game. If i start it and leave it on the menu screen there is no buz.

4. In battlefield 3, when it's loading between maps/loading hte lelve before joining into the game)

IS something wrong? lol

I'm no expert, but I know when some graphics cards are under a lot of stress they can make a buzzing sound like that. My old 5870 did with furmark. With my laptop I always had a buzz/clicking sound when I gamed. Does the pitch/speed of the buzz sound speed up and slow down depending on the frame rate? Anyway sounds normal to me, but wait for advice from a 7970 owner.

That doesn't sound like a fan issue if it happens only in certain cases. Just go to CCC and manually set the fan to 100 or somewhere in that range and listen for it if you want to verify.

This gets my vote. It is a known fact that coils can buzz. This said, i have had it with some video cards(X1900XT 8800GTX being the loudest) and even some boards(K8V SE and X58A UD5[this was fixable with a bios option])

Just plugged in my XFX DD Black, same buzzing noise here when I start Just Cause 2 or 3dmark11.
Actually really annoying.

I sometimes hear my CPU or HDD working, but it's more of a clicking sound. Are you hearing that?

I have the same issue. I first had an XFX 7970 BE. I was having constant display driver crashes and the card would buzz under load. (I can go into Skyrim and play, then the buzz would appear. If I paused the game, it would stop.) I RMA'd the card thinking it was bad. But, upon receiving my MSI 7970 OC edition, it has the same buzzing sound. I fixed the display driver crash by overclocking my pc. Don't know why it helped, but it did. Anyone have any ideas regarding the buzzing?

I never had this problem on my 5870 though. It just worries me. I don't wanna have to rma anything else.

IMO monitor your GPU temperature, make sure everything is OK in that department

Thanks for the reply.
Temp is good, it doesn't come from the fan.
Searching the web, it appears to be "coil whine".

Don't know if it's armful. I think i gona have to rma.

Does it sound like this?


BZZZZZZZZZ

Oh. So something more like


"MMMZMMMMMZMMMMMZMMMMMZM" ?

i also noticed that with my old ECS 560 ti, my new one MSI Twin Frozr did not make the sound, i noticed that sound on very demanding games/benchmarks, it is NOT from the cooler, looks a lot more with the sound that some PSUS do also when the energy is low;

would be nice to know what was causing that too...

Hi,

I have just this evening installed my much anticipated 7970, only to hear a slight buzzing sound when I am playing either Crysis 2 or BF3?! My native resolution is 1920 x 1080 and like you, it stops the moment I stop playing games, and exit back to the desktop, very strange.

I also wonder if this is just the way the cards were designed, and if I had not bought it so early on, will there be a 2nd generation that will have ironed out this problem?

Can you hear yours above any sound coming from your speakers? As mine is to be fair only really audible when I mute the sound? It is somewhat unnerving though as these things are not cheap and the 5870 this replaces never made any such sounds!!

Count your self lucky, I could hear my 4870(or was it the 8800GTX, they both did it) clear across the room. And it varied with load so some games would be quiet them get louder at certain parts. Solution...Put that card in my Antec Sonata(Or my Fractal Define R2) system. My Antec 900(Still a great case) seemed to let all those sounds out allot more. In fact I never noticed any video card noise before I moved to a high airflow case(lots of vents let sound out).

Your card clocks down at idle so the noise should be less.

You can try to set power tune(In CCC, but it may hurt performance under some games.) down and see if it makes a difference.

I am not sure you can do much about it. Well maybe RMA but it seems they are all that way(may get one as bad or even worse). That said, with motherboards messing with the power savings(C1E ect) could help, but you do not have much option for the video card.

I would not have guessed that a coil would degrade, I mean a transformer is effectively 2 coils(induction) and those last for a very long time despite making a racket some times. Even a ballast for a florescent light will not burn the transformer portion until all the other parts are long failed.

By the same right, my 4870 has made a racket for years, but has never shown any signs that it was loosing power. My Samsung 254T power supply buzzes(5 years and counting but you can not hear it unless you are placing your ear very close to that section of the back)

Now capacitors, those will age and loose capacity as well.

I am still for the RMA idea if it bugs you that much, but it seems like almost all the cards are that way. Some power supply makers started to add a capacitor to the PCI-e plugs(or at the board) claiming it would make the power more stable and cards less likely to have this issue. I am almost sure my Corsair HX 850 has that(looks like some on the board, but they may be for something else), may be worth a try with my 4870 or 8800gtx to see if that works.

They list it as a feature here. Antec has also done this for some units(PowerCache™).

"To reduce electrical whine/buzz associated with high performance graphics card’s dynamic loading changes, 2200uF capacitors are attached to PCI-E connectors.
This design also helps to maintain better voltage stability and improve ripple & noise performance. "

http://www.silverstonetek.com/prod [...] =240&area=

I kind of wonder it it is something so simple as filtering the power so the load changes have less effect.

FYI-
I recently purchased a XFX HD Radeon 7970 black edition. It made the same buzzing sound as described above when under load (i.e. gaming). Because of the short RMA policy provided by my retailer, I had it RMA'd immediately. I just received the new card today and it produces the same sound under the same conditions. Beings that it is such a common issue, i would imagine that it isn't a catastrophic malfunction. Either way, this card has a [limited] lifetime warranty and i use headphones when gaming so the buzz goes unnoticed.

My MSI reference 7970 with an EK waterblock has the very loud electrical buzzing noise under full load, very annoying

My x1900XT(this card has been in service since it was released) and 8800GTX did it and still work to this day, I do NOT think it is going to shorten the cards life.

This issue happens on both the Nvidia and ATI side as well as many motherboards.

Lets not forget that many monitor power supplies do this as well and still last for a long time.

Very tempted to try the power cap trick, but all i have access to at the moment are some rather large 4700uF caps(not that those would not work, but I have other plans for those.).