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It seems the entire R9 Fiji line, to which my GPU belongs, has this horrible coil-whine problem. My RMA is worse than my original purchase.

In regards to user-action that can be taken to reduce coil-whine, Amdmatt, from AMD Communities, states:

Find a game or application that produces the most whine and leave it running for 12-24 hours. This may soften the whine over time.

Is this true, and if so what is the reasoning behind how this reduces coil whine?

Update: It's not true for me that burning in as described above will help in any way whatsoever.

Hennes
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Louis Waweru
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  • From a quick read of wikipedia this will only make it worse. Glue is sometimes used to dampen the movement reducing the whine but eventually the glue degrades and it worsens again. – djsmiley2kStaysInside Oct 05 '16 at 13:40
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    @djsmiley2k Thanks, I will not be trying this then! – Louis Waweru Oct 05 '16 at 14:53
  • No worries, I'm not an expert but the explaination on wikipedia kind of makes sense that it wouldn't help. It's the metal expanding and contracting - how running it for a long time would help this, I don't know? – djsmiley2kStaysInside Oct 05 '16 at 15:25
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    “Coil whine” means the component is cheap. If you “burn in” a cheap component that is whining, the chances are quite high that you will burn *out* the component and render the card useless. That said, if you are 100% sure of what component is causing the coil whine—and you are up to it—you can either remove and replace it with a better quality component or simply attempt to re-solder it. Your choice as far as what level of effort is worth it. – Giacomo1968 Jan 12 '17 at 23:33

1 Answers1

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In general, coil whine can be caused by a cheap power supply unit - low grade components - or the graphics card itself or both.

Since, as you've already mentioned, this is a known issue for the production line of your graphics card you could do the following:

( - check, just in case, if your psu makes the gpu produce the coil whine)

  • get used to it

  • do the burn-in or play games with heavy gpu usage

  • rma it

Regarding the burn-in, from my personal experience, there won't be much of a difference. My old gtx580, after years of heavy gaming, still produces coil whine.

If you choose the rma option, you are up against the lottery (as you've seen). You could get a new one with the same, less, or even more amount of coil whine...

George Pardalis
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  • Thanks, [the PSU is high-quality](http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=163). I'm wary of doing the burn in because I don't understand the reasoning and I've already RMAed it :( – Louis Waweru Oct 05 '16 at 14:55
  • As far as I know, in time (and under normal use) all the electrical components of the gpu will wear and MAY come to a point where they dont produce as much coil whine. That's the theory. With burn-in / stressing the board you should be able to accelerate this process. – George Pardalis Oct 05 '16 at 15:02