How to quickly & easily fix coil-whine(coil choke noise)

[lexluthermiester]

Give it a shot - heavens a super small download, and you just need to run it and quit it

I use Heaven, Valley and Superposition all the time.

That final screen is literally how i test GPU's for coil whine, just make sure you have no frame rate limiters on

Yuppers, that's how I test.

 

[athenaesword]

@lexluthermiester "However, nowadays, sealing conductors is difficult on the GPUs and motherboards because they don’t have toroidal inductors; instead, they have enclosed box inductors with dampening material. But, that diminishing it isn’t always guaranteed to work well, especially if cheap ones are used."
are all the chokes on the 4090 open where the glue can flow in?

 

[lexluthermiester]

are all the chokes on the 4090 open where the glue can flow in?

What do you mean by "open"?

 

[athenaesword]

What do you mean by "open"?

Like there’s a gap for the glue to be squeezed in

 

[lexluthermiester]

Like there’s a gap for the glue to be squeezed in

Oh, of course. To my knowledge, no one is gluing down chokes, so all cards have gaps between the chokes and card PCB's.

 

[Wirko]

Oh, of course. To my knowledge, no one is gluing down chokes, so all cards have gaps between the chokes and card PCB's.

You two probably aren't talking about the same thing. Each individual component must be sealed so that the cleaning agents (used in PCB manufacturing) either can't get in, or are easily flushed out. In the case of box chokes, any liquid that could get in through a hole/gap/crack would be trapped inside and possibly increase the (unwanted) capacitance.
But of course there's a gap between the choke and the PCB.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Each individual component must be sealed so that the cleaning agents (used in PCB manufacturing) either can't get in

That is not correct. The coil wires are enamel coated before being installed in the casing to prevent shorting. There is no need to seal them.

In the case of box chokes, any liquid that could get in through a hole/gap/crack would be trapped inside and possibly increase the (unwanted) capacitance.

This is also incorrect. Choke coils have no capacitance and can not be made to be capacitive.

 

[Shrek]

Any gap makes things capacitive, so there will be be a tiny capacitance between the coils and surrounding tracks, even the gap between windings.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Any gap makes things capacitive, so there will be be a tiny capacitance between the coils and surrounding tracks, even the gap between windings.

Please explain. How does an enamel coated coil store an electric charge?

 

[Shrek]

The voltage drops along the coil, so each winding has a different voltage and is separated by a dielectric; this is exactly how a capacitor works.
Coil32 - Self-capacitance of single-layer inductor

Of course, this is a very small capacitance but may be of relevance at high frequencies.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The voltage drops along the coil, so each winding has a different voltage and is separated by a dielectric; this is exactly how a capacitor works.
Coil32 - Self-capacitance of single-layer inductor

Of course, this is a very small capacitance but may be of relevance at high frequencies.

Ah ok, I see what you are talking about. However, no this does not happen to be a part of coil whine effect. Whatever capacitance happens is not related to the generation of sound from the coils, which is a physical resonance effect.

 

[Stevenson1512]

Hi all, I've recently got my hands on a 2nd hand gigabyte 3070 vision oc rev1 that probs needs new thermal pads, repaste and cleaning. Thought I might aswell try and reduce the coil whine under load while I was at it.

I believe that the 3070 vision oc shares the same pcb and layout as the gaming and eagle oc variants.
Could I get some insight on which components I should focus on. Cheers

The first linked image is the 3070 vision pcb I found from a thermalpad database website (thermalpad.eu)

Second one is the 3070 gaming oc variants pcb from a tpu review

 

[ad1]

hi @lexluthermiester

Can you suggest which chokes should be glued on an MSI 4090 Suprim X? I'm from Europe and I'm not sure what my chances are of an RMA through the store where I bought it, or if the RMA would even fix the coil whine.

Thanks! Here is the board from the TPU review.

 

[lexluthermiester]

hi @lexluthermiester

Can you suggest which chokes should be glued on an MSI 4090 Suprim X? I'm from Europe and I'm not sure what my chances are of an RMA through the store where I bought it, or if the RMA would even fix the coil whine.

Thanks! Here is the board from the TPU review.

View attachment 282721

No worries. Below is the same photo, but highlighted.

The ones in Red are the most likely culprits. The HCIs in Yellow might also be the culprits. Again, I recommend doing them all in one go.

 

[dEvAnGeL]

@lexluthermiester Hello. Googling a fix for coil whine i came across this thread. I have followed your steps and I’m currently waiting for the super glue to cure. I have a fan on top of it to help cure the glue faster. I think I might have used a little to much lol. My card is an MSI 4090 Suprim Liquid X. What i am a bit nervous is that on some of the chokes i put super glue on top. Wouldn’t that affect the heat transfer to the heatsink? I will post results once i put the card back together and test it.

 

[Shrek]

Yes, I imagine superglue is not a very good conductor of heat; why did you put it on top?

 

[dEvAnGeL]

Yes, I imagine superglue is not a very good conductor of heat; why did you put it on top?

By mistake. My hands got full of it and when holding the card i put it on some of them. When i try to remove it. It was impossible and i was afraid to detach the choke from the PCB.

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

By mistake. My hands got full of it and when holding the card i put it on some of them. When i try to remove it. It was impossible and i was afraid to detach the choke from the PCB.

It should be OK, the chokes do not produce heat anything like a VRM or RAM chip.

 

[dEvAnGeL]

It should be OK, the chokes do not produce heat anything like a VRM or RAM chip.

I still have the card under a fan having the glue get dry. Let’s see if this works. I’ll probably wait another hour or two before i put it back together.

This didn’t work for me. Waited almost 5 hours for the superglue to cure and made sure it was dry. Put the card back together and unfortunately coil whine is still there.

 

[lexluthermiester]

What i am a bit nervous is that on some of the chokes i put super glue on top.

You should not have done that. Unless the choke has an open top(most don't these days) there is no need. However...

Wouldn’t that affect the heat transfer to the heatsink?

...as long as you didn't cake it on, you should be fine. Chokes don't generate much heat(if any), so it's not something to worry about.

BTW, Welcome to TPU!

This didn’t work for me. Waited almost 5 hours for the superglue to cure and made sure it was dry. Put the card back together and unfortunately coil whine is still there.

That sucks. That's the issue with coil whine, it doesn't happen the same way with every video card and thus this fix doesn't always work.

 

[athenaesword]

I still have the card under a fan having the glue get dry. Let’s see if this works. I’ll probably wait another hour or two before i put it back together.

This didn’t work for me. Waited almost 5 hours for the superglue to cure and made sure it was dry. Put the card back together and unfortunately coil whine is still there.

Is the card working exactly the same?

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Manufacturers could solve this problem by encasing the choke (which a lot already are now anyway), and putting a small hole in the top of the casing, then inject a special liquid thermal paste compound that dries solid. All the better if the paste has both heat conducting and sound dampening properties. I'm thinking metal and mineral compounds to conduct heat and dampen sound.

 

[Shrek]

 

[lexluthermiester]

View attachment 283499

You've recommended this before. I've tested a varnish like this in the past, didn't work as well as super glue and took forever to cure...

 

[Shrek]

I am concerned about temperature.

The Most Common Questions and Answers about Cyanoacrylate Adhesives (gluegun.com)

suggests 200F (93C), whereas some coils can run above boiling point. The red insulating varnish is good to 155C