NO MORE GTX 280 SQUEALING! Nvidia’s “Deadly” Flaw and How To Fix It

[AuDioFreaK39]

Many thanks go out to Theo Valich for posting this article.


Theo's Bright Side of IT - NVIDIA's "deadly" Flaw and How To Fix It - No More GTX 280 Squealing!

It is no secret that I am huge fan of Folding@Home project, or that I love to play computer games (when I find time ). Both of these activities put high amounts of strain on components inside the computer, and any weakness in product design can be easily discovered.

This tale speaks of a company that makes great chips, but also has a serious design flaw: PCB design. As long as story about “Built by Nvidia” components was told, there were isolated cases of “squealing”. This squealing is caused by vibration of copper coils, and is not present on products designed by people that take attention at these things. Read: if your card has Digital Voltage Regulation Module (DVRM, as Iwill originally called it - Digital PWM is more popular these days) or all solid-state caps and shielded chokes, no sound should be produced. But, if your part has coils or non-shielded capacitors/chokes, you could be “enjoying” in squealing sounds of electronics.

To make the matters clear, certain products from BOTH ATI and Nvidia can squeal under load. ATI moved to clear the issue, Nvidia didn’t. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to record squealing with any of my microphones (upcoming test lab will feature ultra-sensitive microphone equipment), but in a silent computer with three Noctua fans, any non-standard behavior is noticeable. This high-pitched noise is often eaten by the sound of fans, but if you have a silent rig, it gets really, I mean REALLY - annoying.

The squealing is only appearing when the GPU is cranked all the way up, in Folding@Home, Far Cry 2, Crysis: Warhead - the same cards that squealed like pigs in Crysis didn’t do the same in Unreal Tournament 3, Fallout 3 or Race Driver: GRID.

After experiencing squealing with my reference Nvidia GTX280 card in the past month or so, I’ve thoroughly checked following products:

* ATI Radeon X850XT
* ATI Radeon X1800XT CrossFire Edition
* ATI Radeon 2900XT 512MB
* ATI FireGL V8600 1024MB (2900XT)
* ATI Radeon 3850 256MB
* ASUS EN9800GX2 1024MB TOP
* ASUS EN9800GTX 512MB TOP
* EVGA GeForce GTX260 Core 216 896MB x2
* EVGA GeForce GTX280 SuperClocked 1024MB
* EVGA GeForce GTX280 SSC 1024MB x2
* Gainward GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
* Gainward GeForce 8800GT 512MB
* Palit Radeon 4850 512MB x2
* Palit Radeon 4870 512MB x2
* Palit GeForce 9800GX2 1024MB x2
* Palit GeForce GTX280 1024MB
* Sapphire Atomic 3870 512MB
* XFX GeForce 8600GTS 256MB XXX Edition


Keep Reading..

 

[jivetrky]

Boy, wouldn't covering the caps and chokes with polish cause any heat issues?

 

[BossBorot]

they typically can handle very high temps so I doubt that it would in all but the rarest of cases

 

[MadMan007]

Boy, wouldn't covering the caps and chokes with polish cause any heat issues?

I'm not sure why they did the caps, caps sure as heck shouldn't be squealing but they don't get hot on their own much either.

The coils are the issue and a coil's wire wrapping will always be insulated anyway. If they were properly assembled the issue wouldn't happen eitehr as they should be bonded together like this from the factory. The squealing happens because some of the coil wires are 'loose' (on a very small scale, nothing you can see really) and vibrate when they have current running through them. It's the same thing as a transformer buzzing just at a much higher frequency.

 

[ViperJohn]

This isn't exactly a revelation or stroke of genius. The noise referred to is series inductor singing
and it is CERTAINLY NOT a deadly flaw!!! It has been around since the first switching power
supplies were developed. It is as common as house flies in high phase current switching power
supplies used for the CPU/GPU on GFX cards and motherboards. Both NV and ATI have had issues
with this depending on the design of the power supplies and more specifically the inductors used
in the manufacturing of a given series of cards.

It is most commonly the turns of copper wire in the phase series inductors vibrating at an audible
sub-harmonic of the power supplies switching frequency when the CPU/GPU is under high load
and current pulses through the series inductor are at very high level. It crops up quite often
with some modded GFX cards where the combination of increased Vcore and GPU speed drives
the phase currents upwards of 60%+ higher than stock.

Inductors where the wire coils are not potted or varnished in place to prevent the vibration can
play a symphony that varies with the constantly changing current pulses. It can be irritating
as hell sometimes. It is not damaging anything but your nerves if you have a bad case of singing.

It is easy to correct if you can get to the coils without desoldering the inductors to get at the
coils. Insulating varnish, clear nail polish or thick set cyanoacrylate glues have all been used
to quite singing series inductors with the latter being an RMA test tech's best friend.

Viper