Graphics Card related questions

Yes if nothing is damaged, you can still send it in for warranty service.

At this moment we can only refer to the information in the following articles:
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Look...
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-speci...
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/geforce-gtx-970-correcting...

Any update on this yet? I feel somewhat tricked by this. Bought my GTX 970 merely 3 weeks ago mainly to play in very high resolution games (2k and 4k).

My specs:
MSI Z97I ACK (mbot)
MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4GB (gfx), purchased 28/11-14
EVGA SuperNova G2 750W (psu)

Hi!

I bought a MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4GB from the swedish retailer "Alina" and recently started experiencing coilwhine when playing Dying Light. Also tried Heaven Benchmark and get the same results. Have a 144hz monitor and tried Heaven Benchmark in 1920x1080 on "High" with AA on "8x".

They actually told me that I should upgrade to a more expensive card (!) to avoid coilwhine but I am wondering if you will accept an RMA for the card if the coilwhine is in the card itself and not a combination of the card and my other hardware?

Best Regards

Coil whine is something that can happen with any switching power supply circuit at certain workloads. Basically the workload makes the coils resonate making the noise.
MSI already minimized the chances of coil whine by choosing higher-end components than the reference design.
Still external factors also play a role (PSU, motherboard and workload) as they all have influence on the power delivery to the graphics card.

Coilwhine is also a very subjective topic. Therefore we tell shops to judge it case by case and if the noise is really too much (=subjective as it depends on the observer) then just send it in for warranty repair/replacement (RMA).
Also different noise frequencies are experienced differently by each person.

In our office I have tested more than 30pcs GTX 970 GAMING 4G but none of the cards had extreme coil whine but all had a little coil whine if you listened closely in an open test system.
We also searched for workloads that triggered the most coil whine (e.g. Nvidia face render demo (loading screen)).

Sometimes the wrong coils are blamed for the noise.
We did notice that the coils in some power supply units also started whining when using the GTX 970 GAMING 4G at certain workloads (Unigine Heaven and Valley).
So it can also be a combination of the PSU, MB and Gfx card. Changing any of those components may change the coil whine.

Since I have only tested between 30-40pcs it is entirely possible that there are units out there that have unbearable coil whine.

Hi,

@Ruudt: Sorry for hijacking the thread a little bit but I noticed this post and thought I needed to have a closer look at the case.

@TheSwede86: I'll continue in english so everybody can follow. If you have issues with coil whine we are happy to take a look at it. Being recommended to upgrade due to coil whine is not something we as a company endorse so I am sorry for your experience. I would love to know more about this, so please send me an email at david@alina.se with your order details (receipt number/order number or similar) as well as a description of your troubles with the card and I'll pass it on to our support.

Best regards,
David – Alina

Thanks David, excellent support.

Thank you for your detailed reply. Good to see MSI representation in the forums.

Thank you as well, I have been in contact with you (Alina customer service, not you directly) in regards to this and also forwarded the email to you (specifically) for your reference.

Always make sure you use the latest nvidia drivers and latest game patches.

You can check the standard things first: to rule out if it is software or other components in your system, you could install the vga card in someone else's system and see if it stable (might need a friend's PC or take it to the shop).
Make sure that your power supply is up to the task.
Keep an eye on the GPU temperature when it crashes (you can use MSI afterburner).
Usually I test with Unigine Valley (freeware benchmark) to see if the system is stable:
https://unigine.com/products/valley/

If the issues is from the beginning then the card might be broken all that time.
If I were you I would contact the shop to see if you still have warranty.

If you would like tot try the latest vbios, just send me a PM with the serial number and I will give you a link to the latest vbios for your graphics card.
(I need the first part of the serial number, eg, 602-Vxxx-yyyy to determine the correct vbios version for the card).

Hello MSI

I managed to break a fan blade on my GTX 970 Gaming with the Twin Frozr V cooler.
It was not covered by warranty so the retailer (Inet) said he could give me a good price for an aftermarket cooler.

Is it possible to get a new "Twin Frozr V" cooler/fan to replace the broken one or maybe send it in for a repair at a cost?

And if its not will any of these coolers fit your 970 PCB:
http://www.inet.se/produkt/5322372/arctic-cooling-accelero-xt...
http://www.inet.se/produkt/5322375/arctic-cooling-accelero-tw...

Best Regards Viktor

I am sorry to inform you that we don't sell the TwinFrozr coolers/fans separately ourselves.
There are some suppliers on Ebay or Aliexpress that offer a fan replacement, which might be the cheapest option.

for example this link (I searched on "MSI 95mm fan"):
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=msi+780+fan&_from=R40%7C...

I think the Arctic aftermarket coolers are designed to fit on most cards and probably have some flexible way of mounting them but I don't have any information about their compatibility. To make sure you could ask Arctic about that.

Hey @Ruudt

I recently helped a friend build a new computer, I also picked out the parts for said computer.
There is just one issue.
The computer will be used for playing onlinepoker with 3 monitors, and therefore we went with a MSI GeForce GTX 960 2GB Gaming 100ME, the problem is that the computer wont recognize any of the displays if we connect them to the 3 displayports (via a displayport to hdmi cable since the monitors only have hdmi in) but when we connect from the hdmi port on the gpu with an hdmi to hdmi cable we can get one of the monitors to work.

Windows 8.1 with all the latest updates (including all the most recent Nvidia-drivers)
The monitors are: Samsung 24" S24D590P PLS LED

Looking forward to your answer, just tell me if there is any other info you will need!
Thanks

/Nixxu

Hi Nixxu, sorry for the delay.

3 monitors should not be problem all GTX 900 series support up to 4 FHD monitors (or 3 UHD monitors).
The problems is most likely caused by the DP-to-HDMI adapters/cables.
Passive adapter/cables don't work, you need an active DP-to-HDMI adapter.

Something like this:
http://www.inet.se/produkt/8906419/accell-adapter-displayport...

The GTX 980 GAMING 4G has what we call "independent fan control".
What that means is that the first fan (closest to DP/HDMI ports) is monitoring the GPU temperature (if GPU goes above 60°C it will start and if it falls below 50°C it will stop).
The second fan is triggered by the power circuit temperature of the graphics card. So if the power circuit heats up the second fan will start spinning.

I have noticed the second fan can also spin in light load (like browsing or video playback). Even sometimes in idle.
Usually it spins so slowly that you won't hear it.

If you want to manually control the fans you can use the MSI fan control utility.

P.S., the second fan cannot be controlled by Afterburner (or other tools).

But Im guessing the second fan kicks in relatively soon when gaming? Anyway. As long as the cooling/sound level is optimal, I guess the fans can start and stop whenever they want. :)Looking forward to pick up my purchase!

Edit: Is it the same for R9 390 cards?

The R9 390(X) doesn't have independent fan control but it has the ZeroFrozr feature (starting when above ~60°C and stopping when below ~50°C).
Only the GTX 980 GAMING 4G has ZeroFrozr AND independent fan control.
Other Gaming models like: GTX 980 Ti, GTX 970, R9 390(X), R9 380 and R7 370, only have the ZeroFrozr feature.

Sorry for the delay.
With a GTX 980 Ti power and cooling is important.
Temperatures can be easily monitored with software tools Afterburner, HWInfo64, HWMonitor etc.
I don't know what kind of of Power Supply Unit you might want to try a different PSU.
Nvidia recommends at least a 600Watt PSU.

Hi MSi
Need advice regarding my 1 year old 980 4g gaming card.
Ever since i bought the card I have been experiencing Coil Whine when FPS gets to certain levels at approx 250-300 FPS and above.
When for example running 3DMark benchmarking, in Icestorm, CLoud Gate I have really nisy coilwhine at approx 4000-5000 FPS, and in Sky Diver I can hear it aswell having approx 260-300 FPS. Is this normal ?

Think it might be normal in such high numbers as thousands of FPS, but coil whine already at approx 300 ????
Should I go for RMA?

Thanks
//Anders

Coil whine is something that can happen with any switching power supply circuit at certain workloads.
Basically the workload makes the coils resonate making the noise.
MSI already minimized the chances of coil whine by choosing higher-end components than the reference design.
Still external factors also play a role (PSU, motherboard and workload) as they all have influence on the power delivery to the graphics card.

Coilwhine is also a very subjective topic.
Therefore we tell shops to judge it case by case and if the noise is really too much (=subjective as it depends on the observer), then just send it in for warranty repair/replacement (RMA).
Also different noise frequencies are experienced differently by each person.

In our office I have tested more than 30pcs GTX 970 GAMING 4G and 15pcs GTX 980 GAMING 4G but none of the cards had extreme coil whine but all had a little coil whine if you listened closely in an open test system.
We also searched for workloads that triggered the most coil whine (e.g. Nvidia face render demo (loading screen)).

We did notice that the coils in some power supply units (PSU) also started whining when using the GTX 970 GAMING 4G at certain workloads (Unigine Heaven and Valley).
So it can also be a combination of the PSU, MB and Gfx card. Changing any of those components may change the coil whine.
Also two cards in SLI can sometimes worsen the noise.

Since I have only tested between 40-50pcs it is entirely possible that there are units out there that have unbearable coil whine but it's up to the shops to judge case-by-case.

@Ruudt hey i have an idea!

What about making a sort of system where ppl could switch on/off for certain tdp/watt?

For example a card in the low or mid range that requires a 6pin.

what i mean is why not have a switch on the card itself that can allow the customer to switch between 2 modes
1:normal mode
2: within range of wattage that the motherboard can deliver? it means ofc that boost function and overclocking wont be possible and also it will bring down clocks to match the max wattage that the motherboard is capable of delivering. And thus there will be no need for a 6pin from the PSU. And also i think this will be greatly appreciated by large scale of the community because it gives the picopsu users, people with psu´s without the 6pin,people that wants to cut down wattage/heat(for example in minimalistic pc chassis) better options.

Sure performance will drop but its still a nice option for those that wants to choose.

Br chris

Not to be rude but I don't see the point.
Why would you buy a high power gfx card only to cripple it by not giving it enough power?
It will probably run slower than a card that is designed for <75W.

There are plenty of cards that only need the power from the PCIe slot (=max 75W).
For example GTX 750 or R7 250 or lower.

because the performance diff would not be as great as you tell me. Not that i think of anyway.
And the idea was not to cripple the cards but to give the option, whenver the user would want to change back it would be just a switch away.

A "crippled" 950 would perform just a tad worse than itself and still be faster than a 750ti

also this idea was not meant for cards with more than one 6pin input since THAT would not make sense.

A gtx 950 could be without the 6pin by turning off the boost and undervolt it which in my opinion would be a great card without extra power supply BUT this is just my puny idea many would not like anyway.

And no harm done it was just an idea!

BR

I can see the need for more graphics power on a power budget.
Especially with graphics cards, performance costs watts.

Another idea would be to use a mobile GPU (e.g. GTX 970M) on a PCIe add-on card.
Mobile GPUs usually have better efficiency but that will increase cost.
We have done that in the past.

I think the idea for more efficient/quiet gfx cards in a small form factor is not bad but it's probably a very limited market.

thats a very good idea and should be done. im sure some would pay a bit more for a more efficient gpu in minimalistic size, lower heat dissipation/lower watts without the need for extra power supply demands