So I am not sure what is going on... At first I was thinking it was coil whine... but looking into what exactly that is... I am certain this can't be what it is... unless it literally is the worst case of coil whine.
A few months ago when covid started forcing people to stay home... I busted my old gaming rig out and dust it off and try to get back into PC gaming. However I ran into this unique issue. Whenever a game is running, whether it is a game like Destiny 2 or WoW... the whine is persistent ONLY when the game is up. If I alt tab out of the game, it instantly goes away, until I alt tab back into it.
At first, I thought it was an alarm because the temps were spiking... seeing as it sat for years without any use. I opened the case, cleaned all the dust out, and went the extra mile and re-applied the thermal paste on BOTH the GPU and CPU... fired it back up and the problem didn't happen for a few days... then magically it came back.
Running cinnebench and other stress tests to get the computer at max load for CPU, GPU and RAM, temps etc, not a single peep. I let the computer cool down and rest. When things got back to normal ranges, I fired up WoW and BAM... started screaming again. I thought it might be a voltage alarm, but according to open hardware, the volts didn't change more than .5-.75v in either direction.
I am not overclocking this computer or card, have never OCed it in the past.
Here is a video to give you an example of what I am talking about. Even with a headset on, it pierces through, and I can't just ignore it, because my headset mic picks it up and it gets broadcast in whatever chat channel I am in.
The MOBO is an Asus Maximus VI Hero, and the error read LED is reading AO, which according to the manual, is a normal reading? (Correct me if I am wrong).
I am not seeing anything in the event log that might point any fingers at something... I am truly lost on this. Looking to hopefully get some fresh set of eyes (and ears) on this to maybe figure out what is causing this issue. A new build is out of budget, but if it is one or two minor components causing this, then I could update those if need be.
Build info:
MOBO: Asus Maximus VII Hero
CPU: Intel i7 4790k(Devil's Canyon)
RAM: G SKILL Sniper 16gb
GPU: Sapphire R9 280
PSU: Not sure at the time of the writing. I will have to tear apart the case to look at it.