Coil whine from CPU??

[L. Kenter]

Hi everyone,

 

Over the past couple of weeks I've basically upgraded my entire PC except for the OS SSD and CPU.

And now its making some terrible coil whine. 

It happened first when I upgraded my Asus Z170K to an ROG Strix Z270H Gaming to be able to use two M.2 SSDs.

I got myself another SSD and all the other hardware including my 7700K were unchanged, then after reassembly I noticed the coil whine first.

 

So naturally I started looking for the problem, steadily removing and/or swapping out parts to see what was producing the coil whine.

After a lot of testing I figured it had to be the motherboard so I applied it for a refund and got another one, an MSI Z270 Pro Carbon Gaming.

I just put everything together with the new motherboard and.... still coil whine.

As a final test I put everything back on my Z170K aaaaaand still coil whine. 

 

So either I got two motherboards with horrible coil whine and somehow my previous motherboard which never had any issues suddenly developed coil whine too,

or my CPU is producing the noise somehow. Is it possible for a CPU to make a whining scratchy noise or am I really unlucky with the two new motherboards and my old one developing the same issue for no apparent reason? And if it is the CPU, is there any way to fix it?

 

Specs and tested parts:

- i7 7700k with NH-D15 (fans tested with and without Y splitter)

- MSI Z270 Pro Carbon Gaming (used for testing: Asus Z170K and Strix Z270H Gaming)

- Hyperx Fury 2x8gb 3466Mhz (used HyperX Fury 2x8GB 2133Mhz before, both kits tested in every combination and slot)

- Gigabyte RTX 2080 Gaming OC White (used for testing: MSI GT620, GT710, Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 and EVGA RTX 2070S Black)

- Samsung 960 Evo 250GB + Kingston A1000 960GB (used for testing: Crucial P1 1TB, Sandisk 120GB SATA SSD, every slot and combination)

- Corsair HX1200i (used for testing: Corsair TX550M V2, Corsair VS350)

 

Assuming all the new parts worked as they should I already sold some of my old parts so I can't put everything back together exactly as it was when I had no coil whine issues. 

[Thready]

It's (probably) not your CPU, but it could be a VRM on the chip. And if you tried other motherboards then it's not the motherboard.

 

What about your PSU? PSUs are notorious for funny sounds like that.

[HumdrumPenguin]

On 9/14/2019 at 1:13 PM, L. Kenter said:

Hi everyone,

 

Over the past couple of weeks I've basically upgraded my entire PC except for the OS SSD and CPU.

And now its making some terrible coil whine. 

It happened first when I upgraded my Asus Z170K to an ROG Strix Z270H Gaming to be able to use two M.2 SSDs.

I got myself another SSD and all the other hardware including my 7700K were unchanged, then after reassembly I noticed the coil whine first.

 

So naturally I started looking for the problem, steadily removing and/or swapping out parts to see what was producing the coil whine.

After a lot of testing I figured it had to be the motherboard so I applied it for a refund and got another one, an MSI Z270 Pro Carbon Gaming.

I just put everything together with the new motherboard and.... still coil whine.

As a final test I put everything back on my Z170K aaaaaand still coil whine. 

 

So either I got two motherboards with horrible coil whine and somehow my previous motherboard which never had any issues suddenly developed coil whine too,

or my CPU is producing the noise somehow. Is it possible for a CPU to make a whining scratchy noise or am I really unlucky with the two new motherboards and my old one developing the same issue for no apparent reason? And if it is the CPU, is there any way to fix it?

 

Specs and tested parts:

- i7 7700k with NH-D15 (fans tested with and without Y splitter)

- MSI Z270 Pro Carbon Gaming (used for testing: Asus Z170K and Strix Z270H Gaming)

- Hyperx Fury 2x8gb 3466Mhz (used HyperX Fury 2x8GB 2133Mhz before, both kits tested in every combination and slot)

- Gigabyte RTX 2080 Gaming OC White (used for testing: MSI GT620, GT710, Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070 and EVGA RTX 2070S Black)

- Samsung 960 Evo 250GB + Kingston A1000 960GB (used for testing: Crucial P1 1TB, Sandisk 120GB SATA SSD, every slot and combination)

- Corsair HX1200i (used for testing: Corsair TX550M V2, Corsair VS350)

 

Assuming all the new parts worked as they should I already sold some of my old parts so I can't put everything back together exactly as it was when I had no coil whine issues. 

It is either your PSU or Graphics Card. It might even be the combination of the two.

[L. Kenter]

Sorry for the late reply! As I mentioned in the post I tried multiple PSUs and GPUs, and tried those parts on different systems too. The only constant factor in the test scenario is the CPU. The intensity and frequency of the whine does change with different motherboard so there's still a possibility that I'm just really unlucky and all three motherboards have severe coil whine. I'm 100% sure my PSU doesn't produce any coil wine and my GPU only in light games with upcapped framerate (like in the thousands).

In the mean time I got so fed up with the issue that I ordered an ROG Maximus IX Apex Z270, hoping that this high-end board will put an end to the coil whine.