GPU whining noise

paulo93 · November 26, 2019

Hello!

Today I made a big mistake.

I was building a friend's pc with brand new parts (except for the GPU), assembled the cpu, heatsink, ram, m.2, put everything inside the case and then installed the PSU.

The PSU was what got me...

It is a nox hummer 650w.

We plugged everything except for the GPU (rtx 2060) cable because we couldn't find it!

So I had the brilliant idea of using a spare GPU cable from my Corsair rm650x to power his GPU with his nox.

I didn't think it would be a problem at the time but when we went to power it on it wouldn't..

I removed the GPU and it powered on.

So I thought it could be a GPU issue, and then we had the second idea of using my GPU (rtx2070) on his pc to see if it would power on.

It also didn't.

Then it hit me!

If my working GPU prevents this pc from booting it must be the PSU cable!

There must be issue with it or it isn't compatible at all!

Turns out that I was right.

Too late though...

We eventually found the correct cable for the PSU (it was hidden in the box -.- ) and it booted.

Everything worked perfectly fine until I started doing some testing.

I launched heaven benchmark and noticed a high pitch noise coming from the GPU..

The noise would increase or decrease the frequency depending on what was on screen.

Since the GPU is used I thought there could be something wrong with it..

But then I went back to my PC with my rtx 2070 back on and it was doing the exact same noise!

I'm sure it wasn't doing it before the test I did on is pc!

Now, from all the info I've gathered I can only assume the cable was the issue.

I tried looking up the pinout of both PSUs to see if there is something different but with no luck. Couldn't find any info on that.

Both GPUs perform as they should, only the issue of the noise...

My question is, did the cards develop coil whining from that cable swap, is this a entirely different problem, should I be worried, is there any fix for it or any other advice?

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

Lesson learned, NEVER EVER use different modular PSU cables on different PSUs...