Coil Whine; How to narrow down which component?

[dizmo]

So, a component in my system is causing a fair bit of coil whine. It's only during graphically intensive actions, such as gaming, and only when playing, not when paused in menus.

It sounds like the whine is coming from the PSU, but it only happens during load.
So, does this mean the PSU needs to be replaced, or the GPU?

 

I'm going to try undervolting the card before I replace anything, but I've also started the search for new components.

[Pixelfie]

Do you have any spare parts you can swap it with? 

 

If not, it's probably the motherboard VRM, GPU or PSU, whichever is loudest, and in this case it seems like it could be the PSU.

 

Also, does CPU load matter at all? If it does it could be the motherboard

[Zomeguy]

Well you could run a CPU benchmark so if the whine is still there you know it's not the GPU.

[dizmo]

3 hours ago, Pixelfie said:

Do you have any spare parts you can swap it with? 

 

If not, it's probably the motherboard VRM, GPU or PSU, whichever is loudest, and in this case it seems like it could be the PSU.

 

Also, does CPU load matter at all? If it does it could be the motherboard

Not really, no. It's also a little tricky since it's a very small ITX case.

So, I ran Cinebench; no screech. Heaven; screech. Especially on the credits screen when you're exiting the program.

I undervolted to 1100, the lowest it'll go without crashing. Still does it.

So, this narrows it down to the PSU or GPU, yes?

I'll probably get a new PSU and hope it's that.

[Pixelfie]

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Not really, no. It's also a little tricky since it's a very small ITX case.

So, I ran Cinebench; no screech. Heaven; screech. Especially on the credits screen when you're exiting the program.

I undervolted to 1100, the lowest it'll go without crashing. Still does it.

So, this narrows it down to the PSU or GPU, yes?

I'll probably get a new PSU and hope it's that.

Yep, motherboard isn't the issue there. I think it would be the PSU here as that's where the noise is coming from, and people always say Corsair PSU's have more coil whine than others (not sure if that's true). I've had the same issue and it turned out to be both the PSU and GPU (not a combination of them, but both components were causing coil whine).

 

Another thing that might cause coil whine, but usually isn't the main cause, is your houses power. I've seen cases where coil whine completely disappears or gets very quiet when the pc is tested in a different building.

[dizmo]

8 minutes ago, Pixelfie said:

Yep, motherboard isn't the issue there. I think it would be the PSU here as that's where the noise is coming from, and people always say Corsair PSU's have more coil whine than others (not sure if that's true). I've had the same issue and it turned out to be both the PSU and GPU (not a combination of them, but both components were causing coil whine).

 

Another thing that might cause coil whine, but usually isn't the main cause, is your houses power. I've seen cases where coil whine completely disappears or gets very quiet when the pc is tested in a different building.

I don't think it'd be the house, I've had several PCs in the same spot and none of them had any whine issues.

Good to know though. Do you think a platinum unit would have less chance of whine than a gold?

[Pixelfie]

5 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I don't think it'd be the house, I've had several PCs in the same spot and none of them had any whine issues.

Good to know though. Do you think a platinum unit would have less chance of whine than a gold?

I don't know how much efficiency would affect coil whine, but I think it might make a little bit of difference because the PSU is using less power. But I don't think that would really make a big difference.

 

What's more important is the quality of the components in the PSU (higher quality components usually also means higher efficiency so plat might make a difference). An example of something you should look for is the topology, which is best if it's LLC resonant (more explanation on the thread linked below). Also make sure to look up if coil whine is a known issue for the PSU you'll buy.

 

[Zomeguy]

On 5/4/2022 at 3:42 PM, Pixelfie said:

Yep, motherboard isn't the issue there. I think it would be the PSU here as that's where the noise is coming from, and people always say Corsair PSU's have more coil whine than others (not sure if that's true). I've had the same issue and it turned out to be both the PSU and GPU (not a combination of them, but both components were causing coil whine).

 

Another thing that might cause coil whine, but usually isn't the main cause, is your houses power. I've seen cases where coil whine completely disappears or gets very quiet when the pc is tested in a different building.

Hmm I have two Corsairs in use and neither have coil whine. HX850w Silver and RM850x Gold.

 

[Pixelfie]

35 minutes ago, Zomeguy said:

Hmm I have two Corsairs in use and neither have coil whine. HX850w Silver and RM850x Gold.

My RM650x doesn't have it either (my pc does under load but it's not PSU related). I'm just saying that I've heard people say Corsair PSU's whine more, but that could be because they're the most popular.