Severe coil whine from motherboard on idle?!?

[Stefan1024]

This problem drives me nuts!

 

My MoBo has extrem coil whine, it's even louder than two fans on max. speed. I have two sampels for you here: Dropbox link

On idle it's a buzz like you stick repeatedly a paper into a fan (it's not the fan that makes the noise, I know for sure). With high CPU load, it's the continuous coil whine like the one we know trom GPUs. It's not as loud as the buzz.

The buzz seems to be exaggerated when accessing the SSD.

 

The funny thing is:

- There is no whine during post or in the BIOS. As soon as windoes kicks in, it get's loud. Different usage in BIOS vs. windows?

- When I cange the performane settings from balanced to performance it get's worse and on energy saveing I only rarly hear the buzz. The whine on high load is still there.

- The performance is not affected.

 

What I tried:

- Connect the SSD to the onboard RAID controller instead of the chipset native port: no change

- Turn speed step off and run on 2.7GHz all the time: no change

- change / disable C-states and P-states: no change

- turning SATA aggressive power management off: no change

- disconnect the extra molex power connector for the MoBo: no change

- use different plugs on the PSU for the two CPU power connectors: no change

- set windows 10 to power saving mode: buzz noticeable reduced, but still noticeable. Why?

 

The system specs:

CPU: 2x E5-2680
RAM: 8x Hynix HMT31GR7CFR4C
Motherboard: Asus Z9PE-D8 WS
PSU: Corsair RM1000i
SSD 1: Samsung 850 Evo 1TB
WLAN: TP-Link Archer T9E

 

I'm on the end of my wisdom. No ideal left. Even on energy saveing is way to loud, and it may change when I add GPUs.

Do you have any idea? RMA the MoBo?

[Stadin6]

can you find the exact coil that is whining?

[Stefan1024]

Just now, Stadin6 said:

can you find the exact coil that is whining?

I assume it's one in the power deliverty from the CPUs by hearing. But they are under a heat sink, so I can't check them for vibration easely.

The once I can reach do not vibrate an befor I mod the MoBo and lose the warrenty I better RMA it.

[Stadin6]

4 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

I assume it's one in the power deliverty from the CPUs by hearing. But they are under a heat sink, so I can't check them for vibration easely.

The once I can reach do not vibrate an befor I mod the MoBo and lose the warrenty I better RMA it.

if you cant easily fix it just RMA it

[Stefan1024]

Just now, Stadin6 said:

if you cant easily fix it just RMA it

I will by monday. But I'd like to make sure it's actually the MoBo and not an unlucky combination / setting as this won't be fixed with a new MoBo.

[Stefan1024]

Update: With a GPU it's even worse, despite the fact the GPU fan masks some of the noise.

[fire219]

The only thing you would be able to do is try to secure them better with hot glue or similar substance. But that's not even guaranteed to work, and would probably nullify aforementioned warranty. I'd just RMA it.

[Stefan1024]

Just now, fire219 said:

The only thing you would be able to do is try to secure them better with hot glue or similar substance. But that's not even guaranteed to work, and would probably nullify aforementioned warranty. I'd just RMA it.

I don't like to RMA things. But it looks like I have to.

[fire219]

Just now, Stefan1024 said:

I don't like to RMA things. But it looks like I have to.

Understandable, and I don't think anyone else wants it to happen as it will slow down your progress on the build log. But you've gotta do what you've gotta do.

[NumLock21]

Remove front panel usb and audio headers. Disable the 2 internal usb ports located on the board.

 

Asus rma is annoying...

[Stefan1024]

19 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Remove front panel usb and audio headers. Disable the 2 internal usb ports located on the board.

 

Asus rma is annoying...

Sadly this does not have an effect on the coil whine.

[NumLock21]

23 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

Sadly this does not have an effect on the coil whine.

Okay then,

Try with just 1 cpu and reduce the amount of ram that you have. If coil whine disappears, then add 2nd cpu and test again, then add the rest of your ram one by one to see if coil whine appears again.

As I've said Asus RMA is annoying when you have a unique problem because they will start asking you a bunch of technical question like cpu speed, espec, cache, ram speed, timings, blah blah blah.  And if memory isn't on their QVL list, they might blame it on that.

[Stefan1024]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

Okay then,

Try with just 1 cpu and reduce the amount of ram that you have. If coil whine disappears, then add 2nd cpu and test again, then add the rest of your ram one by one to see if coil whine appears again.

As I've said Asus RMA is annoying when you have a unique problem because they will start asking you a bunch of technical question like cpu speed, espec, cache, ram speed, timings, blah blah blah.  And if memory isn't on their QVL list, they might blame it on that.

Ok I will give it a try.

The RAM is from the QVL list and I try to get a DOA replacement from the reseller first befor I bother contacting Asus.

 

The main thing that's puzzling me is, that it's fine within the BIOS.

[NumLock21]

2 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

Ok I will give it a try.

The RAM is from the QVL list and I try to get a DOA replacement from the reseller first befor I bother contacting Asus.

 

The main thing that's puzzling me is, that it's fine within the BIOS.

bios won't put a heavy load on the cpu.

[Stefan1024]

1 minute ago, NumLock21 said:

bios won't put a heavy load on the cpu.

Yes, but the worst buzz I get when windoews is idle.

[NumLock21]

14 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

Yes, but the worst buzz I get when windoews is idle.

Then I'm not quite sure why it would still buzz when windows is idle. I've encounter coil whine, but they're mostly on psu, gpu, or like really old faulty boards with popped or leaking capacitors.

 

[Stefan1024]

Just now, NumLock21 said:

Then I'm not quite sure why it would still buzz when windows is idle. I've encounter coil whine, but they're mostly on psu, gpu, or like really old faulty boards with popped or leaking capacitors.

 

Have you had a look at the videos I linked?

On high load there is a litte coil whine as expected. But on idle it goes wilde and it's also a quite different sound pattern.

[NumLock21]

4 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

Have you had a look at the videos I linked?

On high load there is a litte coil whine as expected. But on idle it goes wilde and it's also a quite different sound pattern.

Yeah I've looked at the videos. Your only option is to try out what I've mentioned before. If that still does not work, then change the board.

[Stefan1024]

38 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Yeah I've looked at the videos. Your only option is to try out what I've mentioned before. If that still does not work, then change the board.

One CPU, one stick of RAM: still the same noise

Exchanged the CPU with the other one, still one stick of RAM: no chage

 

There's nothing left I can do. I'm done with the board.

[Stefan1024]

The RMA was accepted without hessitation.
I hope the new board will solve the problem.