ram T-Force Night Hawk Whining

[B_man]

In my new build I'm using TeamGroup's T-Force Night Hawk RGB RAM, and I've noticed a distinct whining sound from my memory modules. I believe it is the RGB lighting effects, as the whining seems to ramp up and down with the RGB pattern that is currently displayed. I'm wondering if this is normal, or if I need to get them RMAed. Another thing is controlling the RGB effects, TeamGroup says that it is ASUS Aura Sync compatible, does that mean it will only work on ASUS motherboards? I am currently using an MSI B350M Mortar. Thanks!

[Tsuki]

that seems weird to me.. but i suppose its possible. try with only one stick at a time to see if you can truely narrow it down to the ram.

[B_man]

I havent tried with one stick at a time, but i troubleshooted by pulling both sticks and the noise was gone, ram back in, noise returns.

[RadiatingLight]

28 minutes ago, B_man said:

I havent tried with one stick at a time, but i troubleshooted by pulling both sticks and the noise was gone, ram back in, noise returns.

well with no sticks in, the PC can't boot.

 

it might just be CPU whine, since they're pretty close together.

[Guest]

Thought you were talking about t-mobile support lol. It could be the ram, but try with each stick alone

[B_man]

2 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

well with no sticks in, the PC can't boot.

 

it might just be CPU whine, since they're pretty close together.

The whine starts as soon as the rgb on the ram turns on, and it happens before the UEFI even initializes, so I dont think that's too much of a factor. I've linked a video of boot up: https://streamable.com/7jmzx

[asand1]

LEDs do whine during high current situations. Is the whining worse during a particular color? Color change is accomplished by varying the voltage, but I don't remember the correlation between colors and voltages.

[B_man]

TeamGroup Support just got back to me, 

Quote

According to your description, we think this product may have some unusual damaged and needed to be replaced.

So, yeah. I guess I'll ship it back, although I'll RMA it through Newegg so I can get store credit. Does anyone know about the RGB protocol? I really like the white heat spreader, which made me choose it over others, but Corsair Vengence RGB uses corsair link, sooo.

[RadiatingLight]

16 minutes ago, B_man said:

TeamGroup Support just got back to me, 

So, yeah. I guess I'll ship it back, although I'll RMA it through Newegg so I can get store credit. Does anyone know about the RGB protocol? I really like the white heat spreader, which made me choose it over others, but Corsair Vengence RGB uses corsair link, sooo.

ASUS Aura means it can sync with any other ASUS stuff, so all your PC can be synced. I don't think it can work with other boards... not sure about that though.

G.skill trident Z RGB is best right now IMO.

[KaelanDuck]

I ended up finding the problem with my noisy ram stick, seems to be a bad inductor in the poorly designed power supply for the RGB leds. The SMPS dips down into audio frequencies when the leds aren't drawing much power and the inductor makes noise.

 

I fixed it by unscrewing the non-sticky side of the heat-spreader (need a small hex driver) and throwing a little hot-glue around the inductor to dampen vibrations. Inductor looks like picture attached, half the size of an ant near two other chips and a bunch of passives at the top of the board. Once I did that, annoying sound was completely gone.

 

I know this is an old thread, but it is the first result on google, so I hope this post helps someone.