Motherboard coil whine possible?

[Simon771]

I'm wondering if there is any way for motherboard to produce coil whine.

I already tried removing my GPU from the system and running with iGPU, and coil whine is still there.

Already swapped RAM, but I was pretty sure that RAM can't be making coil whine.

I also unplugged all my system fans and coil whine was still there.

 

So now there is only motherboard or PSU option ... I noticed that coil whine becomes more audible when making speedtest, but it's hardly noticeable when doing cinebench or any other stress test.

If it would be related to power consumption I think running GPU benchmark would make my system coil whine, but it doesn't.

It seems more like it's related to motherboard, but I'm not exactly sure if motherboard could be the cause for coil whine.

 

Then again, I had this same PSU with my previous build, and there was no coil whine problem before.

 

Any idea if motherboards could be making coil whine, and which part exactly could it be?

[RollinLower]

the CPU VRM could be producing coil whine. i had a X79 board that had loads of it.

you could try setting your CPU clockspeed just a little different, sometimes this helps a lot!

[W-L]

3 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

-SNIP-

More commonly the PSU or GPU is what usually will produce coil whine but it is possible for the VRM (chokes) near there to create coil whine. It could also be that specific combo of hardware causing whining where getting the same hardware in another build may not. 

[DJ46]

Coil whine is extremely annoying and sometimes nearly impossible to get rid of. I've learned a bit about it while trying to get rid of it.

 

Every component with coils can have coil whine (so motherboards, GPUs, PSUs, even things like fan controllers I believe).

One component can make another whine, even if they don't whine in other systems (most often a GPU can make a PSU whine and vice versa).

 

Linus even has a very old video where he had issues with motherboards whining:

 

[Simon771]

8 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

the CPU VRM could be producing coil whine. i had a X79 board that had loads of it.

you could try setting your CPU clockspeed just a little different, sometimes this helps a lot!

You mean those VRMs that are on motherboard?

I hope CPU itself can't whine

[RollinLower]

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

You mean those VRMs that are on motherboard?

I hope CPU itself can't whine

yeah the components on your motherboard that regulate the power going into your CPU possibly produce the whine. specifically the chockes.

[Simon771]

48 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

the CPU VRM could be producing coil whine. i had a X79 board that had loads of it.

you could try setting your CPU clockspeed just a little different, sometimes this helps a lot!

I did try different CPU speed. Came from 5GHz all the way down to under clocking it to 3,7GHz. Always the same story, regardless of frequency and Voltage set for CPU.

47 minutes ago, W-L said:

More commonly the PSU or GPU is what usually will produce coil whine but it is possible for the VRM (chokes) near there to create coil whine. It could also be that specific combo of hardware causing whining where getting the same hardware in another build may not. 

I'm well aware of PSU and GPU coil whine, since I had it with my setup before. So I was using same PSU like I'm using now (Corsair RM650x) with GTX 1070 FE. That card was whining as soon as it got over 20% GPU load. But I was able to hear whining coming from GPU and PSU.

Later then I switched to EVGA GTX 1070 FTW GPU and there was no more coil whine.

Later I switched CPU, motherboard and RAM, and now I can hear coil whine, but this time ot's not GPU, that's for sure.

I'm also wondering if it's the problem with combinations ... that's why I just ordered some 550W PSU from be Quiet, where I also have an option if I want to use 1 rail or 4 rails set up. I wonder if that could also affect coil whine.

Somehow I think I will have to swap motherboard in the end, but for now I will test new PSU, since it's much easier to swap PSU, than motherboard.

44 minutes ago, DJ46 said:

Coil whine is extremely annoying and sometimes nearly impossible to get rid of. I've learned a bit about it while trying to get rid of it.

 

Every component with coils can have coil whine (so motherboards, GPUs, PSUs, even things like fan controllers I believe).

One component can make another whine, even if they don't whine in other systems (most often a GPU can make a PSU whine and vice versa).

 

Linus even has a very old video where he had issues with motherboards whining:

 

You are right abut coil whine being annoying ... I was also thinking about possibility to somehow move my PC in room under mine, but I would have to make pretty big hole in the wall to get 2x display port cable + 1 HDMI + 1x USB. So I guess I will have to swap either PSU or motherboard. Just hoping that it won't be cost a lot in the end.

[W-L]

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

I did try different CPU speed. Came from 5GHz all the way down to under clocking it to 3,7GHz. Always the same story, regardless of frequency and Voltage set for CPU.

I'm well aware of PSU and GPU coil whine, since I had it with my setup before. So I was using same PSU like I'm using now (Corsair RM650x) with GTX 1070 FE. That card was whining as soon as it got over 20% GPU load. But I was able to hear whining coming from GPU and PSU.

Later then I switched to EVGA GTX 1070 FTW GPU and there was no more coil whine.

Later I switched CPU, motherboard and RAM, and now I can hear coil whine, but this time ot's not GPU, that's for sure.

I'm also wondering if it's the problem with combinations ... that's why I just ordered some 550W PSU from be Quiet, where I also have an option if I want to use 1 rail or 4 rails set up. I wonder if that could also affect coil whine.

Somehow I think I will have to swap motherboard in the end, but for now I will test new PSU, since it's much easier to swap PSU, than motherboard.

You are right abut coil whine being annoying ... I was also thinking about possibility to somehow move my PC in room under mine, but I would have to make pretty big hole in the wall to get 2x display port cable + 1 HDMI + 1x USB. So I guess I will have to swap either PSU or motherboard. Just hoping that it won't be cost a lot in the end.

Coil whine is difficult to try and remedy, sometimes even if you have the exact same model of PSU one will whine and another if you swap it out, so there isn't a hard and fast way to really eliminate it but just trial and error. You can try running a stress test to see if it lessen the amount of it, sometimes it can help but results vary. 

[DJ46]

10 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

You are right abut coil whine being annoying ... I was also thinking about possibility to somehow move my PC in room under mine, but I would have to make pretty big hole in the wall to get 2x display port cable + 1 HDMI + 1x USB. So I guess I will have to swap either PSU or motherboard. Just hoping that it won't be cost a lot in the end.

I thought about moving the PC into another room as well, but it really isn't all that practical.

I'm putting all my hope into Silverstone. Hopefully they will sell enough of the fully enclosed NJ450-SXL to make an ATX version with more power. You can't hear coil whine if it can't escape the PSU.

[Simon771]

3 minutes ago, W-L said:

Coil whine is difficult to try and remedy, sometimes even if you have the exact same model of PSU one will whine and another if you swap it out, so there isn't a hard and fast way to really eliminate it but just trial and error. You can try running a stress test to see if it lessen the amount of it, sometimes it can help but results vary. 

I did hear about that burn it process and already tried it with running aida64 for a whole week when I was out of town. Did nothing else except wast electricity. 

So it seems like I will just have to start swapping my components and hope it won't cost me much before I get decent silent build. 

[Simon771]

Just an update ... got new PSU today and it didn't help me with my problem.

I also plugged PSU outside of my case to isolate where that sound is coming from, and it seems like it coming from VRM near CPU.

 

Just ordered Z370 EVGA mATX board. If that won't fix my problem, I don't know what will.

Will have to wait around 10 days for new motherboard to arrive and test it.