Haunted PC!

[lefty]

Hi All,
There's an annoying intermittant noise coming from my PC.
At first I though it was the hard drive, but I unplugging everything that has moving parts, all fans and the hard drive (and the PSU has no fan), but there still is a noise coming from the PC!
It's faint fan noise, which intermittantly gets louder. Anyone know what this could be?

Here is the parts in my rig:
Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H
Kingston HyperX Blu DDR3 1600
Core I5-4570
Samsung 840 Evo
Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB
BitFenix Prodigy M
cooler master hyper 212 evo
Seasonic x460 fanless

[CA_Steve]

Welcome to SPCR.

If all of the fans are unplugged, it's not fan noise.

Are you sure it isn't electronic buzzing you hear? Likely suspect is the PSU, and less likely is the motherboard VRM circuitry.

[lefty]

Welcome to SPCR.

If all of the fans are unplugged, it's not fan noise.

Are you sure it isn't electronic buzzing you hear? Likely suspect is the PSU, and less likely is the motherboard VRM circuitry.

Yeah, I suppose it has to be electronic buzzing, but I don't know how to figure out what's causing it.

[xan_user]

...or possibly the monitor.

[Vicotnik]

My main system growls faintly when it has to do some hard work (I'm guessing it's the VRM circuitry). It squeals faintly when data is written to the SSD. There's also some faint buzzing from the TFT but it's not audible from a distance and some whining from the AC/DC-adapter but that's also not audible unless I've got my ear next to it.

Like CA_Steve says, it probably isn't one of the unplugged fans.

[lefty]

My main system growls faintly when it has to do some hard work (I'm guessing it's the VRM circuitry). It squeals faintly when data is written to the SSD. There's also some faint buzzing from the TFT but it's not audible from a distance and some whining from the AC/DC-adapter but that's also not audible unless I've got my ear next to it.

Like CA_Steve says, it probably isn't one of the unplugged fans.

So, do all motherboards make noise? Is it normal?

[quest_for_silence]

So, do all motherboards make noise? Is it normal?

Broadly speaking, yes (more or less).

[lefty]

Actually, I found the souce of the noise. It's the PSU. I'm surprised, because Seasonic is ment to be good quality.
I plugged in a different PSU outside of the case and could hear that the motherboard is absolutly silent.

[CA_Steve]

Coil whine happens in some PSUs. Sometimes they'll replace a unit under warranty for it. The ErP rules and circuitry put in place a few years ago to greatly reduce power consumption when the PC is sleeping/hibernating has exacerbated the issue (during use). Here's Seasonic's suggestions to reduce the problem:

BIOS set up to ENABLE ErP/EuP (S4~S5)
BIOS set up to DISABLE Audio Always On"

[lefty]

Coil whine happens in some PSUs. Sometimes they'll replace a unit under warranty for it. The ErP rules and circuitry put in place a few years ago to greatly reduce power consumption when the PC is sleeping/hibernating has exacerbated the issue (during use). Here's Seasonic's suggestions to reduce the problem:

BIOS set up to ENABLE ErP/EuP (S4~S5)
BIOS set up to DISABLE Audio Always On"

I don't have those settings on my motherboard. I did try to disable power saving states, but that had no effect.
Anyway, I will try to return it.

[xan_user]

So, do all motherboards make noise? Is it normal?

Broadly speaking, yes (more or less).

IMO this is why one slow fan is usually better than fanless. a single 400-500 rpm fan is not annoying at all (and way below most users average noise floor), and covers up any annoying coil whine.

[Vicotnik]

IMO this is why one slow fan is usually better than fanless. a single 400-500 rpm fan is not annoying at all (and way below most users average noise floor), and covers up any annoying coil whine.

It depends. Constant coil whine is intolerable and perhaps a slow fan could mask it a bit. I prefer a fanless system that's silent at idle. Small noises when the system actually does something I can forgive.