What does coil whine sound like?

Donatron · Post by **Donatron** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:50 am

Does anybody know of a link to a sound sample of coil whine? I just purchased and installed a Seasonic S12-430 last night after reading all the praises from this site. And it's making a weird buzzing sound. But I'm not sure if it's coil whine since I'm not positive as to what coil whine sounds like.

For the past week, I've been researching this site to make my PC silent. I installed a Zalman CNPS9500 AT on my Core 2 Duo, and a Zalman VF700-ALCU on my GeForce 6800LE. A couple days later, I replaced all 4 of my case fans with Antec LED TriCools. Then last night, i replaced my PSU with the Seasonic.

I expected my case fans to be the loudest component of my system, but it wasn't, it was the PSU. The fan of the PSU is practically inaudible, as I expected it to be. When I stopped the fan, I could barely notice any difference. But the strange buzzing coming from the PSU completely masks every component in the PC. It's not an extremely loud buzzing, but it is audible enough to annoy me enough to register and make a post about it. lol. It kind of sounds like an old vending machine or something.

edit: Oh ya. The buzzing is contant. I hear it as soon as I start up the computer, and it doesn't get any louder or anything.

borc · Post by **borc** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 1:25 pm

Couldn't find a sample, but it sounds like a very high pitched whine.

Some PSUs, for some reason, seem to make buzzing noises when the load is too low or too high. I'm not sure if it's typical for seasonics, though.

Aris · Post by **Aris** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 2:23 pm

if you've ever walked down the street next to power lines, and heard a "hummmmmmm" sound, thats what its like. except the freqency is usually alot higher.

Donatron · Post by **Donatron** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:00 pm

Aris wrote:if you've ever walked down the street next to power lines, and heard a "hummmmmmm" sound, thats what its like. except the freqency is usually alot higher.

That is what it sounds like, except for the higher frequency part. So I'm guessing it's something different? The sound samples of the Seasonic S12-430 in the review from this site didn't have the buzzing sound. Do you think my PSU may be defective?

mantralord · Post by **mantralord** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:36 pm

It sounds like that high pitched sound you hear when your ears ring, except pulsating on and off very rapidly (say, 60 hz). If your ears have never rung then I guess this post won't be very useful

Donatron · Post by **Donatron** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:18 pm

Thank for all the help guys.

Turns out that it wasn't actually the PSU like I thought it was. It was one of my hard drives. I disconnected the drive and the sound went away. I guess I'm in the market for a new hard drive now.

matt_garman · Post by **matt_garman** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 9:05 pm

I got an Antec NSK2400 not too long ago (for my media PC). I love this case, but the power supply in it died within a month. Just tonight I receieved my RMA power supply from Antec. And I think it has really bad coil whine.

What I'm hearing is this: a constant high-pitched frequency (similar to ringing in my ears, as mentioned above). There's also a subtle buzzing sound in there.

I haven't ruled out the other components yet; I did do a motherboard switch while I was in there.

At first I thought the sound was tied to the hard drive, but once the system was booted and steady, the sound went away. Then I used cpuburn, and the sound immediately came back. The sound starts and stops exactly with the cpuburn program... so I'm pretty sure that's the PSU whining under the added power draw.

Any thoughts? Can anything be done about coil whine (short of getting a new PSU)? If I have to RMA or replace a second PSU, I'm not going to be happy!

Matt

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Fri Dec 29, 2006 3:38 am

I haven't ruled out the other components yet; I did do a motherboard switch while I was in there.

It could well be the motherboard; often the inductors (small rings wrapped in wire) near the CPU vibrate at the switching frequency if they're not wrapped tightly enough.