My PSU sounds like a fax machine!

[marko121]

Good evening all, I trust I find you well...

This one is doing my head in:

I've taken out my sound card (pcie x-fi platinum)
disabled on board sound via device manger
swapped ATI HD5850 for nvidia 8800 GTX

and still my PC emits this awful, fax-like squealing. It's not incredibly loud, but is so very very irritating.

I found the following in the "PSU" thread:

Buzzing noises are most often caused by coil whine, where the current passing through the wire in the coil will cause the core to vibrate at a audible frequency. This is a common problem on corsair psu's mixed with certain video cards/motherboards.

This isn't a 'buzz', but could be described as a 'whine', but for me, 'squeal' is a better description of my problem, and my PSU is a 650 watt Corsair number.

I made a 40 second recording of the noise by putting the mic at the back of the PSU. The dominant noise is therefore the wind from the fan, but if you turn up the speakers, the squealing can be clearly heard, especially just after the 30 second mark. (recording is inside the attached zip file)

Now, the frustrating thing for me, is that, at power on, during the POST, and the DMI pool data stuff, there's no squealing, but just before the desktop loads, the squealing kicks in and does not stop.

Stranger still, for me, at least, the squealing pauses if I scroll a long text document in UltraEdit, but does not pause if I scroll the same document in Notepad.

When I launch Everest, the squealing will stop during the opening "scanning" period, but once Everest appears on the desktop, the squealing is straight back.

Does anyone have any idea what on earth is going on here?
please

-marko

 

[dustin_ds3000]

yea thats coil whine, you can RMA the PSU here Corsair RMA Request Form

 

[marko121]

dustin_ds3000, thank you very much for replying to a first time poster asking for help. It is very much appreciated.

Can you tell me, is my system in any danger from this irritating PSU, or is it just my ears that are being blitzed at the moment?

Also, why is it that certain Windows tasks halt the noise, while others, such as game playing alter the noise quite significantly, as in the pitch canges and the noise gets louder?

I bought this system pre-built almost 5 months ago, and have informed my system builder that I wish to claim the PSU under warranty. It's only been a day, but I'm still waiting for their response.

Regards,
Marko121

 

[dustin_ds3000]

Coil whine is mechanical resonance of the coil with the frequency of the signal passing through it. Physically, a coil is just loops of wire, sometimes with a core other than air. If the frequency of the signal is in resonance with the physical wires of the coil, the coil may vibrate. Oft times, the vibration is beyond human hearing, other times it's in the range of human hearing. I have never heard of Coil whine causing damage, its just very annoying.

 

[marko121]

Thanks again dustin. Thought you might like to know,

...the man from OCUK says "Yes"

The noise you're hearing is indeed coil whinenot necessarily a fault or dangerous to the PSU or components, but it is covered under warranty so it can be replaced.
We can either replace just the PSU for you, which will require you to take out and re-fit the new one but will give you a fast turnaround, or we can collect the PC in order to replace the PSU here, again under warranty.
Please let us know which route you would like to go down.

I'll fit it myself for the quick turn around. "Coil whine".... you never stop learning in this game....

-marko121