High pitched noise coming somewhere from the PSU area

[Aguany]

About 2 or 3 weeks ago I finally got my new gaming rig up and running, but now when I play certain games (TF2 for example) I can hear this high pitched noise coming from the area where the PSU is, and when I can hear the noise - if I move the mouse around the sound seems to fluctuate to match the movements of the mouse. Its on and off for games, Company of Heroes 2 doesnt make the noise when TF2 does. Any ideas how to fix it?

My Specs are:
CPU: AMD FX8350
GPU: Raedon 7950
PSU: Thermal Take Smart M 850W

 

[AsRock]

About 2 or 3 weeks ago I finally got my new gaming rig up and running, but now when I play certain games (TF2 for example) I can hear this high pitched noise coming from the area where the PSU is, and when I can hear the noise - if I move the mouse around the sound seems to fluctuate to match the movements of the mouse. Its on and off for games, Company of Heroes 2 doesnt make the noise when TF2 does. Any ideas how to fix it?

My Specs are:
CPU: AMD FX8350
GPU: Raedon 7950
PSU: Thermal Take Smart M 850W

Might be the PSU or even the video card.. Try turning v sync on and see if that solves it. Some company's will replace the item as faulty.

The sound is normally from a coil that's vibrating some use glue and years aago they used a wax or reed type paint that stopped it from happening.

 

[Aguany]

Might be the PSU or even the video card.. Try turning v sync on and see if that solves it. Some company's will replace the item as faulty.

The sound is normally from a coil that's vibrating some use glue and years aago they used a wax or reed type paint that stopped it from happening.

I'll try that, is it harmful to anything or is it just an annoyance?

 

[BiggieShady]

It's most probably coil whine on the graphics card, in some game engines like Source you get really high frame rates that can cause this. Effect can be also heard during low-end/mobile 3dmark tests that can hit crazy frame rates.
+1 for the vsync.

 

[AsRock]

I'll try that, is it harmful to anything or is it just an annoyance?

Well to me personally i think it could possibly course wear as if the coil is vibrating it might be rubbing the coating off the wire but that's just imo and don't believe it could do any harm even if it did..

I personally have not heard it be harmful but manufactures are normally more than willing to swap out the item that's doing it.

So more a annoyance than any thing.

EDIT: your surly not the 1st that's for sure
coil whine - YouTube

 

[McSteel]

It most definitely is coil whine. Manufacturers let this slip by quality control because rooting it out would require each individual unit to be tested with multiple different load profiles. Needless to say, this would drive the costs sky high...

Before RMA'ing the unit, you could, depending on your motherboard. GPU, etc, try changing some clocks and frequencies... For example, some Asus boards offer an option to change the board's CPU VRM working frequency. Knock some clocks (CPU, GPU, RAM) around by 10-50 MHz to try to break the resonance between the PSU and another component's VRM.

Of course, if you don't know how, or can't be bothered, RMA is approved in 90% of situations when coil whine is the problem, because the same PSU could very well be perfectly whine-less in another computer...

 

[AngryMerchant]

I noticed this problem when my computer plays super-old games like Quake and Doom.

It's not necessary to Vsync TF2, you can cap the framerate with the console every time you start the game, or with an autoexec.cfg (if you know how to make one, which isn't hard)
The command is:fps_max, so to cap at 120 fps, put
fps_max 120
Into console every time you start TF2 (or do the autoexec).

 

[Ravenlock]

It's most probably coil whine on the graphics card, in some game engines like Source you get really high frame rates that can cause this. Effect can be also heard during low-end/mobile 3dmark tests that can hit crazy frame rates.
+1 for the vsync.

THANK YOU. I was getting this noise playing GZDoom this week and it was driving me NUTS. Had no idea what it was. VSync totally took care of the problem. Huge thumbs up, much appreciated.

 

[Toothless]

Found the necromancer for this thread.

 

[kn00tcn]

it is appalling that NOBODY finds issue with letting games run at 999 fps, completely wasting energy, causing higher temperatures, reducing lifespan of hardware, etc etc (& yes, making coil whine noises)