How to quickly & easily fix coil-whine(coil choke noise)

[Brothanumsie]

FLAC

Doesnt appear to be the same as a normal coil whine.

Edit: Again, the end is exiting Heaven. That only happens at that one instance. I never hear it like that during any other stress tests

Edit 2: The noise is definitely coming from the back half of the card (in Yellow). Not sure if that helps

 

[stama]

That final part of the recording has pretty loud coil whine, indeed. The more intense red there shows the loudness is greater than in the first part.

What you're hearing is mostly the area around the 8 KHz peak (I isolated it using filters, to hear only a part of the frequency spectrum):

You also have a 13.5 KHz peak, but the 8 KHz peak is louder perceptually. But then the entire area between 5KHz and 20 Khz is loud, I'd say.
If I move a pass-band filter across the entire spectrum, then the area between the 6 KHz to 15 KHz sounds the loudest, and that's the area of frequency that falls under "whining" in coil whine. Lower frequencies are what we perceive as the "rattling" in coil whine.

The human ear is most sensitive to the area between 2 to 5 KHz, btw.

Comparison to the part before, where everything is below - 80dB:

The above are dbFS (no weighting applied that simulated human hearing).
Here is the final part of the recoding with A-weighting applied (dbA), that is supposed to emulate human hearing. As I said, the 8KHz peak is perceived louder:

And here is the part before, also with A-weighting:

A 10dB(A) louder sound = the sound is perceived twice as loud by us.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Does it only happen with that stress test. During intense gaming in an AAA game all settings maxed out like CyberPunk or Red Dead Redemption 2, do you get that noise?

You used the very low water like viscosity STARBOND EM-02 Super Glue? How long did you let it dry before putting it back together. I am going to let mine dry 72 hours which means Sunday night and the stuff I used I do not think is as low viscosity as that. i just want to play it safe and make sure it works right.

 

[Brothanumsie]

Does it only happen with that stress test. During intense gaming in an AAA game all settings maxed out like CyberPunk or Red Dead Redemption 2, do you get that noise?

You used the very low water like viscosity STARBOND EM-02 Super Glue? How long did you let it dry before putting it back together. I am going to let mine dry 72 hours which means Sunday night and the stuff I used I do not think is as low viscosity as that. i just want to play it safe and make sure it works right.

Happens during gaming as well. I have an undervolt profile i use and it does help but this setup is damn near silent and that whine, no matter how low, is noticeable. The glue dried over night, maybe i can give it some more time but i didnt notice any bit of difference.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Welp, looks like its might not even be coil whine im hearing. If it is, looks like this method didnt help my situation. Can someone take a listen and see if they recognize it? This clip is from about 3 feet away.

6950

Thats Heaven loaded up. And for some reason, whenever i quit and the credits show, the pitch gets even higher and louder until the app is closed all the way.

Its a buzz like sound starting at 5 seconds. That counts as coil whine even though I have heard many not label it as such which is misleading. That buzz sound is bad and unwanted noise if it is audible anywhere but your ear only a few inches or closer to the card.

So many saying oh my card does not have whine. I think many are forgetting to say that buzz counts as whine. I have heard a few say well my card has no whine though there is like an electrical buzzing sound. Well that is what I also call coil whine as it is unwanted noise not be any physical mechanical moving parts but rather electronic coils or inductors vibrating or moving around that you normally would think are still.

I have tried like 14 different 4090s now and all had a bad annoying electric buzz though very few had the annoying high whinny coil squeal at 100 FPS or less all settings maxed out in games or benchmarks.

 

[stama]

Its a buzz like sound starting at 5 seconds.

That's when the test starts. Just open the file in Audacity, switch to spectrogram mode, and you'll see.

If you want to check which part of the audio recording you are sensitive too, download Voxengo SPAN. When you install it, install only the VST3 plugins, those are the only ones usable by audacity.

Then open the audio file in Audacity, select the audio track (Ctrl+A, for instance), and open the plugin Effect -> Span.
Open the plugin settings and increase the window size by modifying the UI scale:

Press "Preview" in the plugin window to start playing the audio.

Click and hold the Ctrl key, and click and hold the left mouse button while you are with the mouse pointer over the plugin spectrogram area. Move the mouse pointer left and right, until you recognize the buzzing sound. The area below the curve that you see is the area of frequencies that annoy you:

 

[Brothanumsie]

Think I may see an issue. Maybe it was so thin it flattened/spread out and didn’t make enough contact with the board and choke? Maybe I have to build it up with another application?

I don’t know. Some look like good contact though…

 

[Wolverine2349]

@Brothanumsie

How long did you let it dry before putting it back together and trying it?

 

[Brothanumsie]

@Brothanumsie

How long did you let it dry before putting it back together and trying it?

About 17 hours

 

[Wolverine2349]

About 17 hours

https://www.amazon.com/Starbond-Cyanoacrylate-Microtips-Woodturning-Stabilizing/dp/B00C32ME6G

And that is the Super Glue you used above?

 

[Brothanumsie]

https://www.amazon.com/Starbond-Cyanoacrylate-Microtips-Woodturning-Stabilizing/dp/B00C32ME6G

And that is the Super Glue you used above?

yup

 

[Wolverine2349]

yup

qfg77 used this super glue: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1&tag=tec06d-20 on a Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 4090

While not the same exact kind, it also has super low viscosity like water of 2 to 5 cps.

They told me it took 2 days for the noise to go away as the glue takes that long to fully harden even though it stops running after a few minutes and can be used after an hour or so.

Not sure if the glue you used is the same, but it has same ultra low CPS, so maybe.

 

[Brothanumsie]

qfg77 used this super glue: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1&tag=tec06d-20 on a Gigabyte Gaming OC RTX 4090

While not the same exact kind, it also has super low viscosity like water of 2 to 5 cps.

They told me it took 2 days for the noise to go away as the glue takes that long to fully harden even though it stops running after a few minutes and can be used after an hour or so.

Not sure if the glue you used is the same, but it has same ultra low CPS, so maybe.

I can give it more time. Ill check a few and make sure they have full contact and reapply if not. Ill check back in Sunday. Thanks for the help

 

[Wolverine2349]

I can give it more time. Ill check a few and make sure they have full contact and reapply if not. Ill check back in Sunday. Thanks for the help

Thanks for your advice to. I still have not gotten it to work yet and am on my 2nd try with 2nd 4090 after selling the other one. The other one I used Loctite Liquid Professional glue then immediately found out Loctite is not recommended. So it did not work after trying it after like 35 hours.

I not got the HFT super glue form Harbor Freight that Lex recommended and also made sure to apply it hard, though maybe over did it as there were so many gaps where nozzle would not fit so put more on to ensure it wicked through gaps. Not sure how long that needs to dry to be successful?

And thank qfq77. He gave me some advice on how they did the Gaming OC

If this does not work on the PNY I did, I am going to sell it and give the Gaming OC a try using qfg77 method, though no waterblock and just stock cooler with custom MSI Afterburner Fan curve as fans are ok but the default fan BIOS in Gaming OC makes fans loud unnecessarily. I will just have to somehow figure out how to pry off the PCB as I hear it is on there pretty good per Steve Walton at Hardware Unboxed. Even the PNY was on there tight enough that I had to fiddle with it. Are they all like that. Plus I went with PNY again as Lex had success silencing one and it has better fans out of the box so hoping my application worked once I let it finish drying.

 

[Brothanumsie]

Question. What are these on the underside of the chokes?

 

[Wolverine2349]

Question. What are these on the underside of the chokes?
View attachment 286266

Good question.

@lexluthermiester : Should Super Glue be applied to them as well?

 

[stama]

Those look like polymer capacitors. No, don't apply glue on them, they can't whine.

MLCC (the much prized caps on Asus boards) are ceramic capacitors that can whine/rattle however, due to the piezoelectric effect. But even in their case, you don't apply glue on them as you can't prevent then from vibrating this way (or in any other mechanical way, in fact): Reducing MLCCs’ piezoelectric effects and audible noise.

People, please go easy on the glue on other components, you're hindering their ability to be cooled. Depending on how reactive the glue is, it can even melt the components protective case too.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Those look like polymer capacitors. No, don't apply glue on them, they can't whine.

MLCC (the much prized caps on Asus boards) are ceramic capacitors that can whine/rattle however, due to the piezoelectric effect. But even in their case, you don't apply glue on them as you can't prevent then from vibrating this way (or in any other mechanical way, in fact): Reducing MLCCs’ piezoelectric effects and audible noise.

People, please go easy on the glue on other components, you're hindering their ability to be cooled. Depending on how reactive the glue is, it can even melt the components protective case too.

In speaking of SuperGlue and how lexluthermiester stated I applied a bit much, do you know if that has any negative affect of the proper wicking needed to block coil whine on the chokes?

Or is it that too much glue risks other component damage like what you stated melting other components on PCB or blocking a conductive path that could make card not boot like qfq77 had with PCI-E lane on Gaming OC 4090?

Or both.

Part of the reason I applied a bit much was because of the parts where the tip does not fit in and lexluthermiester mentioned how you need to do that to get it to spread and wick. Just hard to do it excatly and sometimes it looked like glue touched a capacitor or part of bottom PCB but could not tell for sure in some cases as it bubbled up so wanted to ensure I got all choke sides wicked at PCB interconnect which is the bottom.


In terms of the 2 LR22 connectors, I had applied it to gap and tried to get it to come through though never saw a leak out on the floor, though a capacitor was so close by and maybe it was so light and hard to tell. Though at top I did see a thing bubble like moving at top even though I never applied any on gap at top of LR22 inductors indicating some form of liquid was moving on PCB floor between inductors. Perhaps the bubble affect as space was so tight it created a thing showing at the top thin gap? So just left it alone after that part and a few more squeezes to ensure it got all the way through as best as I could. Same with many other areas unless I directly saw the wet spot get on edge of PCB and choke.

 

[stama]

Too much glue is not going to have any negative effect on the coils, on the contrary. The concern is about damage to other components, indeed. This kind of glue does its "work" by dissolving a bit of the surfaces it enters in contact with.

A question for you @Wolverine2349 : I just noticed your new posts on the German forum. I don't know if I understood this well, so I have to ask: when you tested the Zotac AIRO, the card was whining just as much as the Gigabyte and PNY?

I am trying to decide whether to try my luck with one of these or not.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Too much glue is not going to have any negative effect on the coils, on the contrary. The concern is about damage to other components, indeed. This kind of glue does its "work" by dissolving a bit of the surfaces it enters in contact with.

A question for you @Wolverine2349 : I just noticed your new posts on the German forum. I don't know if I understood this well, so I have to ask: when you tested the Zotac AIRO, the card was whining just as much as the Gigabyte and PNY?

I am trying to decide whether to try my luck with one of these or not.

How does too much super glue damage components if it is non conductive? Is it just like non conductive thermal paste in that too much can still damage components if spilled, it is just pr0obably not, but still a risk? Where as conductive thermal paste if even one iota spills, say goodbye to a PCB? Also the risk of potentially covering something that could overheat unlike a non conductive thermal paste spill on a PCB motherboard or video card?

Well I tested 2 Zotac AMP AIRO 4090 cards. Both had awful loud fan motors at even slow speed which is 30%. The first I could not hear the whine as the fan motors were so bad. I tried to hold the fan blades stop and I did hear similar levels of whine, but it was so short as I could not hold fan blades any longer so could not test. Fan motor at only 30% was so awful and loud and I heard some whine/buzz from the coils when fans were stopped with my hands, that I just gave up and drove 150 miles to sell it as I could not return it where I bought it from.

With good reports at Hardware Luxx forums regarding no coil whine/buzz and some Zotac AMP Airo in stock at my local MicroCenter like 1 month ago. I figured fans would be bad and unacceptable. But I would buy it and test it for whine by taping the fans so they cannot spin and if it is great in coil whine department, i would keep it and rip the loud sounding fans off and try and put custom ones on somehow. However with fans stopped and going into Red Dead Redemption 2 game session for only 1 to 2 minutes and short benchmark to keep temps in check as fans could not run, the coil chainsaw/buzz/beehive type whine was still too much and really no different than Gigabyte Gaming OC and maybe barely better at best which meant not a keeper especially since I would have to replace those awful fans. So it was not worth keeping and going through the fan replacement hassle when it was no unicorn much if any better in coil whine department even if it was one of the better ones. I was expecting a lot better if I was going to replace the fans, not just maybe or only questionably a little better in whine department. So I returned that to MicroCenter.

Given the fact I have tried so many 4090 cards and all have the buzz/chainsaw whine type noise from coils, I wonder is it really true the ones who say they have none are not counting that as coil whine? Or are some just lucky or have noisy case fans to mask it? Or both? Well the Hardware Luxx forums at least if you believe the reports some do truly have silent cards inaudible in closed case or even open case unless they put ear by it, but it is a small sample, though do they have the PC speakers off and is room quiet. PC speakers off simulate quiet areas of game to make sure the whine cannot be heard in closed chassis

For your comment about more glue maybe being more helpful to get rid of coil whine/buzz/chainsaw type noise, I guess that is a good thing then. Though as you said as long as it does not damage other parts of the card that render it unstable or unusable which there is a risk of with more glue, though probably still ok. Though still letting it dry as it has been less than 24 hours. I will test it eventually and really hope this did good work.

 

[stama]

I see, thank you for the details.

I was kind of expecting this, you see the human hearing has this "feature" where sound at lower frequencies makes it harder to hear signals at higher frequencies (auditory masking).

So it's not that surprising that cards with terrible low frequency fan motor noise like the Zotacs (their loud droning noise) are claimed to have lower coil whine, that droning noise is better at preventing us from hearing other frequencies. I feared that might be the case, and your explanation of what happens when you prevent the fan blades to rotate is a confirmation.

The Gaming OC also has bad low frequency fan noise, the entire noise from its fans is below 3 KHz and increases as it goes towards 20 Hz. But, surprisingly, the card actually does have low noise emissions at higher frequencies, as an audio recording can attest. Audio recordings are not affected by human auditive system failings.

Btw: I remember you mentioned you have an APC or power conditioner or something like that. Did you try powering your PC using power that does not go through the APC or power conditioner? Based on how those things work (pure sine wave generation, or PWM), it can cause buzzing in switching power supplies and power stages that draw current from them.

 

[Wolverine2349]

I see, thank you for the details.

I was kind of expecting this, you see the human hearing has this "feature" where sound at lower frequencies makes it harder to hear signals at higher frequencies (auditory masking).

So it's not that surprising that cards with terrible low frequency fan motor noise like the Zotacs (their loud droning noise) are claimed to have lower coil whine, that droning noise is better at preventing us from hearing other frequencies. I feared that might be the case, and your explanation of what happens when you prevent the fan blades to rotate is a confirmation.

The Gaming OC also has bad low frequency fan noise, the entire noise from its fans is below 3 KHz and increases as it goes towards 20 Hz. But, surprisingly, the card actually does have low noise emissions at higher frequencies, as an audio recording can attest. Audio recordings are not affected by human auditive system failings.

Btw: I remember you mentioned you have an APC or power conditioner or something like that. Did you try powering your PC using power that does not go through the APC or power conditioner? Based on how those things work (pure sine wave generation, or PWM), it can cause buzzing in switching power supplies and power stages that draw current from them.

Well the Gaming OC fan has a bad default fan BIO as it ramps fan speed up and it sounds loud on too high of speed. But if you manually set fan curve in MSI Afterburner and fan never goes above 60% it is fine. The Zotac on other hand is just awful at only 30% which is default to if you do a fan curve as you cannot go lower and it sounds like a 20+ year old PC case fan.

I have tried plugging PC directly into the wall before and it made no difference/. Though did that with only a couple of cards.

I would think UPS being an APC Smart UPS SMT1500c pure sine wave would be a good thing for it. And this UPS is true sine wave not simulated sine wave.

 

[athenaesword]

Thanks for your advice to. I still have not gotten it to work yet and am on my 2nd try with 2nd 4090 after selling the other one. The other one I used Loctite Liquid Professional glue then immediately found out Loctite is not recommended. So it did not work after trying it after like 35 hours.

I not got the HFT super glue form Harbor Freight that Lex recommended and also made sure to apply it hard, though maybe over did it as there were so many gaps where nozzle would not fit so put more on to ensure it wicked through gaps. Not sure how long that needs to dry to be successful?

And thank qfq77. He gave me some advice on how they did the Gaming OC

If this does not work on the PNY I did, I am going to sell it and give the Gaming OC a try using qfg77 method, though no waterblock and just stock cooler with custom MSI Afterburner Fan curve as fans are ok but the default fan BIOS in Gaming OC makes fans loud unnecessarily. I will just have to somehow figure out how to pry off the PCB as I hear it is on there pretty good per Steve Walton at Hardware Unboxed. Even the PNY was on there tight enough that I had to fiddle with it. Are they all like that. Plus I went with PNY again as Lex had success silencing one and it has better fans out of the box so hoping my application worked once I let it finish drying.

Could u post what method you’re referring to? Would imagine it would help everyone here if it works

Btw the new nvidia 531.18 driver has enabled rtx video super resolution (vsr) and even watching YouTube now I hear the whine (although lower frequency but definitely audible) when using it. Or if u scroll thru a website like Razer that have some automatic video elements and have that setting on , it kicks in and starts low frequency buzzing. Have to turn the setting off to get rid of the noise… geez.

 

[Taisho]

I have tried like 14 different 4090s now and all had a bad annoying electric buzz though very few had the annoying high whinny coil squeal at 100 FPS or less all settings maxed out in games or benchmarks.

Apart from using epoxy on coils, not picking brands notorious for heavy coil whine (hi Asus), undervolting, underclocking + undervolting, there are viable acoustic ways to combat coil whine, that are very effective because of the fact that high sound frequencies are relatively easy to stop by obstacles and directional (spreading more in line than in a wide cone).

1. The further away from your ear the PC case is, the better.
2. It's a good idea to have your case pushed a bit forward, as this further increases the distance, and makes the noise less in line with your ears.
3. Have your desk surface between the PC case and your ear.
4. It's no coincidence that the coil whine issue escalated with the rise of the mesh or so-called "airflow" PC cases fad. Any hole in your case lets the coil whine out, the worst offender being a top mesh, as it goes directly from the GPU toward your ears. The best are PC cases like Nanoxia Deep Silence 8 Pro, which have no mesh and absorption foam inside. They are bad for airflow (especially CPU, GPU not so much) but pick your poison. If you know your way around undervolting a CPU and don't use it for productivity workloads - just gaming, this shouldn't be such an issue. Though 4090 may be excessive, it's a power hog abomination. Silence, computing power - you can't have it all.

 

[Wolverine2349]

Apart from using epoxy on coils, not picking brands notorious for heavy coil whine (hi Asus), undervolting, underclocking + undervolting, there are viable acoustic ways to combat coil whine, that are very effective because of the fact that high sound frequencies are relatively easy to stop by obstacles and directional (spreading more in line than in a wide cone).

1. The further away from your ear the PC case is, the better.
2. It's a good idea to have your case pushed a bit forward, as this further increases the distance, and makes the noise less in line with your ears.
3. Have your desk surface between the PC case and your ear.
4. It's no coincidence that the coil whine issue escalated with the rise of the mesh or so-called "airflow" PC cases fad. Any hole in your case lets the coil whine out, the worst offender being a top mesh, as it goes directly from the GPU toward your ears. The best are PC cases like Nanoxia Deep Silence 8 Pro, which have no mesh and absorption foam inside. They are bad for airflow (especially CPU, GPU not so much) but pick your poison. If you know your way around undervolting a CPU and don't use it for productivity workloads - just gaming, this shouldn't be such an issue. Though 4090 may be excessive, it's a power hog abomination. Silence, computing power - you can't have it all.

I have the be quiet Silent Base 802 with sealed sides and closed top that have sound dampened foam. And I have mesh front with 3 1000 rpm quiet 140mm intake fans. So I do have good sound dampening case.

Could u post what method you’re referring to? Would imagine it would help everyone here if it works

Btw the new nvidia 531.18 driver has enabled rtx video super resolution (vsr) and even watching YouTube now I hear the whine (although lower frequency but definitely audible) when using it. Or if u scroll thru a website like Razer that have some automatic video elements and have that setting on , it kicks in and starts low frequency buzzing. Have to turn the setting off to get rid of the noise… geez.

Basically, apply the glue to part of chokes that contact PCB. The bottom edges of them. All sides.

For parts where tip will not fit, try and put enough on PCB by part near Crack so you can see a puddle get to that edge. It's tricky to do. May gave to overdo it to ensure it gets to those spots.