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

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Out of curiosity, I tried running the GPU off a separate PSU, so the power delivery on the motherboard doesn't affect the power delivery on the PCIe connectors. The coil whine is identical.

The guy I bought this GPU from said that on his system, it had no coil whine, but the 7900xtx which he switched to does. I'm tempted to buy the exact same motherboard that he has when I upgrade from AM4 to AM5.

As for isolating sound, it's 100% coming from GPU and not motherboard.

 

[lexluthermiester]

As for isolating sound, it's 100% coming from GPU and not motherboard.

That step in the right direction. Have you figured out which individual component it is?

 

[Wolverine2349]

Out of curiosity, I tried running the GPU off a separate PSU, so the power delivery on the motherboard doesn't affect the power delivery on the PCIe connectors. The coil whine is identical.

The guy I bought this GPU from said that on his system, it had no coil whine, but the 7900xtx which he switched to does. I'm tempted to buy the exact same motherboard that he has when I upgrade from AM4 to AM5.

As for isolating sound, it's 100% coming from GPU and not motherboard.

Very important detail here. What AM5 motherboard did this guy have that had no coil whine in their system and what RTX 4090 were they using? What PSU? As I am moving to AM5 with CPU in hand ready and have heard some other good reports including from my brother's friend and elsewhere online that AM5 platforms little to no whine 4090s.

Which mobo do you currently have on AM4 and which PSU.

I just scored myself a Ryzen 7950X3D + $600 in cash by trading my 13900KS, Asus Z790-A Strix DDR4, 2 X 16GB T-Create BDIe 3600 CL14 DDR4 RAM, and eVGA Supernova T2 1600 watt to someone who had that.

I had planned to sell those parts and move to AM5 and I wanted a 780X3D, but that is not out yet, so thought of paying premium, little did I know I would be offered that hard to get 7950X3D in a trade so I made out even better than thought. I will disable non 3D CCD so it is exactly the same as 7800X3D and thus no need for XBOX Game bar and special scheduling crap. And hope to achieve whine free RTX 4090 setup finally.

 

[Mondain]

One thing that accidentally worked for me on PSU coil whine: I changed the way it sits.

The PSU used to sit on it's side in my old case (011 Dynamic Evo) and had a lot of coil whine, very annoying when not using headphones.

On my new case (Ceres 500) the PSU gets installed on it's "normal" position (fan down), and I can't hear any coil whine even when I'm up close.

 

[Wolverine2349]

One thing that accidentally worked for me on PSU coil whine: I changed the way it sits.

The PSU used to sit on it's side in my old case (011 Dynamic Evo) and had a lot of coil whine, very annoying when not using headphones.

On my new case (Ceres 500) the PSU gets installed on it's "normal" position (fan down), and I can't hear any coil whine even when I'm up close.

Thanks for the tip. PSU has always sat with fan facing down. Though rubber insulates it so it should help. Though I wonder if it prevents the PSU from grounding itself to metal chassis and thus could cause more whine that way in a silent case which all have rubber to insulate PSU from touching metal chassis directly.

 

[Kodehawa]

Oh yeah. You seem to be having bad luck or are one of those people with a heightened sensitivity to high frequency noise. Perhaps a combination of those two factors.

I have high sensitivity to high frequency noises. It sucks if you do tho. Your PC squeaks, your emergency lights squeak, your refrigerator squeaks, all your chargers squeak, everything squeaks. At this point I can only imagine babies and animals hate any electronic sounds lmao

 

[Wolverine2349]

I have high sensitivity to high frequency noises. It sucks if you do tho. Your PC squeaks, your emergency lights squeak, your refrigerator squeaks, all your chargers squeak, everything squeaks. At this point I can only imagine babies and animals hate any electronic sounds lmao

I can tolerate some of those other things, but my main PC is my precious thinbg and I expect gretaness from it and no harmonic noise espeiclaly after investing in large well ventolated cooling fans that are quiet and move good air. Complete silence will not happen with higher power draw. But quiet PCs are very possible and there hsould not be any noise except from case, CPU and GPU fans and even then with the tech opf todays fans they should be quiet and smooth soft soudning unoless you are overclocking 8 core parts to insane extremes or modest to high overclock of 12 to 16 to 24 core parts in which case yopu would need such big and high speed fans thaty will sound loud and also custom loop and water cooling at it.

But electrical resonance noise and coil whine/electrical buzz is just not acceptable for consumer electronics.

 

[lexluthermiester]

But electrical resonance noise and coil whine/electrical buzz is just not acceptable for consumer electronics.

We could not agree more on this point.

 

[Kodehawa]

I can tolerate some of those other things, but my main PC is my precious thinbg and I expect gretaness from it and no harmonic noise espeiclaly after investing in large well ventolated cooling fans that are quiet and move good air. Complete silence will not happen with higher power draw. But quiet PCs are very possible and there hsould not be any noise except from case, CPU and GPU fans and even then with the tech opf todays fans they should be quiet and smooth soft soudning unoless you are overclocking 8 core parts to insane extremes or modest to high overclock of 12 to 16 to 24 core parts in which case yopu would need such big and high speed fans thaty will sound loud and also custom loop and water cooling at it.

But electrical resonance noise and coil whine/electrical buzz is just not acceptable for consumer electronics.

I agree. The issue I've got with being specially sensitive to coil whine-ish noises is that literally everything makes them if you're sensitive enough. My mom and friends can hear my GPU coil whine alright, but I can hear my router making a coil whine noise, my emergency lights on the other side of the room making an electrical noise, my emergency lights on the opposite side of the first floor making a noise, the refrigerator making the same noise, my charger making the same noise - and no one else I know can. I'm glad my PSU doesn't make a noise now, my old one drove me crazy enough to keep me turning my PC off all the time lmao

At least the only thing that has to be plugged in that makes a high frequency noise is the fridge.

Like jesus christ, at this point I unplug everything I can unplug to not have a constant buzzing noise on me.

 

[Veseleil]

Remember to use a tube of some sort to listen to the noise and narrow down where in the card it actually is.

It won't be so difficult. The Heaven sings me a song.
The odd thing is, all of the other cards I had scream just at the ending splash window, this one screams the whole BM, but it's silent in the ending.

 

[lexluthermiester]

It won't be so difficult. The Heaven sings me a song.
The odd thing is, all of the other cards I had scream just at the ending splash window, this one screams the whole BM, but it's silent in the ending.

Interesting. That sounds like a solvable situation.

 

[Waldorf]

would love to see how many have still issues with whine when gpu-screen are using some sort of sync.
since i got a vrr capable tv, never hear any coils on any component, unless running (uncapped) benchmarks.

and similar to many others here, im sensitive to HF/HP noises (tinnitus),
and i can hear HF pitch from dimmed leds +7ft away.

@Kodehawa
try playing music/tv in the background, at the lowest possible volume that masks the noises.
do it for a couple weeks/month, then gradually lower vol every other week.

 

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Very important detail here. What AM5 motherboard did this guy have that had no coil whine in their system and what RTX 4090 were they using? What PSU? As I am moving to AM5 with CPU in hand ready and have heard some other good reports including from my brother's friend and elsewhere online that AM5 platforms little to no whine 4090s.

Which mobo do you currently have on AM4 and which PSU.

I just scored myself a Ryzen 7950X3D + $600 in cash by trading my 13900KS, Asus Z790-A Strix DDR4, 2 X 16GB T-Create BDIe 3600 CL14 DDR4 RAM, and eVGA Supernova T2 1600 watt to someone who had that.

I had planned to sell those parts and move to AM5 and I wanted a 780X3D, but that is not out yet, so thought of paying premium, little did I know I would be offered that hard to get 7950X3D in a trade so I made out even better than thought. I will disable non 3D CCD so it is exactly the same as 7800X3D and thus no need for XBOX Game bar and special scheduling crap. And hope to achieve whine free RTX 4090 setup finally.

He has: AMD 7700X, ASRock X670E PG Lightning, Thermaltake ToughPower GF3 ATX 3.0.

I wouldn't go out buying specific hardware because coil whine is really subjective and load-dependent. Maybe his typical load causes coil whine on the 7900xtx card and not the 4090.

The only real test would be that I take my PC over to his place and we swap parts, compare, run identical benchmarks, etc. I don't think that's a reasonable thing to ask from a someone who just wanted to sell his GPU

I'm also waiting for 7800x3D but I absolutely need S/PDIF and this particular ASrock motherboard doesn't have it. Maybe I can get a sound card with S/PDIF then I'm not limited by that one single feature.

In the meantime, I've moved my PC off my desk, changed to a heavily padded case with terrible airflow, cooled by a Mo-Ra3 external radiator. It's the more sensible solution for me, and the coil whine is much quieter now. The only reason I still hear it is because my new cooling solution is too quiet.

 

[ad1]

That step in the right direction. Have you figured out which individual component it is?

sorry for the late reply. No, I never managed to isolate the component. It's not so easy with a waterblock on it, but it's most likely not only the 2 chokes below the power connector, as the sound comes more from the middle area of the board. Unfortunately I'm hampered by water fittings to try and get anything in there to isolate sound.

 

[ad1]

would love to see how many have still issues with whine when gpu-screen are using some sort of sync.
since i got a vrr capable tv, never hear any coils on any component, unless running (uncapped) benchmarks.

and similar to many others here, im sensitive to HF/HP noises (tinnitus),
and i can hear HF pitch from dimmed leds +7ft away.

@Kodehawa
try playing music/tv in the background, at the lowest possible volume that masks the noises.
do it for a couple weeks/month, then gradually lower vol every other week.

Naturally there are many variables. I can cap FPS at 60, then play Star Citizen, which has trouble hitting 60fps in some situations while pulling 450W, GPU screaming like a banshee. On the other hand, there are games that pull 50W at 60fps - those games are much less likely to cause any kind of coil whine.

 

[Waldorf]

did you try an actual "g/free sync" mode beside regular vsync/capping fps?

 

[ad1]

did you try an actual "g/free sync" mode beside regular vsync/capping fps?

Yes, my monitor supports G-Sync and it's always enabled. I only turn it off when I do benchmarks.

 

[Tangles]

Hey, thankyou for the how-to. I have a Strix 4080 OC I just bought and the whine is terrible. I took it back but the replacement is just as bad so I'm thinking about doing the superglue trick. All the photos here look to be low-end cards with green PCBs and not many coils... has anyone done this on a higher end gaming card with any success?
Thanks

 

[Tangles]

Welp, I did the superglue trick. Not nervewracking at all taking apart such an expensive card... Will leave it a few hours to set and report back on how it went
The glue seemed to wick nicely around the edges of the coils and I notice has crept up between them, hopefully securing them to each other and adding a bit more dampening



EDIT: The noise isn't completely gone but it's maybe 70% less than what it was. It's less of a high pitched squeal and more of a buzz, too, so what remains doesn't grate on my nerves
Win. Highly recommend doing it

 

[Wolverine2349]

Welp, I did the superglue trick. Not nervewracking at all taking apart such an expensive card... Will leave it a few hours to set and report back on how it went
The glue seemed to wick nicely around the edges of the coils and I notice has crept up between them, hopefully securing them to each other and adding a bit more dampening



EDIT: The noise isn't completely gone but it's maybe 70% less than what it was. It's less of a high pitched squeal and more of a buzz, too, so what remains doesn't grate on my nerves
Win. Highly recommend doing it

Which card is this? So I guess super glue trick dampens squeal, but seems to do nothing to stop the electrical buzz noise?

 

[lexluthermiester]

EDIT: The noise isn't completely gone but it's maybe 70% less than what it was. It's less of a high pitched squeal and more of a buzz, too, so what remains doesn't grate on my nerves
Win. Highly recommend doing it

That's a good result. Glad it worked out for you! About average result too. Most really noisy cards still have some noise after being sealed with superglue, rarely are they completely dead silent, though it does happen.

 

[Tangles]

Which card is this? So I guess super glue trick dampens squeal, but seems to do nothing to stop the electrical buzz noise?

Strix 4080 OC. I would say the buzz wasn't there before, the dampening effect of the glue has changed the resonant frequency perhaps. It's less pronounced and way less annoying

 

[Wolverine2349]

Strix 4080 OC. I would say the buzz wasn't there before, the dampening effect of the glue has changed the resonant frequency perhaps. It's less pronounced and way less annoying

Are you sure that there was no buzz at all before, maybe there was it was just drowned out by the severe squealing/whining noise? And now that the super glue dampened that the buzz became more visible?

 

[Shrek]

Something a little more pliable than superglue might absorb vibrations better.

 

[Simone]

Hey there.

I've got an Asus Scar 18, the coil whine sucks.

Would this glue work? https://www.ebay.com/itm/151679862702

I've sent the original Laptop back in this video, and bought a new one, in hopes my unit was just a worst case and I lost hard on the lottery.. but if it is the same with this new device, I'm going to attempt to insulate the coils with this glue listed above.

I'm confident in dismantling laptops and have done so for years, so I doubt I'll break anything. Happy to share the results. New unit should come within a month.

Anyhow, can someone confirm the glue I've listed is good for the job, or can recommend to me the best glue possible? Thanks.

I've also got thermal padding, which I'll attempt to smother the coil(s) with somehow if that's also an option. Through my tests it appears the component in question is on the other side of the motherboard, directly under the keyboard and facing the user which is why it's so loud.

http://imgur.com/cn4XBVw

http://imgur.com/6CkrS3S

Sadly no shots of the other side of the board on google that I can find, though maybe it is those VRMs north of the die. When I took the bottom off however and put the unit under load, I could swear the sound still seemed louder on the keyboard side.