Coil whine or something (10kHz noise)

gwynbleidd997 · Apr 19, 2022

Hi,

My PC started producing an annoying high pitched noise (at around 10kHz, see screenshot) lately that is quite audible at night when ambient sound is at its lowest. Since I use open back headphones this is incredibly annoying.

Is this your typical coil whine? I'm not sure because the noise is always there whether the PC is idling or under load so I suspect maybe something else.
It wasn't there as far as I remember before like a week ago or something and I didn't change anything with the hardware, no upgrades.
Is there anything that can be done to mitigate this? is it fixable at all? I don't even know where exactly it's coming from.

Any help is appreciated.

eidairaman1 · Apr 19, 2022

Could be case fans, cpu fan, gpu fan, psu fan...

Isolate by disconnecting 1 fan at a time.

DeathtoGnomes · Apr 19, 2022

use a towel or something thick and around/over the PSU, if the sound lowers...

If its that loud away from the PC, you should be able to find easily opening the side of the case.

Also, turn of your desktop speakers while searching.

Mussels · Apr 19, 2022

Just remember that literally anything can cause the noise, even phone chargers, speakers - i was copping it recently here and it was the speakers in my second monitor, while it was in standby ("off" but plugged in) - connecting a 3.5mm jack (with nothing attached at the other end) disabled the speakers and fixed it

Once you narrow down the component, you can work on fixes (hot glue, settings, cables, etc etc)

Chomiq · Apr 19, 2022

Mussels said:
Just remember that literally anything can cause the noise, even phone chargers, speakers - i was copping it recently here and it was the speakers in my second monitor, while it was in standby ("off" but plugged in) - connecting a 3.5mm jack (with nothing attached at the other end) disabled the speakers and fixed it

Once you narrow down the component, you can work on fixes (hot glue, settings, cables, etc etc)

Yeah on my work laptop even just moving the mouse leads to barely audible high frequency noise.

bug · Apr 19, 2022

Iirc coil whine will vary with workload, so it's probably not that.
Do what others have said and look at components one by one. You can even start with the bare mobo+CPU (even if it doesn't post) and stat adding one component at a time.

Ferrum Master · Apr 19, 2022

Chomiq said:
Yeah on my work laptop even just moving the mouse leads to barely audible high frequency noise.

If it is a Dell, and usually it is, RMA it. They know about the issue.

You can attach good ol toilet paper inner tube to the MIC and target the source location, to pinpoint exactly what it is. My personal bet that it is CPU VRM.

Chomiq · Apr 19, 2022

Ferrum Master said:
If it is a Dell, and usually it is, RMA it. They know about the issue.

You can attach good ol toilet paper inner tube to the MIC and target the source location, to pinpoint exactly what it is. My personal bet that it is CPU VRM.

It is a Dell, but like I said, it's barely audible and I always have my headphones on so it doesn't bother me.

gwynbleidd997 · Apr 19, 2022

eidairaman1 said:
Could be case fans, cpu fan, gpu fan, psu fan...

Isolate by disconnecting 1 fan at a time.

I put all fans to 0 RPM in the BIOS and the noise is still there.

bug said:
Iirc coil whine will vary with workload, so it's probably not that.
Do what others have said and look at components one by one. You can even start with the bare mobo+CPU (even if it doesn't post) and stat adding one component at a time.

Mussels said:
Just remember that literally anything can cause the noise, even phone chargers, speakers - i was copping it recently here and it was the speakers in my second monitor, while it was in standby ("off" but plugged in) - connecting a 3.5mm jack (with nothing attached at the other end) disabled the speakers and fixed it

Once you narrow down the component, you can work on fixes (hot glue, settings, cables, etc etc)

DeathtoGnomes said:
use a towel or something thick and around/over the PSU, if the sound lowers...

If its that loud away from the PC, you should be able to find easily opening the side of the case.

Also, turn of your desktop speakers while searching.

I installed Friture and set the spectrogram to 10030-10050Hz (The noise is also present at 20kHz btw but I can't hear that high anyways so it doesn't matter) to scan audio frequencies picked up by my microphone. Since the mic is a (cheap) tiny clip-on one, I started poking around inside the PC with it looking for spikes. It seems, from the places that I could reach, the highest signal was coming from a certain spot on the backside of the GPU (see picture) but the difference when I'm very near or touching it compared to the mic being moved away isn't as big as I expected if that was the source (see spectrogram).
Also, some power delivery components on the motherboard emitted a similar signal at around 10kHz that showed as smaller spikes (darker line than that spot on the GPU).
I still haven't completely removed the GPU to make sure (I kinda don't want to tbh).

What would be the best material to cover the backside of the GPU with to reduce this noise?

DeathtoGnomes · Apr 19, 2022

gwynbleidd997 said:
What would be the best material to cover the backside of the GPU with to reduce this noise?

Anything that will dampen the noise, for your testing. Thick cloth or actual nose dampening material. it wont remove the frequency but should lower its amplitude.

Ferrum Master · Apr 19, 2022

Nah, take apart the GPU cooler and put some Thermal Pad on the Coil, to squeeze to the GPU cooler construction and lower the noise. You make some thick thermal pad cushions to support the PCB too...

Bill_Bright · Apr 19, 2022

gwynbleidd997 said:
Is there anything that can be done to mitigate this? is it fixable at all? I don't even know where exactly it's coming from.

It depends on the source - which you need to determine first.

A toilet paper tube was suggested. Because it is much longer, I recommend using the inner cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels as a stethoscope to see (hear) if you can pinpoint the source of the sound.

Once the source is determined, then you can determine if you can fix it, or not. You can replace a PSU, or a drive, for example. A surface mounted component on your motherboard may be a different story.

lexluthermiester · Apr 19, 2022

gwynbleidd997 said:
Is this your typical coil whine?

In a word, Yes. And the source is very likely to be the GTX 1060 choke coils. If you are not afraid of a little DIY and willing to tinker, there is an easy solution I use frequently that works about 95% of the time. This is good timing as I'm actually performing that procedure currently. Decided to use this opportunity to create a quick How-To guide.

Mussels · Apr 21, 2022

Hot glue is an easy to undo option, superglue should also work as lex suggests (although it's messier) - just make sure it doesn't spread everywhere

Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 5600X @4.8Ghz PBO 100W/60A/90A
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Coil whine or something (10kHz noise)

gwynbleidd997

Attachments

eidairaman1

The Exiled Airman

DeathtoGnomes

Mussels

Freshwater Moderator

Chomiq

bug

Ferrum Master