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

[lexluthermiester]

Just for fun, not to contradict anyone, but it seems some capacitors can be noisy.

Why does acoustic noise occur in ceramic capacitors, and does this have any effect on reliability? | Capacitors FAQ | Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

This is not common and is not very loud when present. I've never actually heard it myself.

 

[Simone]

How long does it take for the glue to sort of harden up? It's been 6+ hours, still wet. So much for super glue :U

Needs moisture to go off apparently but this is taking its time.. maybe the fan was a bad idea?

 

[lexluthermiester]

How long does it take for the glue to sort of harden up? It's been 6+ hours, still wet. So much for super glue :U

Needs moisture to go off apparently but this is taking its time.. maybe the fan was a bad idea?

Tap the board a few times. Sometimes the solution needs a bit of help to start the polymerization process.

 

[Tangles]

How long does it take for the glue to sort of harden up? It's been 6+ hours, still wet. So much for super glue :U

Needs moisture to go off apparently but this is taking its time.. maybe the fan was a bad idea?

leave it for 24 hours minimum. mine was 'mostly' set, i assembled the card and now the cooler is never coming off again so let it fully cure

 

[Mussels]

Had an epihany in another thread


Short version, i use ferrite beads as 'common mode chokes' as to remove electrical noise on DSL lines (ADSL and VDSL) to boost internet speeds, they're a common (hah) component in these modems anyway, but you can simply fit bigger or better ones at different locations (like the wall socket your modems DSL cable comes from) and reduce that noise further

The thing is - that science could also work on a PC. Kinked power cables and sharp bends causes some of the electrical signal to either reflect slightly out of sync with the rest of the power, or even leave the cables as EMI - this simple explanation could be why some experience more issues than others, because of how their cables are laid out in their system

I found examples of people trying it in the past


Can someone who's experiencing issues get their hands on a ferrite choke large enough to clip onto their PCI-E power cables?

This is an example of a single pass through that i used in one location, bypassing the need for a joiner cable and using the choke to catch EMI from a nearby power socket
Boosted speeds from 75Mb/s to 84Mb/s
It's no gigabit, but that's a solid improvement - and most came from the choke, as it was ~79Mb without it, on first attempt

This is one I did with more wrapping - the NBN (Aussie-wide internet installer, they do ALL of it) had documentation showing that for each extra wrap around you got 6x the noise reduction in the unwanted high frequencies (Left mine, right theirs)

We can't do the multiple wraps with the thick cables we use for power in a PC, so the snap on type might be the best shot and an option that doesnt risk warranties at all

 

[Simone]

My Scar 18 comes with a Ferrite Bead on both ends of the charging brick's cable. I wonder if adding more would do anything.

Either way, need to wait for the glue to set regardless and test that first. I poked it, it's become gooey and seems to be solidifying.

I heard alcohol and moisture helps, perhaps I should put a humidifier in the room, it's rather cool down there.. perhaps too cold for it to set properly. I might need to relocate the project to my bedroom, maybe park it behind my current laptop's exhaust vents. ';d
————EDIT————

Turning the fan off was a bad idea it turns out. There’s Crystal snow everywhere lol. It all set though. Will give it another 12 hours then test. Hope it works.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Had an epihany in another thread


Short version, i use ferrite beads as 'common mode chokes' as to remove electrical noise on DSL lines (ADSL and VDSL) to boost internet speeds, they're a common (hah) component in these modems anyway, but you can simply fit bigger or better ones at different locations (like the wall socket your modems DSL cable comes from) and reduce that noise further

The thing is - that science could also work on a PC. Kinked power cables and sharp bends causes some of the electrical signal to either reflect slightly out of sync with the rest of the power, or even leave the cables as EMI - this simple explanation could be why some experience more issues than others, because of how their cables are laid out in their system

I found examples of people trying it in the past


Can someone who's experiencing issues get their hands on a ferrite choke large enough to clip onto their PCI-E power cables?

View attachment 290584View attachment 290585


This is an example of a single pass through that i used in one location, bypassing the need for a joiner cable and using the choke to catch EMI from a nearby power socket
Boosted speeds from 75Mb/s to 84Mb/s
It's no gigabit, but that's a solid improvement - and most came from the choke, as it was ~79Mb without it, on first attempt
View attachment 290586

This is one I did with more wrapping - the NBN (Aussie-wide internet installer, they do ALL of it) had documentation showing that for each extra wrap around you got 6x the noise reduction in the unwanted high frequencies (Left mine, right theirs)

View attachment 290587View attachment 290590


We can't do the multiple wraps with the thick cables we use for power in a PC, so the snap on type might be the best shot and an option that doesnt risk warranties at all

This is a very interesting idea! I've got a card that has noise but not enough that I've performed surgery. I also have a few ferrite clip-ons. I'll give this a try and report back tomorrow night. My suspicion is that it might have some effect. We'll see how much.

 

[Simone]

Sadly no change I think. The coils must be boxed in tight and the glue didn’t make it. What a shame. Maybe it could possibly still be the resistor chips instead, unsure.. either way currently it’s a failure, and I used a fair bit of glue.

Shame. If gluing the resistor chips don’t help then I guess I’ll just sell the thing.

F U Coil Whine. :f

 

[Hanta]

Thanks for this guide, but how do I know which to superglue? I have 5 of those that you show in the picture on my motherboard, do I do them all? And do i apply glue around all 4 sides?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Thanks for this guide, but how do I know which to superglue? I have 5 of those that you show in the picture on my motherboard, do I do them all? And do i apply glue around all 4 sides?

Just a tip, .webp images are not universally supported. File types .jpg and .png are. Please post photos in one of those formats.

 

[Mussels]

Thanks for this guide, but how do I know which to superglue? I have 5 of those that you show in the picture on my motherboard, do I do them all? And do i apply glue around all 4 sides?

You'll need to listen to find out - it's unlikely to be the motherboard itself, and it may be under a heatsink already
If it is the motherboard, it'll be close to the CPU socket as thats where the power circuitry is'

Side note: I spent a few hours on this, but i'm also a beginner with electronics like this.
The ideas below are guaranteed to have mistakes somewhere, as they've intentionally been simplified from an already imperfect understanding.
Many edits were done as I read more, and found simpler ways to word things and therefore more mistakes might exist.

Previously on Mussels ranting: Components are already in your hardware to reduce the electrical noise on various ways, but the less noise they deal with, the better they can do their jobs. Try a clip on ferrite choke, avoid sharp bends.


Here's a TL;DR example for you as a primer:
If a GPU can vary its load and power requirements faster than the PSU providing it can, the PSU is gunna squeal as it sends power thats no longer needed and 'bounces back', and both ends have to compensate for the voltages going up and down.

If the PSU can't switch to a higher power state when needed, the GPU end is gunna dip, and will need to work harder to convert a lower voltage into the same amperage - Then the PSU will catch up and send more power, and you have a sitchyashun [/texas accent] where both ends are slamming doors open and closed between "too high" and "too low" and going outside their comfort zones, relying on noise-dampening components that aren't designed to handle the noise from such rapid changes.

This is where FPS caps help, or something like extreme GPU settings lowering CPU usage due to a GPU bottleneck - because the load becomes constant - both sides can keep up.


Meaty stuff:
The science is easiest to understand with a constant load, so this focuses on that side now
Unlike AC power, DC has no 'rate' - it's 0Hz because it's always flowing, so it's really just a matter of pressure and resistance

A good analogy would be a stretchy garden hose made of canvas, like tent fabric. The higher voltage, the faster the water speed - the higher the amperage, the more stretched the pipe is.
Wattage would be the flow rate at the far end - the far end doesnt care if it was a wide pipe at low speed or a narrow pipe at high speed, it just needs X amount overall.

The water flows along inside nicely, but any kinks or sharp bends create some resistance, so the pump has to push harder to get the amount expected to the other end. The harder it pushes, the worse the resistance gets - so after a certain threshold, components struggle by producing heat or vibration (noise)

That lost power from it being turned into heat results in the PSU needing to work harder, getting less efficient and more noisy the harder it has to push.
Combine this with the varying load of a game or GPU and you can see why every factor involved can contribute to the noise problems, or reduce them.


The GPU needs to be able to handle the voltage dropping (by being able to tolerate a wide enough voltage range) and the PSU needs to be able to switch how much voltage its outputting as fast as the GPU needs it. If it's converting things outside the happy range of the various components (too high/low voltages, switching too often) then they'll either get really hot, or make noise.


I wonder how often people having a new PSU 'fix' their problems, is just because its new cables or they wired them better...
Damaged wiring would be really common, since inside PSU wiring is twisted strands of thin wires - some could snap and you'd never know, without cutting it open. Imagine having 10% more resistance on your 12V than your ground, and how the circuitry would try to balance that out.

(I need to get my old corsair 750W out of storage and test it with the backup PCI-E cables that i've never used even once)

 

[Hanta]

Just a tip, .webp images are not universally supported. File types .jpg and .png are. Please post photos in one of those formats.

tried adding a png and it said not supported haha. Seems to work this time though...

Thanks for this guide, but how do I know which to superglue? I have 5 of those that you show in the picture on my motherboard, do I do them all? And do i apply glue around all 4 sides?

Can I just Glue all of them? And do I glue all 4 sides?

 

[Simone]

Yarn

I tried the FPS cap trick, funnily enough, it just added a larger space in the coil whine, the pitch didn't change, but the frequency lowered.

EG tttttttttt changed to t-t-t-t-t-t-t.

Also funnily enough, playing Cyberpunk 2077 produces no coil whine in silent mode, but if I put on performance, it starts up again. It randomly goes away but then it can just come back again. It's becoming unpredictable. ':<

 

[lexluthermiester]

Had an epihany in another thread


Short version, i use ferrite beads as 'common mode chokes' as to remove electrical noise on DSL lines (ADSL and VDSL) to boost internet speeds, they're a common (hah) component in these modems anyway, but you can simply fit bigger or better ones at different locations (like the wall socket your modems DSL cable comes from) and reduce that noise further

The thing is - that science could also work on a PC. Kinked power cables and sharp bends causes some of the electrical signal to either reflect slightly out of sync with the rest of the power, or even leave the cables as EMI - this simple explanation could be why some experience more issues than others, because of how their cables are laid out in their system

I found examples of people trying it in the past


Can someone who's experiencing issues get their hands on a ferrite choke large enough to clip onto their PCI-E power cables?

View attachment 290584View attachment 290585


This is an example of a single pass through that i used in one location, bypassing the need for a joiner cable and using the choke to catch EMI from a nearby power socket
Boosted speeds from 75Mb/s to 84Mb/s
It's no gigabit, but that's a solid improvement - and most came from the choke, as it was ~79Mb without it, on first attempt
View attachment 290586

This is one I did with more wrapping - the NBN (Aussie-wide internet installer, they do ALL of it) had documentation showing that for each extra wrap around you got 6x the noise reduction in the unwanted high frequencies (Left mine, right theirs)

View attachment 290587View attachment 290590


We can't do the multiple wraps with the thick cables we use for power in a PC, so the snap on type might be the best shot and an option that doesnt risk warranties at all

This is a very interesting idea! I've got a card that has noise but not enough that I've performed surgery. I also have a few ferrite clip-ons. I'll give this a try and report back tomorrow night. My suspicion is that it might have some effect. We'll see how much.

Ok, this actually works on the GTX560 that I tested. Granted, not a lot, but it was noticeable.

tried adding a png and it said not supported haha. Seems to work this time though...


Can I just Glue all of them? And do I glue all 4 sides?

Ah, that works! Here we go;

 

[Mussels]

I tried the FPS cap trick, funnily enough, it just added a larger space in the coil whine, the pitch didn't change, but the frequency lowered.

EG tttttttttt changed to t-t-t-t-t-t-t.

Also funnily enough, playing Cyberpunk 2077 produces no coil whine in silent mode, but if I put on performance, it starts up again. It randomly goes away but then it can just come back again. It's becoming unpredictable. ':<

It can depend on the source of the whine as much as anything else - for example, i remember x58 mobos from gigabyte (the UD3 in particular) had serious coil whine issues you'd hear when moving the mouse, and disabling C-states was the cure to fix it
The reason was simple: PSU's couldnt handle how low wattage they were at idle, and the PSU and board thus had a fight to get voltages and amperages where they needed to be. Raising the idle states of the CPU was enough to solve the problem, such as disabling C-states or overclocking - even altering a windows power plan could help.


It's entirely possible to have more than one source of whine, so you could remove GPU whine with one config, but still have PSU or motherboard whine - certain settings could have all three, or bounce around.

Ok, this actually works on the GTX560 that I tested. Granted, not a lot, but it was noticeable.

That's fantastic, another tool to add to the coil whine aresenal

I just bought a 3070 for my ITX rig, and i'm going to try using it to test out my old corsair PSU to see if old vs new cables makes any difference, and then try the ferrite chokes on any setup that whines

 

[athenaesword]

Ok, this actually works on the GTX560 that I tested. Granted, not a lot, but it was noticeable.


Ah, that works! Here we go;
View attachment 291048

Did u wrap the pcie cable around the choke a few times?

 

[ad1]

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.

quick update, I got my 7800x3d, with an Asrock X670E Pro RS motherboard. Coil whine is exactly the same as with the b450 MSI board. PSU and MB make no difference whatsoever, at least not in my case.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Did u wrap the pcie cable around the choke a few times?

No, the PCIe cable is to thick to be wrapped around twice.

 

[lexluthermiester]

BUMP!

I have done a few updates to the guide in the original post. For those interested, take a look!

 

[Mussels]

quick update, I got my 7800x3d, with an Asrock X670E Pro RS motherboard. Coil whine is exactly the same as with the b450 MSI board. PSU and MB make no difference whatsoever, at least not in my case.

Try seeing what you can do with the power cables (no sharp bends, etc) and a ferrite choke - it might help

Sometimes you just need to under/overclock to change the voltages into something that both ends are happier with

 

[Simone]

It can depend on the source of the whine as much as anything else - for example, i remember x58 mobos from gigabyte (the UD3 in particular) had serious coil whine issues you'd hear when moving the mouse, and disabling C-states was the cure to fix it
The reason was simple: PSU's couldnt handle how low wattage they were at idle, and the PSU and board thus had a fight to get voltages and amperages where they needed to be. Raising the idle states of the CPU was enough to solve the problem, such as disabling C-states or overclocking - even altering a windows power plan could help.

I think the Asus Scar 18 has both. I hear the sound of like a table being dragged along the ground every time I move the cursor.. it's not loud like the GPU is, but it's still there. I can hear it when there's no fans going.

I might try the multiple ferrite chokes, I hope they're not too expensive lol.

 

[Simone]

BUMP!

I have done a few updates to the guide in the original post. For those interested, take a look!

Hey Lex, can't remember asking..

Does the CA glue ever go bad or break down over time?

Do I need to reapply it?

What should I anticipate / prepare for now I've caked all these cans with this goop?

Thanks.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Does the CA glue ever go bad or break down over time?

Not that I've ever seen. But it's not very flexible to if bend the card to much...

Do I need to reapply it?

...you might have to reapply to reseal.

 

[Mussels]

CA should take a very very long time to break down, it absorbs moisture from the air to harden into a polymer (aka, plastic) - from that point on heat under it's maximum limit should behave like any other polymer, and soften up to reform over time so gentle cracks and breaks could just re-seal themselves.

Edit: Information says if it goes above it's rated temperature it crystalizes, reapplying more would reset it.
Information is contradictory on melting and reforming, probably depending on the formulas used in each brands adhesive.

It's vulnerable to cracking so if the card flexes for any reason it might happen - but that's something we all should be avoiding anyway

quick googling says they can range from 82c to 200c as the upper limit (depending on brand/quality)


Heres the gold standard one, if you were to buy something specifically for this purpose and wanted the heat safety

https://www.permabond.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/825_TDS.pdf

the pdf has some fascinating info on how it weakens at higher temperatures

 

[Simone]

Not that I've ever seen. But it's not very flexible to if bend the card to much...

...you might have to reapply to reseal.

I see, that sounds worrisome. I was hoping this would be fine for 5 years, but if it causes me issues within that timeframe that's going to suck.