electrical current noise from psu? normal?

[dr.kevin]

I have a power supply with a quiet 12cm fan.

when i put my ear very close to the psu, I can hear electrical current noise, like a very soft squealing noise, for lack of a better description.
when i put my ear next to the psu, the noise is noticeable when my hard drive is chugging.
the noise is in sync with the hdd chugging.

is this normal noise? you probably can't hear it if you have a noisy fan.
I only noticed it recently because i have my psu and mobo running outside of the case, on my table.

 

[Zero82z]

It's called coil whine and it's perfectly normal.

 

[dr.kevin]

It's called coil whine and it's perfectly normal.

oh ok.

i thought it was an early sign that my power supply would explode soon or capacitors are failing or something.

so everytime a pc component draws more current, there's louder coil whine? amirite?

 

[Zero82z]

Generally the more power you draw, the more it whines. What PSU do you have?

 

[dr.kevin]

Generally the more power you draw, the more it whines. What PSU do you have?

actually, if i let it sit for 6 hours, then the psu starts making random soft high pitched buzz noise.

if i scroll up and down a webpage in the browser, the buzz/whine goes away until i stop scrolling. the cpu usage goes up when i scroll up and down continuously.

so it looks like cpu draw makes the noise go away.


I have some Topower 500w psu. Bought it 3.5 years ago.

i have nothing other than A2x4 cpu and hard drives running. I'm doing nothing intensive.

 

[Zero82z]

Well, that's why I said generally and not always. Coil whine can behave strangely.

 

[-PK-]

actually, if i let it sit for 6 hours, then the psu starts making random soft high pitched buzz noise.

if i scroll up and down a webpage in the browser, the buzz/whine goes away until i stop scrolling. the cpu usage goes up when i scroll up and down continuously.

so it looks like cpu draw makes the noise go away.


I have some Topower 500w psu. Bought it 3.5 years ago.

i have nothing other than A2x4 cpu and hard drives running. I'm doing nothing intensive.

I've been dealing with the same thing except the noise is coming from my headphones. It started happening when I switched to my motherboard's onboard wireless adapter.

Just last week I bought $100 of networking stuff to run cat5e. I needed a stronger wireless antenna for the PC, but I was willing to pay extra to have clean audio again. And after that, it was only $25 more to add patch panel and wire each room.

 

[keenan]

Why not just pay the $10-200 and get a proper sound card? This is a common issue with onboard, wireless or no. One of my machines makes awful noises from the onboard whenever there's disk access or USB traffic.

Coil whine is mechanical, so other than potting the components in resin there's not a lot you can do. Figuring out what is vibrating and adding some mass to it can help, but doing this is not exactly safe unless you know what you're doing.