Electronic Whining Noise

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Borgschulze

2[H]4U
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
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So my computer is really pissing me off lately...

Something in it is making a whining noise, like those coils in the PSU or on motherboards.

I can't find where it's coming from.. but it does go away if I move something around on the screen, like an explorer window...

My pump makes a slight whine too, but it's not coming from the pump, it's there no matter what speed the pump is on, same pitch of sound too.

I really hope I can find whats making the noise, it's driving me insane, only way to block it out is to listen to music loud, low frequencies don't really block it out... and I listen to Doom Metal mostly... not much high pitched sound.

Overclocking isn't worsening it, does the same whine at stock settings.

Makes it hard to sleep too, have to pull the blanket over my ear to block out the whine from across the room.

Please help my sanity, help me find the source of this whining sound.
 
The only way to save your sanity is to send your rig to me. You could try turning off your computer at night, wear earplugs or, tell your therapist about the whining in your head. ;)
 
Magnus said:
The only way to save your sanity is to send your rig to me. You could try turning off your computer at night, wear earplugs or, tell your therapist about the whining in your head. ;)
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I can see why you have the n00bie title.
 
The only way to pinpoint the sound is to eliminate each component one by one, to me it smells like failing power supply. It can also emenate from your monitor if it is CRT.

if the power supply cables are long enough, unscrew it from the case and place it on a solid surface, power on the computer and put your ear next to the power supply, you hear the sound? if not...

take a piece of cardboard and put it on a wood desk, remove the mobo from the case and place it on the cardboard, power on the computer and try to find where the noise is coming from.
 
My computer does that all the time. My laptop does that too, but much worse since the mobo is closer to me. For me, its like flash causes the computer to scream... I think its the voltage reguators humming from the change in load but im pretty sure its from my motherboard.
 
hardc0re said:
The only way to pinpoint the sound is to eliminate each component one by one, to me it smells like failing power supply. It can also emenate from your monitor if it is CRT.

if the power supply cables are long enough, unscrew it from the case and place it on a solid surface, power on the computer and put your ear next to the power supply, you hear the sound? if not...

take a piece of cardboard and put it on a wood desk, remove the mobo from the case and place it on the cardboard, power on the computer and try to find where the noise is coming from.
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Any more suggestions... I'm not going to rip my computer apart and rebuild my water cooling just to find where a noise is coming from.

Oh I forgot to mention, nobody else can hear this sound except me... probably because the only people I have asked are older than me by at least 10 years.
 
Borgschulze said:
Any more suggestions... I'm not going to rip my computer apart and rebuild my water cooling just to find where a noise is coming from.

Oh I forgot to mention, nobody else can hear this sound except me... probably because the only people I have asked are older than me by at least 10 years.
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I can hear the whine from my crappy Antec PSU from at least 5 meters away. As mentioned it's probably a bad capacitor. If you can't dismantle your computer, conduct a visual inspection of the capacitors on the motherboard, any of them look bloated or vented? put your ear right next to the PSU, is it coming from there?
 
do you have an lcd monitor? might be a noisy backlight psu(internal) or maybe the vidcard?
try taking a piece of unused waterline and use it like a stethoscope, that should make it easy to find.
 
It's not my monitor or speakers, ruled them out by turning them off.

Capacitors all look fine, it is a DFI board afterall, 100% Japanese capacitors?

I tried using a piece of tubing from my ear, that just cancels out the whine sound...

Don't want to have to rip this apart to fix anything... until I know 100% what the sound is coming from.

dcp0023ku9.jpg


I just noticed when extracting a large file that makes the HDD work a lot, the sound pulsates... tomorrow I'll pull the HDD cage out and set the HDD horizontal.

And whoever mentioned turning my computer off, that's not an option, I use my computer as an alarm clock.

The whine isn't really loud, it's just really high pitched... annoying pitch.
 
My Geforce 7800gs AGP recently started making a whining sound that correlated to onscreen activity after I had volt modded it to stupid levels.

An hour later it was dead; one of the power mosfets had died.


Just thought I'd throw that in here...
 
spine said:
My Geforce 7800gs AGP recently started making a whining sound that correlated to onscreen activity after I had volt modded it to stupid levels.

An hour later it was dead; one of the power mosfets had died.


Just thought I'd throw that in here...
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My video card runs at 400/490 when it's not in 3D mode. It's only at such extreme 624/615 when I have a fullscreen 3D game running.

Also, I have my HDD cage sitting on my desk right now, and so far I don't hear any loud whining sound.

I put my ear up to the HDD, it's definetly the HDD making noise.

I lifted the HDD cage and the sound changed, to the loud whining sound... stupid Maxtor, time for Samsung or Seagate...
 
Are you sure it isn't coming from your speakers? High pitched sounds can be hard to locate.. I've had a couple motherboards where the components were poorly shielded and any sort of IO activity would come over the speakers (sounded like high pitched static)

edit: Just noticed your post above mine.. :rolleyes: Glad you found the cause! :)
 
Borgschulze said:
.

I lifted the HDD cage and the sound changed, to the loud whining sound... stupid Maxtor, time for Samsung or Seagate...
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time to rip that data before it pukes, at least it gave you a warning
 
_G_ said:
time to rip that data before it pukes, at least it gave you a warning
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Yeah all my Pir, Pr0, er... I mean, legitimate data could be lost.

And I have been saving my money for a new Unicycle... now I need a new HDD before it dies. :(
 
I've had 4 different kind of s939 processors in my computer the past year or so... The first processor/mobo combo i had whined like that . The second and third did not. Now, with putting a new opty 165 in my rig i've noticed the noise again. It's only sometimes, so I like to pretend it's my processor's turbo kicking in.
 
Arcenite said:
I've had 4 different kind of s939 processors in my computer the past year or so... The first processor/mobo combo i had whined like that . The second and third did not. Now, with putting a new opty 165 in my rig i've noticed the noise again. It's only sometimes, so I like to pretend it's my processor's turbo kicking in.
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I know what that whine sounds like.

This whine is different.
 
Got an update, after a long time...

I bought a new hard drive... Seagate 7200.10 SATA2, but the hard drive wasn't my problem.

I notice when I click my one mouse button it stops whining...

I unplugged my mouse.. no more whine...

So I opened up my mouse, put my ear up to it... and the whine was extremely loud from there.

I guess the good old MX510 is going to need a good retirement replacement.

Probably going to buy an MX518, because the G5 and G7 only have one button on the side... I want back and forward for internet.
 
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