is this psu coil chatter?

[revenant]

So... I have been chasing this issue around and I have narrowed it down to I something internal inside of the psu. I have tried two different pairs of video cards, stopped all fans in the area manually (both psu fans, it's alarm sound beeped when I did that), tried balancing the power load differently with different cables and it only seems to happen during extreme power load... far cry 3 makes it happen always... if I OC the video card's memory and cores to 1300/8000 then heaven and other 3d apps will make it make the noise...

All voltages seem stable while idle but I haven't graphed out what things are like under load. I noticed some system instability for the first time after letting the sound go on for a while when I was trying to pin point it. My USB peripherals were dropping out every 2 or so seconds for about 5 seconds.. but I was able to get back to my desktop and shut the system down normally. anyways.. here's a crappy video but it captures the sound. I am 99.99% sure it's the psu and not video cards or any fans.. Is this some kind of coil chatter or a cap that's about to blow?

the psu is 7 years old, the system stays off when I am not gaming, but for the first couple years of it's life the psu ran 24/7, but idle mostly.

test video

I'm going to plop in a platimax 850 (another multi rail psu) and load the cards on separate rails. I am thinking about selling the platimax (it's bnib now) and getting a psu with 1 beefy 12v rail though.. it seems like that's the way to go kinda.. anyways..

 

[revenant]

well, I was really sick all weekend.. no energy for the psu swap.. but that sound I think it a coil/choke that's ferrite ring is loose inside of the coil.. in fact, I think there are two of them, I can hear two separate buzzing sounds sometimes (one will stop and the other will keep going).

I'm going to swap psus today.. fingers crossed that fixes the issue.

edit: definitely the psu... the 850 is in, balanced the two cards over 12v4 and 12v3, the disks and fans on 12v2, and the mobo on 12v1 and all seems good so far, still want to run some more break in tests... damn this platimax is quiet also.
another note: the galaxy had 24a 12v rails and too much unused power on the 5v and 3.3v section.. this platimax has 30a 12v rails, and almost all of the power is dedicated to 12v ..840w of 12v peak max draw and 120w for 5v and 3.3v combined... that and very clear documentation on which rail is which, so you can load them properly.

PS: and a special thanks to the [H] for hooking me up with the Platimax. Won it during the thread raffle a while back. been running it all day and it's solid so far. not sure what I will do with the old galaxy.. it's 2 years out of warr.. it's not dead, but probably not practical for use.. very big and obviously showing signs of age.

 

[gankernation]

I believe it's coil whine you can open it up and put some hot glue on the coils to prevent them from vibrating.

 

[revenant]

I might do that... there's a nice layer of dust in there also so I want to blast that out for sure. but that noise was so loud and abrasive... I think I may have been (close to) overloading one or two of the 24a rails.. I think the platimax will be a better psu going forward.. I guess I'll keep the galaxy as a backup.