PSU - coil noise: can be induced?

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soberspine

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Jul 9, 2010
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Hi,
After I bought a nexus psu with coil noise that i could hear it from across the room now I got Seasonic x-660.
I don't know if I am just unlucky but the new psu makes a buzzing noise and some high pitch noise. it is not as loud as the one from nexus, but i can still hear it from inside the case. My pc have only one fan for the cpu.

My question is:
Can the coil noise in the PSU be induced/provoked by another component?

like the the motherboard. I started the pc without the video card and hdd and still can hear coil noise but not that loud, I don't have another motherboard or pc to try the psu with it.
It is just odd this in my second psu that I try and both had coil noise. I am 100% the noise is from the PSU because I mounted it outside the pc case so I can put my ear near it.

Thank you, sorry for the bad english.
 
It mostly depends on the PSU itself how much coil whine it makes, and it's mostly random chance. Your components can make a difference in how much coil whine there is, even loading up your system by furmark or P95 can change the coil whine or make it disappear. Usually, it's too high-pitched for you to hear, but sometimes it gets low enough that you can hear it.
 
soberspine said:
Can the coil noise in the PSU be induced/provoked by another component?
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Yes. Coil whine is a result of interactions between the PSU and other components in your system, and those interactions really can't be predicted. Whether or not your particular setup will suffer from it is down to random chance.
 
Where do you live? Many European countries require power factor correction as per IEC1000-3-2.

It can either be passive or active type. Passive type uses large steel core reactors in harmonic filtration process and they make audible noise at line frequency. If you're in one of those countries that require PFC, make sure you get active PFC
 
pwnt said:
Where do you live? Many European countries require power factor correction as per IEC1000-3-2.

It can either be passive or active type. Passive type uses large steel core reactors in harmonic filtration process and they make audible noise at line frequency. If you're in one of those countries that require PFC, make sure you get active PFC
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Which has nothing whatsoever to do with coil whine or the OP.
 
so the PSU makes coil noise because it is defective or because the mother board is defective and determines the PSU to make coil noise?

i changed the video card and the hdd, so the only component I didnt change was the MB and the psu still makes coil noise.
 
I do not believe anything is defective (well maybe except the dampening materal placed on the coils to reduce the whine) . Coil whine will vary depending on load you place on the supply.
 
I have a Seasonic X-650. In a Lian Li A05NB case - this case puts the PSU in the front of the case, at the bottom, with the exhaust to the front. Mine does make some coil whine, but I can't even hear it anymore. It used to be worse when I first installed it. My system mostly uses under 80w of power except when gaming when it uses about 200w. I couldn't notice a difference between the loads either. Some of my other components would whine as well, but don't anymore to the extent that I can hear them with out my head inside the case.

If you are certain the PSU is making the whine, and it's loud enough that you can hear it from greater than three feet away, then I'd say something is wrong.
 
my system have only one quiet fan at 400rpm. so it is very easy for me to hear the coil noise from 1m away and even more.
 
Find a good quality power supply with one 12v rail and at least 70w on that rail. A good video card will stress out a so-so PSU with multiple rails quick and cause all kinds of coil whine in the process because it can't hande the load induced. Been there, done that. ;)
 
soberspine said:
so the PSU makes coil noise because it is defective or because the mother board is defective and determines the PSU to make coil noise?

i changed the video card and the hdd, so the only component I didnt change was the MB and the psu still makes coil noise.
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Yeah unfortunately there are situations (not many probably) where the mobo can indeed cause a coil noise to come from the PSU. This happened with Seasonic made PSUs and certain Abit mobos several years back

And as Zero82z noted, "Whether or not your particular setup will suffer from it is down to random chance. " So even if you RMA that PSU back to the manufacturer or replace that mobo, still a random chance of coil whine.
 
Hedghawg71 said:
Find a good quality power supply with one 12v rail and at least 70w on that rail. A good video card will stress out a so-so PSU with multiple rails quick and cause all kinds of coil whine in the process because it can't hande the load induced. Been there, done that. ;)
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A good power supply with a single 70W rail? I think that might be a little inadequate ;).

Anyway, whether or not a PSU has single or multiple rails makes absolutely no difference to whether or not it will produce coil whine, and that's not even considering the fact that the OP already has a good PSU with a single rail.
 
I went thru 3 power supplies when my Tagan ITZ went out until I got this Corsair power supply I got now. The two Thermaltakes I got had 4 and 6 rails, (750w and 850w) from Best Buy because they are like 2 miles away from me. I understood there was multiple different revisions of these PSU's and the latest ones had a Single 12v rail on trhem. Then I went to Tiger Direct in Dallas and picked up a Cooler Master 800w that had 4 rails that split out like the others did from 70w down to 32w on the main 12v rails and it sung like the rest of them did. I thought my video card was about to take a dump because it only did this when it was under load in a game or when running Furmark and even stuttered a little like it was "running out of gas" so I went back to Tiger Direct and picked up the Corsair 850w I got now and all the coil whine quit and works fine. I didn't think it was any big deal either but the only single rail PSU I got stopped the noise completely. So maybe the OP's Seasonic is defective or not enough to push his system thru. It was just a suggestion. This is the specs I looked at to seal the deal. And compared to these Specs maybe the PSU the OP has doesn't have enough aperage. Not saying it isn't a good PSU.
 
The OP's PSU most certainly does have enough available current, and like I said before, coil whine has nothing to do with the number of rails the PSU has.
 
Coil whine is completely random chance, as was stated. Coil whine can even occur on graphics cards and motherboards, so it's not completely isolated to the PSU. Coil whine is absolutely NOT an indicator of a bad component.
 
check if you got any devices sharing a strand with your gpu. move them to another. Don't share the strands connected to your psu with any other devices.
 
Tsumi said:
Coil whine is completely random chance, as was stated. Coil whine can even occur on graphics cards and motherboards, so it's not completely isolated to the PSU. Coil whine is absolutely NOT an indicator of a bad component.
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Until the Whining goes to a "grinding" sound like My old Tagan did and POOF! goes a cap or two. In the mean time the sound is damned irritating. Sounds like something was wrong there. The OP is looking for the issue causing this, as he has stated. I put my experiences with the issue down as the rest of you have as potential issues to look for. I am not saying it is a definite but a possibility. If you can stand coil whine from across the room that is cool. When mine was waking up my wife when it got so derned loud from across the room I start looking for answers too.

Spooony said:
check if you got any devices sharing a strand with your gpu. move them to another. Don't share the strands connected to your psu with any other devices.
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^^This Too^^ ;)
 
I had a PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750. Upgraded my video card and would get coil whine during cutscreens / splash screens when the framerate went crazy high. Everything was fine before the upgrade.

From what I read back then, coil whine comes down to a combo of your PSU, graphics card, and motherboard.

Anyway, mine wasn't loud enough to be much of a bother, so I just dealt with it until it was time for a whole new PC.
 
Hedghawg71 said:
Until the Whining goes to a "grinding" sound like My old Tagan did and POOF! goes a cap or two. In the mean time the sound is damned irritating. Sounds like something was wrong there. The OP is looking for the issue causing this, as he has stated. I put my experiences with the issue down as the rest of you have as potential issues to look for. I am not saying it is a definite but a possibility. If you can stand coil whine from across the room that is cool. When mine was waking up my wife when it got so derned loud from across the room I start looking for answers too.



^^This Too^^ ;)
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Probably because your Tagan was not a good quality power supply. I can't say for sure though, as I do not know Tagan power supplies. However, the OP's Seasonic X-660 is a top of the line power supply, so coil whine is not a likely indicator of something being wrong with it.
 
Tsumi said:
Probably because your Tagan was not a good quality power supply. I can't say for sure though, as I do not know Tagan power supplies. However, the OP's Seasonic X-660 is a top of the line power supply, so coil whine is not a likely indicator of something being wrong with it.
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The Tagan lasted me 3 years until the noises started up one day about 2 months ago and then died like almost 2 weeks ago.
 
Yes it can. Usually if you experience coil/capacitor whine across multiple PSU's it's a problem with either your graphics card or motherboard.
 
Just a thought here but if a coil is whining couldn't we stop it by covering it in a non-conductive adhesive? I mean if a coil can't vibrate then it can't make noise correct?
 
The noise is caused by a certain pattern of current flow and voltage, and is usually unpredictable as to what is causing it. Adhesive can't fix that. Besides, I wouldn't void a warranty just to try to get rid of some noise.
 
The noise isn't caused by vibration, it's caused by the frequency of the current going causing the coil to resonate. Adhesive wouldn't stop the vibration. Since you've seen it across two different PSU's it's either an issue with the current coming from the wall, or the whine isn't even coming from the PSU, if you've seen it across two PSU's you either have really bad luck with PSU's or the problem is most likely a coil on your motherboard or graphics card.
 
kzrider said:
Just a thought here but if a coil is whining couldn't we stop it by covering it in a non-conductive adhesive? I mean if a coil can't vibrate then it can't make noise correct?
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It depends on the type of adhesive, but if you use something that isn't too brittle, then you'd be correct. That's one of the reasons PSU manufacturers put caulk in their PSUs. Unfortunately, doing that yourself would void the warranty.
TehRoot said:
The noise isn't caused by vibration, it's caused by the frequency of the current going causing the coil to resonate.
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In other words, it's caused by vibration. Audible sound is caused by pressure waves passing through the air. Those waves are created as a result of physical vibrations.
TehRoot said:
Adhesive wouldn't stop the vibration.
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Adhesive acts as a damper and absorbs the vibrations, preventing them from producing audible sound.
 
Zero82z said:
It depends on the type of adhesive, but if you use something that isn't too brittle, then you'd be correct. That's one of the reasons PSU manufacturers put caulk in their PSUs. Unfortunately, doing that yourself would void the warranty.

In other words, it's caused by vibration. Audible sound is caused by pressure waves passing through the air. Those waves are created as a result of physical vibrations.

Adhesive acts as a damper and absorbs the vibrations, preventing them from producing audible sound.
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Yes it is a mechanical vibration, but the vibration is very minor and even if you did open the PSU up, you wouldn't be able to identify which coil it was. And in his case, I doubt it's even the PSU since it's continued over too a new one, which I suspect is most likely the video card.
 
TehRoot said:
Yes it is a mechanical vibration, but the vibration is very minor and even if you did open the PSU up, you wouldn't be able to identify which coil it was. And in his case, I doubt it's even the PSU since it's continued over too a new one, which I suspect is most likely the video card.
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He's still using the same PSU that started whining. He switched some of his other components, but not the PSU itself. And you're right, you wouldn't be able to identify which coil is producing the noise, but you can just caulk all of them.
 
pwnt said:
Where do you live? Many European countries require power factor correction as per IEC1000-3-2.

It can either be passive or active type. Passive type uses large steel core reactors in harmonic filtration process and they make audible noise at line frequency. If you're in one of those countries that require PFC, make sure you get active PFC
Click to expand...
Doesn't matter, there are no EU or US power supplies. And yes, coil whine can be caused by something you may running in your PC, this however is not failure, it is a property. When you have your PC running and working, its power consumption changes, which is altering electrical connections inside PSU(it's complete name is modular switching power supply unit). Try to exchange rails you have connected now for the spare ones, this might help lowering it, but not sure as I didn't test this.
 
You could get a mechanic's stethoscope like I did and find the source of the noise and then decide what you want to do about it then. It also helps you find noises under the hood of your cars and motorcycles. ;)
 
sorry for not answering but I didn't have a pc because I sent the PSU back.

The dealer/authorized importer confirmed the coil noise and sent me another PSU so I don't think there is a "bad" component in my pc and anyhow the only bad component that could have been is the mother board because I tested the returned psu with all other components changed (another video card, another hdd).

This new one have less coil noise but still has it. I also noticed random small coil noise coming from the mother board VRM when my pc is in idle (i can hear it only if i put my ear near the mother board, sounds something like morse code :) )
This psu stays with the fan on almost all the time, with previous one I couldn't make it start spining.

Am i absurd looking for a psu with no coil noise? Is the psu coil noise something normal and I should deal with it and accept it as it is?

thank you all very much for the answers.
sorry for bad english.
 
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Hedghawg71 said:
Find a good quality power supply with one 12v rail and at least 70w on that rail. A good video card will stress out a so-so PSU with multiple rails quick and cause all kinds of coil whine in the process because it can't hande the load induced. Been there, done that. ;)
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Mate, you are mixing stuff here. First, rails do not have anything to do with coil-whine. Second, its not about psu-quality but about component-sinergies: you may only change one thing and noise will go away or disappear completely. In my experiencie, with the HX620 since a few years ago, it all depends on the mobo/vga you have, nothing else. DFI P45 mATX? Nice whine. GTX295? Very nice whine. Asus P8P67-M Pro? No whine. GTX480? Sometimes whine, and so on.

What ain't normal by no standards is that your configuration gives you no problems nor noises and the, suddenly it starts making noise: then the psu is clearly deffective (caps could be doing noise). But we ain't talking about that, mate, we are talking that certain psu's with certain components make noise as a daily-basis, which is normal (and annyoing, VERY annoying).

You just get used to it, because as you don't want what is creating that bad sinergy you may change the wrong component and keep with this stupid noise.
 
prava said:
Mate, you are mixing stuff here. First, rails do not have anything to do with coil-whine. Second, its not about psu-quality but about component-sinergies: you may only change one thing and noise will go away or disappear completely. In my experiencie, with the HX620 since a few years ago, it all depends on the mobo/vga you have, nothing else. DFI P45 mATX? Nice whine. GTX295? Very nice whine. Asus P8P67-M Pro? No whine. GTX480? Sometimes whine, and so on.

What ain't normal by no standards is that your configuration gives you no problems nor noises and the, suddenly it starts making noise: then the psu is clearly deffective (caps could be doing noise). But we ain't talking about that, mate, we are talking that certain psu's with certain components make noise as a daily-basis, which is normal (and annyoing, VERY annoying).

You just get used to it, because as you don't want what is creating that bad sinergy you may change the wrong component and keep with this stupid noise.
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Well obviously you, me and everyone else here are right so ain't we all just contempt here. Nevertheless the OP has resolved his issue so there is nothing more for us to discuss here. Have a nice day ya'll! :)
 
today I tested the new Seasonic PSU in another pc at a friend and same result, coil noise. I can't understand why.
 
soberspine said:
today I tested the new Seasonic PSU in another pc at a friend and same result, coil noise. I can't understand why.
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Unless the noise really bothers you, just accept it. As others should have stated by now, coil whine is actually a normal occurrence. In addition, as others have pointed out, it's virtually impossible, short of finding someone with your exact same setup, to predict which PSU will produce coil while when paired with a certain set of parts or even entire PCs.
 
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