High Pitch Whine

[Rongisnom]

Grrrr, I just built my dream machine and a few minutes after booting it up I get this incredibly high pitched whine that is very hard to narrow down. It sounds like it's comeing from the PSU. Anyone ever run across something like this before?

I hate to RMA a $60 PSU ( 500W ALLIED AL-B500E ) but unless someone can tell me different it looks like I'll have to.

On that note how is NewEgg with RMA's. Especially when the data tag on the PSU got severly scratched up going into the case. The fit on this Lian Li case was really tight...

 

[IEC]

Newegg is awesome about RMAs... if the high-pitched whine is from the PSU request an RMA and I think you'll only lose on shipping. Good luck!

 

[cyberknight]

what video card you have? new video cards are beasts with huge heatsinks and high speed fans. I know my MSI RX9800 is like the only loud thing in my computer. (replacing it with a VGA Silencer soon)

 

[AxeMurderer]

If you have a a64 system then it is probably from the processor. a64's are known to make a high pitched noise. If not then it may be from your psu.

 

[rforum]

I too had a high-pitched whine on my first build. I took off the side panel and unplugged each fan until I found the culprit - graphics card fan. It shouldn't be that hard to find the 'squeeky wheel.'

 

[cyberknight]

yeah, you can just finger test all your fans. As in stop them with your finger 5 seconds to see if the noise is still there. just watch where you put your fingers. Especially a 2000 RPM 120mm fan. (or you can just unplug it)

 

[w00t]

Originally posted by: cyberknight
yeah, you can just finger test all your fans. As in stop them with your finger 5 seconds to see if the noise is still there. just watch where you put your fingers. Especially a 2000 RPM 120mm fan. (or you can just unplug it)

good idea
do that

 

[Rongisnom]

First thing I tried was unplugging or finger stopping all the fans including the CPU cooler (Zalman CN 7000) and the GPU cooler (Gigabyte 6800GT) but nada.

I had read on an old thread something called a coil in the PSU that can vibrate so high that it makes a whining sound. I just want to make sure that I've diagnosed the right part before RMA'ing the PSU. Given the weight of this little pig and the low cost, the shipping fees almost don't make it worth it. :-(

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: Rongisnom
First thing I tried was unplugging or finger stopping all the fans including the CPU cooler (Zalman CN 7000) and the GPU cooler (Gigabyte 6800GT) but nada.

I had read on an old thread something called a coil in the PSU that can vibrate so high that it makes a whining sound. I just want to make sure that I've diagnosed the right part before RMA'ing the PSU. Given the weight of this little pig and the low cost, the shipping fees almost don't make it worth it. :-(

Yes...if you can just return it(really haven't looked into newegg.com's policy on that), you might want to consider an antec, enermax, or fortron source PSU. If you go with the fortron, be sure to pickup one with a 12cm fan, they are much quieter than the other PSU's they sell.

I, too, had a problem with coil noise coming from my old power supply. It has been replaced by an antec, and all is quiet, now.

 

[CSMR]

Originally posted by: Rongisnom
Grrrr, I just built my dream machine and a few minutes after booting it up I get this incredibly high pitched whine that is very hard to narrow down. It sounds like it's comeing from the PSU. Anyone ever run across something like this before?

If it's not the fans, it could be the hard disc, or possibly the interaction of some component with the PSU. For the hard disc you can try putting it in a silentdrive enclosure or at least the Zalman heatpipe cooler to decouple it from the case. If there is PSU coil whine you can a ferrite ring somehow to get rid of that - look it up on SPCR.

 

[Rongisnom]

CSMR - What is SPCR?

 

[CSMR]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=spcr

 

[redbeard1]

We have had a line of PC's, that every one of the latest models had to have the power supply warrantied because it had a nasty high pitch whine. The power supplies were Power Man brand. It took three hands to cover all of the openings on the first bad power supply to figure it out.

 

[Engineer]

What kind of harddrive do you have? I've had several models (WD and Maxtor) that produced the "Whine". I've went to Seagates and that's history. Good Luck.