Buzzing noise coming from PSU under certain conditions

rollingbarrels

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Oct 6, 2015
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Every time there are things moving on my screen, this very faint but noticeable buzzing noise comes from my PSU. It happens with things like watching videos, scrolling down webpages, GIFs being present on the screen and even small things like CSS and Javascript animations on webpages and switching tabs. It does not happen with things like mouse movement, menu navigation or typing however.

I built this PC about 5 months ago and it didn't have this issue. It would only make a vaguely similar noise when under extreme load, but not as noticeable as this one now. This only started happening about a month ago and for no reason that I can think of. It doesn't seem to be affecting performance and hasn't given me any crashes; all it is at the moment is a slightly irritating sound that I would like to get rid of.

This is what the buzzing noise sounds like, most accurate with earphones on about 14 Windows volume: http://vocaroo.com/i/s0UjdJ5jcvHR

2ebqyp2.jpg
Above: idle voltages (left), voltages during buzzing (right)

Relevant specs:
FX-8370E @ 4.3 GHz (1.360V)
MSI 990FXA Gaming Edition
AMD R9 390 (Stock)
Seasonic Platinum Series 1200W
 
Solution
I had a coil whine like yours, it would make noise when scrolling, gaming, displaying different windows.

I RMAed it, took a while and got a perfectly new one without any whining.

rollingbarrels

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Oct 6, 2015
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I'm 100% sure it's coming from the PSU. I even used a hollow tube to search for the whereabouts of the sound.

So I guess the only option I have is to RMA the power supply, which is not very much an option for me at the moment since I can't afford to be without a computer right now so I will probably get it RMA'd in the near future at some point, or perhaps I will just continue to use it in spite of the noise. Is it possible during an RMA for them to just keep my PSU and not send anything back if something goes wrong? Because the unit is still working, I wouldn't want to risk something like that and have to spend extra money.

Also, any idea what could have caused this to start happening? I made sure when I was building my PC to get a top of the line PSU from a tier 1 manufacturer to "be on the safe side", so I am quite disappointed that it has developed some minor issues already. Is there something I might have been doing wrong with my PC that could cause this, or is it all luck of the draw? I don't want to replace my PSU to have the same thing happen again another 5 months after the fact.

Thanks for the help.
 

rollingbarrels

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Oct 6, 2015
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Thanks for that reassurance. I only fear that they will say it's fine because it still performs the way it should apart from the noise.

It doesn't necessarily occur during high CPU load, but just when things are moving on the screen, even if they are not putting much load on the CPU. Single-threaded stress tests don't produce the noise (having one logical core on 100% load), but stressing all the cores does. Maybe this points to an issue in the CPU power output from my PSU.

In addition to this, I have noticed on HWMonitor that my +12V and +5V voltages are at ~13.9V and ~5.8V respectively. I'm not sure what to make of this. I have been told before that they may just be false readings by HWMonitor though still related to the true voltage (perhaps offset by some amount), but I don't know how much of that to believe. As I've said, I haven't encountered any fatal errors or crashes, it's just the noise.