Is my PSU broken or is it my new mobo?

Pituchilon

Honorable
Jun 6, 2012
24
0
10,510
Hello THW peep, its me again, hope i dont start to annoy you (if so, sorry) ill try to sum it up for you guys.

This was my previous rig:

Intel Dual Core e5400 2.7ghz
XFX HD4850 512mb gddr3
Biostar g31d Mobo
2GB Kingston Ram DDR2 800mhz
450w PSU with two +12v lines, one with 16a and another with 14a
Two SATA Western Digital Caviar Blue 500gb
One IDE Western Digital 80gb
One DVD Writer

And with this combination running for over a year of heavy use in all terms, including gaming i never, ever, had any complications at all.

NOW.
Three days ago i bought the following:
AMD FX 4100 3.6ghz
Asus m5a78l-mlx
4gb Kingston RAM DDR3 1333mhz CL9


Thing is, i installed the CPU and did the swap properly of the parts (mobo, cpu and ram) to my other rig and everything turns on and works...
(no thermal compound, yet, tho, i was going to add it but since what happened, ill wait, but anyway, there's no temperature problems at all, cpu remains below 45ºc and gpu below 60ºc, its -0ºc over here)

Now, the first time i booted up to see if i didnt screw anything, i only plugged the mobo, cpu, ram and nothing else, no gpu, no hard drive, no dvd reader, didnt even conected the frontal usb and audio, and i proceded to boot up from a Live Ubuntu via USB, and, i noticed two things:

1. the PSU starts doing this weird frequency noise -that some people told me is a Coil Whine, not sure if thats it what im getting here but well...- when the OS loads, its constant and it changes its volume a little bit from time to time.
I have no idea why, it gets specially higher (not "omfg shut that thing down" high at all, but its annoying, specially since the case its right next to my ear) when i move the mouse drawing with the selection or i use an application, like a game and such.

And 2. the Audio didnt worked, even tho my old rig had the same onboard sound card, and it worked perfectly when i ran it plug and play in any linux.

I just took for granted that was normal and the audio could be solved in Windows, even tho its a shame since im a big Linux user.

So i proceded to connect one hdd and the dvd reader and installed windows x64 (also tried x86 later, same results), after the installation, the coil whine was gone but i did noticed that the onboard audio wasnt working with the plug and play drivers either and same with the LAN driver, so i proceded to install them, rebooted and two new things happened, audio and lan were working but the same "coil whine" or whatever its called started to happen again, and a little while longer the sound board begun with something else:
The Realtek CP was constantly spamming the "new device plugged" and instantly unplugging it, and so, and so, in a repeated loop.

Leaving me to unplug the speakers to stop it, i tried with speakers and even a mic in all three of the plug spots (green, blue and red) to see if it was only the green one, but no, it just kept on doing it.

The coil whine sometimes it stops its constant sound, only doing short bursts now and then depending on what i do, and resumes whenever he pleases, but its always there.

Audio its pretty much useless...

I did connected my 4850 later on to see if my PSU was the trouble and everything went well, no bsod or resets, played a few games i had on my hard drive such as MW3 for a while, and a few other games (Mass Effect 3, Stalker Syndicate, STALKER Call of Pripyat, Dead Island, Star Wars Force Unleashed, Dead Space 2, everything maxed out, no problem) without any trouble except the coil whine, and, obviously, no sound...

So i just freaked out and did a fast swap of hardware to my old Intel rig to see if my psu was definitively going to die and no, the PSU remained quiet, did a swap again to the new FX rig, again, without the 4850 on it, did the same as before having the same results: sound card freaking out, so basically no audio and the coil whine.

So Here are my questions:
Is my PSU broken or something?
How comes a more power loaded rig gets no coil whine but a lighter rig does?
Is the new motherboard broken? should i RMA it?
Could it be that the PSU broke the Motherboard?

Imma try to get a dedicated sound card tomorrow to see if this fixes it, but if i dont get one ill just get it to the store and show em, and ask them to fix it or change it for a new one, it surprises me cause its a brand new mobo, processor and ram and except for this things, everything works fine.

I know my current PSU is not good for the FX and 4850, and im planning on changing it for a brand new one soon, but ive been told this PSU can hold up for a while...

Here i recorded a few vids so you can see what i mean, heres the old rig when i plugged it in back to check if the PSU was broken, no coil whine whatsoever coming from it, everything was working perfectly, just like before the swap to the new rig.
http://www.putlocker.com/file/B9752A3593420A40

Here i swapped to the new rig and tried the live ubuntu getting the coil whine, and no sound:
http://www.putlocker.com/file/E3A6ADA6CF550DB3

and here i installed windows 7 x64, no coil whine, sound or internet, then i installed the drivers and the coil whine returned and the audio CP started to flip out.
Here you can see what the Realtek CP does first hand:
http://www.putlocker.com/file/2FB591AA71EF0EDC

Hope you can help me out, thanks beforehand for your words, sorry of it was too much

big hug, thanks for reading.

PS: Heres a recording before i did the swap to my old rig to check on my mobo, just in case you cant hear the coil whine on the previous videos, you can in this one:
http://www.putlocker.com/file/62BB20BD6DFB413B
 
Very nice write-up. Sounds like you have two problems.
1. A bad audio chip. You need to rma the MB for this.
2. A defective PSU. You need to RMA the PSU for this.

Wish I had better news - it's just luck of the draw, and you got it good this time.
 

Pituchilon

Honorable
Jun 6, 2012
24
0
10,510
Actually the psu is quite old, i had it for two years now. It only does this when i plug it with the new rig...
in the old one, which consumed f*ck load of power never did this.
 
It can tell you if the mobo is faulty. Maybe the shop where you bought the mobo will let you use one of their PSUs. I wouldn't want you to not identify the mobo as an issue and have it go past the date where you can return it to the shop or have them replace it.
 
You said: "Thing is, i installed the CPU and did the swap properly of the parts (mobo, cpu and ram) to my other rig and everything turns on and works...
(no thermal compound, yet, tho, i was going to add it but since what happened, ill wait, but anyway, there's no temperature problems at all, cpu remains below 45ºc and gpu below 60ºc, its -0ºc over here) "

That is NEVER a good idea!. At what point have you applied the thermal coumpund to the CPU HSF.

It is quite possable that you have damaged/weakend the CPU. Also possible that excess current was drawn and damaged The MB (ie voltage regulators). This may have resulted in a permant Lower than normal impeadance and your new system is now drawing excess current, which is why you are getting the Whin on the new system, even though the current should be lower. The possibly now damaged MB could be the cause of your other problems.

Didn't catch what PSU (I know your planing on changing) you are currently using.
 

Pituchilon

Honorable
Jun 6, 2012
24
0
10,510
Ill try to take it asap to the place i bought it and ask them to check the mobo out, maybe try one of theyre own psus with it... since the mobo is brand new, they should replace it if its broken.
 

Pituchilon

Honorable
Jun 6, 2012
24
0
10,510
Ok so i just found something out, the coil whine can be changed when i switch the power plan to the highest performance and dissapears if i choose balanced or economy, i guess is based on the cpu load, since in the power plan you can change the percentage of cpu usage.
 

Pituchilon

Honorable
Jun 6, 2012
24
0
10,510
Where do you suggest me to upload the files?

BTW i have a tester, just tell me how to measure it, i just plug em into the black and yellow wires of a 4pin molex with the system running?
 
Is that with a load on or at idle? If it's idle, then you've got issues on the 12V rail...it should be 12V+ at idle and maybe sag to around 12V with a load. ATX12V spec give a +- 5% as being in spec so it is technically in spec (tolerance range is 11.4-12.6V). The 12V rail is where most of your PCs power is drawn from so low voltages there can easily lead to system instability. If that's at idle I'd also be really concerned about voltage regulation in the PSU and ripple....both of which damages components over time and leads to premature failure of parts.
 

Pituchilon

Honorable
Jun 6, 2012
24
0
10,510
Well this dilema between psu or mobo happened with my 4 days old rig with less hardware consumption, so idk what to think... that psu has been running for over a year and a half in the other rig running:

Intel Dual Core e5400 2.7ghz
XFX HD4850 512mb gddr3
Biostar g31d Mobo
2GB Kingston Ram DDR2 800mhz
Two SATA Western Digital Caviar Blue 500gb
One IDE Western Digital 80gb
One DVD Writer

and not one piece of hardware is broken...

Now, i plug it to:
AMD FX 4100 3.6ghz, Asus m5a78l-mlx, 4gb Kingston RAM DDR3 1333mhz CL9, one of the SATA HDD and the DVD writer and i get that coil whine noise.
It could be that the onboard soundcard just came factory damaged, right?
 
Get the mobo tested at the shop like we talked about. If those voltages are at idle, then that would concern me for the reasons stated above. Your PSU may not have caused your older PC many issues, but it looks like your new parts are having issues with it.

 
1) The fact that the PSU "Whines" at all, I'd replace it.
2) 11.88 V is fine, IF THIS IS UNDER load. At Idle does not mean a whole lot. What happens when you run prime95, or Furmark (in a window). A 0.3 V dropp would bring you below the point that I would replace the PSU (spec may be 11.4, but I USE 11.6 as a Min!!)
3) As Rugger indicated "and ripple". Even if the output is within specs, you have NO way of telling what the output "LOOKs" like, ie ripple (usaully 20->40 KHz), Noisce (which is random frequencies), or spikes look like. To measure thes asspects you need a Osscilliscope. A PSU tester is NO help, as you already indicated it works on your old system. A voltmeter probably would be no help, up would at least verify your displayed 11.88 V is correct. Digital voltmeters are cheap (About $18 at walmart) and very simple to use (just google How to use a voltmeter). In this case plug black meter lead into a molex power connector (center pin (black wire) and the red meter lead into the molex connector with the Orange wire. Note Other end of molex with red wire is your +5 V. AGain this will not check the ripple, noise, or spikes on the line.