PC making weird noise

[executionist]

Sup Guys,

I recently noticed my PC making a very annoying noise. It is a very high pitch humm that comes and goes away, starts with a low volume then goes high and reaches peak in around 3 seconds then it recedes and repeat.

The noise is really easy to miss, takes me almost 10 minutes to make someone unfamiliar with the noise to notice it. But once you notice it you realize that its the most annoying sound because of its on/off nature and its high pitch, hits your brain every few seconds.

It is none of the fans, I disconnected the chasis fans, removed the GPU and even stopped the processor fan but the noise was still there.

The only way the noise stops is when I lift the pc in the air, if I put it down the noise starts again.

Any ideas? What can possibly make a high pitched humm except the fans?

 

[ss202sl]

coil whine?

 

[emperor piehead]

hard drive i had a problem that sounds like that but it was doa. if it works its not that most likely coil whine.

 

[nukemaster]

You can try to disable all power savings to see if it helps.

With cpu power being adjusted many times a second, you can get coil whine. With the power saving settings(C1E and other C-states as well as EIST or SPEEDSTEP and even CnQ on the AMD side).

If this helps, sometimes you can just have some settings off and still have power savings without the noise. For my X58A UD5 it was just C1E after that was off it seemed to fix the noise right up.

Some users may have never heard this(and I am willing to bet have good cases or loud fans covering it up) or tell you to start to replace everything because it will fail. That is not quite true, I have had many coils buzz(routers,monitor,tv,motherboards,external power supplies,video cards, even power supplies loaded too lightly) on different electronic devices without issues for YEARS.

Everyone has a different amount of sensitivity to noises. I recently noticed that my fans vibrate(its a deep rumble) if the room get too cold(system slows then down further) because at about 700-750 rpm they do this. A quick adjust to 800-850 and its all gone. No one else even heard the things to begin with.

 

[executionist]

I am not familiar with Coil Whine, been trying to find how that sounds on youtube without any luck.

The best I can describe the sound I hear is when you bring a microphone too close to the speakers but on a very small scale. Is that what coil whine sounds like?

@Nuke
Gonna try disabling all power settings on my next restart. Too tired to try anything else after 2 hours of trial and error.

 

[nukemaster]

I am not sure how easy it would be to record the sound, but it is a buzzing/oscillating sound(so it is not always the same it actually sounds like it is changing frequency all over the place.). Sometimes it fluctuates when you do anything and even move the mouse.

I think i tried to record it once but the recording did not pick it up.

Also, you may want to try this. has worked for many users as well. It just disables the power savings features(processor idle) too.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/292915-30-high-pitched-noise-coming-area#t2001549

 

[smorizio]

check your power supply fan and or ps dust cover if it on the bottom of the case. something may be pressing the dust cover..fan when the case is on the ground.

 

[executionist]

Best answer selected by executionist.