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[marko]

This is driving me insane. mp3 file attached at foot of post.

It's quite hard to pinpoint exactly where the noise is coming from, and to that end, I've just spent some considerable time swapping things out and unplugging things and disabling things.

Nothing I did stopped the infernal squealing, and as the only thing I didn't swap out was the PSU, I'm pointing the finger firmly in that direction.

Attached is a 40 second recording of what I'm hearing. I made this recording by holding the mic at the back of the PSU, so the dominant sound is the wind noise from the fan, but the squealing can be heard clearly enough, especially just after the 30 second mark.

Perhaps the fan is on its way out, and it's just coincidence that it sounds like a FAX machine?

So, why then, does the squealing not begin until windows starts?
What I mean by that is, while the PC is going through its POST, and doing that detecting devices, and DMI stuff, there's no squealing at all, then it gets around to starting windows, and just before the desktop, the squealing starts, and from that point on, it never stops, except, even more strangely, when I open a large text document in UltraEdit and spin the scroll wheel on the mouse to get to the bottom of the file....

While the file scrolls down, the squealing stops, and when the page hits the bottom, the squealing starts again.

I can open the same file in notepad, scroll it down, and the squealing does not stop.

I am all out of ideas and at a complete loss.

I just opened Everest to get a system summary for this post, and as Everest opens, it does a number of 'scanning' jobs... during the scanning, the squealing stopped, and promptly began again once Everest had loaded.

System Info.jpg

NoisyPSU.mp3 (turn the speakers up if you don't hear the squealing!)

Thanks in advance for any sensible replies.
Regards,
-marko

[JimH]

Conflict between video driver and sound device driver.  Try updating both. 

[marko]

I'll look into that, for sure, but:

I removed the soundcard completely, and disabled the onboard stuff via device manger, and took the ATI 5850 out and replaced it with an nvidia gforce 8800 gtx...

and still the **** thing squealed... wouldn't that rule out the driver conflict? or is it likely that the drivers are still being loaded, even though the hardware is not there?

[gappie]

have you listened where it came from with the case open. sometimes easier to pinpoint where it come from.

as an example that might not be the same as in your case, but i got this on of of louder sound bursts from my machine wich where sometimes there. i knew it was not the fan, i had replaced that not too long ago. with an open case i found it was the fan in the powersupply, but less loud then with the case closed. i also noticed that when i just moved it a bit (its attached so its just a fraction) that it went. after closing the case all was well until i had moved my machine.. and it was there. just pushing a bit an the place where the power suplly is helped again (this time with the machine closed). my theory is that the powersupply slightly touches the case and with certain frequencies of the fan of the powersupply it starts to behave like a sound chamber.

ah well.. maybe its a crap theory, but it works fine since some weeks again.

 
gab

[marko]

Had the case open most of the late morning/early afternoon, swapping bits of hardware in and out, listening intently.

I'm almost certain the noise is from the PSU, but to me, that makes no sense, because the timing of the noise beginning, as JimH points out, is screaming 'driver issues'.

frustration got the better of me at one point, and the PSU received some light physical abuse, but it squealed on regardless, so I turned my back on it and watched some TV instead!!

[Ingo]

try (for testing only...) to disable all power management features on your CPU (fixed CPU clock)
I had a similar sound on my P4 based server... I could "fix" it by hitting the case (was silenced for a few minutes) and finally found out that I could fix it by putting something under one corner of the case.

good luck ;-)

Ingo

[gappie]

i guess in the end, not much has changed from old VW bus to modern server.

 
gab

[jmone]

Sound mechanical to me, like when I had a wire being clipped by the CPU Fan Blade...every now and again you would get a pause as it was temporarily knocked out of the way (like your fax machine noise)

[marko]

Thanks for the replies and suggestions...

I'm now 99.9% that I am experiencing "coil whine" as discussed here: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1485174

This PC is also using a Corsair 650TX PSU, coupled with an ATI HD5850 card.

Who would have thunk it huh? I've never heard of coil whine before!!

I guess that's what I get for patting myself on the back regarding system choice the other day...

Glynor, I passed on the 4 GHz, thinking that the cooling would be too noisy for me, and bought an already OC'd i7 system running at 3.6. It's the first time I've bought a pre-built system having built all my previous boxes at home. I got it from overclockers.co.uk and have to say I'm quite pleased with how my new lazy approach to system choice worked out!!

-marko

I've been in touch with OCUK regarding the issue and await their response...

[marko]

...the man from OCUK says "Yes"

The noise you're hearing is indeed coil whine, not necessarily a fault or dangerous to the PSU or components, but it is covered under warranty so it can be replaced.
We can either replace just the PSU for you, which will require you to take out and re-fit the new one but will give you a fast turnaround, or we can collect the PC in order to replace the PSU here, again under warranty.
Please let us know which route you would like to go down.

I'll fit it myself for the quick turn around. "Coil whine".... you never stop learning in this game....

-marko

[newsposter]

coil whine, hetrodyne whine, you'll get that a lot in consumer electronics.

There are some laptops whose internal dc/dc power supplies are really noisy and drives their owners nuts.  It's real nice for Corsair to offer to replace your psu, lots of laptop makers won't cover internal noise like that.......

[marko]

took the whining PSU out of the box and swapped in an old one from my box of bits... and the box is still squealing!

Now the man from ocuk, he say "sounds like it must be the motherboard then, send us the whole thing back, at our expense." so I did.

I'm typing this on the wife's lappie... it's an Acer Aspire 3050... I don't like it very much.

Just in case anyone is actually following this little saga of mine, I'll let you all know what the man from ocuk says next...

newsposter, Interesting comment. Kind of makes me glad I purchased from OCUK, as so far, their customer support has been little short of astounding. Something rather refreshing in this day and age. For example, they are quite happy for me to get inside the case, swapping graphic cards in and out, (It arrived with a dead one in the box, replacement card with me inside two days) and swapping PSUs around without a hint of the usual (in my experience) 'so much as touch a screw and the warranty is void' attitiude. Hopefully they can get to the bottom of this squealing as there's no way I could live with that on a permanent basis.

-marko.

[marko]

Well, last week, the man from ocuk, he say, "your pc is fixed and on it's way back to you".

Smashing. Only problem was, when it arrived, it refused to boot despite everything lighting up like a Christmas tree, and no graphics output either, so, the man from ocuk, he say, "send it back to us".

Not being at all happy, I gave him a serious verbal workout. Surely you test these things before releasing them??

I now have my system back, with a "tech report" that simply said "issue with no graphics resolved" and inside the box? My system, along with a new HIS 5850HD card still in its box, for me to fit myself. Surely they could have had the decency to at least let me know to expect that, and at best, ask if that would be OK first.

So, I open the case to install the new card and discover that my GA-X58A-UD3R has gone, and is now an ASUS P6-X58D-E, OC'd to 4.0GHz instead of the 3.6Ghz it was OC'd to originally. They have not sent me any of the MoBo driver/application discs or other MoBo related paraphernalia either. I'm sure I can get the software from ASUS, but I shouldn't have to.

I'm going to reinstall Windows, because, rightly or wrongly, if a new board goes in, I am of the opinion that that's the best thing to do, so that'll keep me busy for a couple of days

ocuk have been extremely good with regards to honouring their warranty, with a reasonably quick turn around (twice ), and for that, I can't fault them, but their communication and execution leave a lot to be desired...

Oh yeah, it's not squealing anymore, yaay but I have a strong feeling that the 4GHz overclock is pushing the Nero heatsink/fan a little too hard as before, I couldn't hear it, but now I can, just. When I've got everything in place, I may have a look at that and see if I can learn how to turn the OC down a bit without breaking it!

Computers!

EDIT:
Seems it was too much. It wouldn't run prime95 for more than 90 seconds without a BSOD complaining about clock interrupts not being received. I got it turned down to 3.8GHz by changing the CPU Ratio and the BCLK settings (20 and 190) and it now seems a lot happier.

-marko

[glynor]

Sounds like there may have been bad power regulators on the motherboard or Graphics card or something.  They can squeal just like a bad PSU.  Once upon a time I had an old ASUS A8R32-MVP.  Mine didn't do it, but there were LOTS of reports of that issue with them.

I can certainly understand your frustration over needing to send it back over and over.  If it helps... As someone who regularly ships computers around for "fixit purposes" for friends and family, I can personally guarantee that computers get damaged in shipping a LOT.  Particularly if they have big heatsinks and/or graphics cards attached.  I've "lost" two different systems in shipping.  So, it is certainly possible that they DID test it thoroughly before they sent it out, and then it just didn't work after the postman rolled it down the street to your house.  Not that I can really blame the people who work at shipping companies though... Lifting boxes and loading trucks all day has to be a horrible job.  I think I'd probably vent my frustration, mildly, on a package or two marked fragile too.  (Though that is clearly an unstable OC, which shouldn't have gone out the door).

You should be able to hit 4GHz on that chip easily, with very few modifications to settings.  I bet it is memory holding you back.

So you know... You absolutely DO NOT need to reinstall windows when you swap from one Intel X58 board to another.  In fact, generally swapping from one Intel board to another is fine too.  It is usually a good idea to completely uninstall all of the old drivers, and then install the new stuff (except the chipset drivers, but you might as well just to be safe), but most of them will even match you'll find (they all use Realtek onboard audio pretty much, maybe an auxiliary Marvell SATA chip, and then the Intel chipset drivers).  If you haven't started the reinstall process already, you might want to try just uninstalling all of the old drivers (if OCUK didn't do that for you) and then downloading and installing the new ones yourself.

If you go from an AMD board to an Intel board, or across a "major generation" of chipsets, then you probably need to reinstall from scratch.  But I swap drives to new boards for testing all the time.  I have specifically swapped a boot drive back and forth between two Nehalem-based chipsets (P55 and X58) a BUNCH of times.

Oh, and the motherboard driver discs are usually junk anyway.  ALWAYS install using the latest drivers from the web, not whatever 6-month-old dreck they put on the disc last time they had a set pressed....  I would stongly recommend getting the Intel chipset drivers directly from Intel, rather than ASUS.  Same goes for the Realtek Audio and LAN drivers.  The ones ASUS will have on their website will be old.  And be sure to grab the latest catalyst drivers from AMD too, not whatever comes on the disc in the 5850 box.

[marko]

Hi glynor...

I'd say I was just over half done reinstalling everything. Thanks for the tips!!

I'm thinking, hey, what if I write off the half-done time and just restore the disc image I took before sending back to them... I probably won't though! I'm having a day off from installing things today though, I'll pick it up again tomorrow. I want to get it all done before my new android phone arrives, and shouldn't take long once I get started.

The thing about transit damage is interesting. When I boxed it up to send back to them, I packaged it so that it lay on its back, with the graphics card vertical position, with a polite message that it be kept that way up at all times. Seemed like a no-brainer to me that this would be the best way to try and minimise transit damage.

Each time they sent it back to me, they sent in this huge "box-inside-a-box", standing upright, so the weight of the cards and very large heatsink are fighting against the mobo, rather than weigh down on it. Seemed an odd choice to me...

Would I recommend them to a friend? I probably still would, yes. A little frustrating, but overall, helpful, and they never argued with me or gave me any attitude, and they have honoured their warranty at the end of the day.

-marko.

[maxxsid]

Believe it or not, a while ago my electric iron (old 70's design) started to talk - picked up some AM radio station as it turned out...

[marko]

I'm sure there's a sexist joke in there somewhere, but I'm not brave enough to look for it!!

[maxxsid]

It really happened. Seriously.
But, on the other hand, I saw a UFO once. At least, I do have this memory. I lived close to an airforce base, though.

I'm sure there's a sexist joke in there somewhere, but I'm not brave enough to look for it!!