Ever had a motherboard cause coil whine to come from the PSU(s)? [edit -Yes]

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Anyone here ever had a motherboard cause coil whine to come from the PSU?

Bought a Corsair rm750e, and it had coil whine, only when idle. Really bad though, like across the room bad.
Amazon had a replacement to me within the day. Same issue.
I have a video of this (second) one (the bad, unchangeable, thumbnail is just my hand lol)

So two bad (?) Corsair PSUs, I thought I’d get something off of that Cultist list. Got an NZXT 1200C total overkill, but it was only £30 more than the Corsairs, cool.
Nope. Even worse. It’s like Josh Wink’s Higher State Of Consciousness at points. Again it is fine under load.

So, that’s now 3 different PSUs, all with the same issue. Never had this with the previous PC. Sadly don’t have any spare parts to cross check things with.
Tried removing everything once at a time, RAM, SSDs, all peripherals. Tried different power cables, different sockets in different parts of the house.
Tried all sorts of BIOS settings, default, etc etc. It starts as soon as the power does (second video shows) and only stops if there’s a load on the CPU.

So, the only thing I’m left with is the motherboard??

Or the CPU? That seems unlikely as heck for some reason, and afaik it won’t even boot without it in there
I’m at the end of my rope here. I’ll probably just order another, different motherboard from Amazon and see.
Anyone of you ever experienced this though?

-edit- Ah, sadly I can’t include links to the videos I took. Just imagine really bad squeaking/screeching coil whine from hell.

ASUS Prime B650M-A WIFI II
Corsair 6000/c30 RAM (from the compatibility list)
AMD 7800x3d

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That’s really weird. Never heared of it.
I did build a threadripper 7970 workstation recently (somewhere posted here) and have the corsair hx1500i PSU. Its dead silent. Like not existing.
Really weird you have this on 3 psus

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I’ve got an MSI AM4 mobo that whines at idle (though as far as I can tell it’s the CPU VRMs and nothing with either supply I’ve tested with, which isn’t quite what you’re asking). Fortunately it’s quiet enough to be more of an “I can measure this” thing than “I can hear this”. One active core’s not enough to shut it up but two or more will.

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Entirely possible, I’ve personally had a couple motherboards that experienced coil whine. Though to be fair most of those were from overclocking the FSB way beyond limits…

If you can’t swap the board then try swapping outlets the system is plugged into. If the system is on a UPS (or even a power strip) then also try it without the UPS/power strip. I kid you not I’ve seen old power strips also cause weird electrical issues.

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Update - PSU number 4 a Silverstone Hela 850R arrived, and is also making a racket.
I’m keeping this one (doubt Amazon will keep accepting returns at this rate) and have ordered a new motherboard. I’ll update as things develop.

To answer a couple of questions (and ramble a bit)
I’ve tried different sockets, different rooms, unplugged everything else in the house (and almost forgot to plug the freezer back in oops) Used an expensive power strip, different actual power cables. And a lot of swearing. Proper Scottish swearing. Hasn’t helped.

Oh yeah, I’ve got some of those ferrite core things arriving today since they were cheap and I’m now getting close to trying superstition tech. We’ll see…

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All enermax and seasonic PSUs I have bought were dead silent at any load, but I always bought 80+ platinum models.

Given that there is minimal surcharge for original OEM and platinum certification, I would really recommend going with seasonic prime psu from hereon forward (like this). No more lottery buys.

They are consistently high quality, have real lifetime warranty ( as in 12y warranty period) and if you size them right, they will last for multiple builds.

If you can fit your build within 550/650W, you can also go for fully passively cooled platinum/titanium certified model. Total silence that one.

I have been using 550W model for 6y without any hiccups in two installations and if it were not for new gpu, i would be using them now as well (7900xtx pulls enough A on 12V rails to trigger OCP on 550W model).

EDIT: Seasonic PX seems to be replaced with “ultra platinum” lineup. 1000W model is being sold for 200USD with vat included (?).

EDIT: Seriously, why does L1techs forum silently edit amazon links after submission? Its frigging annoying.

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you dont, by chance, have a line conditioner or active UPS you could put the system on for a bit to test with do you? coil whine takes several things being slightly off to happen. and yes i have had weird situations where coil whine came from one of the other things in the chain.

my point is, if you can slightly alter the input power, it will probably go away. a line conditioner or active style UPS would probably be just enough of a change to interrupt the exact set of things happening that cause the coil whine.

actually even putting a space heater on the same circuit as that system might cause enough voltage sag that the PSU would slightly bump amperage and also fix the coil whine.

troubleshooting mining rigs made out of essentially garbage has really opened my eyes to power delivery issues.

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Mini update - Ferrite cores arrived, fitted, and made no difference. I am not surprised, but I thought it was worth a punt and only £5.
Tomorrow is the new motherboard, and that’s what I’m now inclined towards causing the issue. 4 different PSUs all being bad seems very very unlikely.

As for power conditioners or a UPS, I’ve not tried that. I’ve never needed either, here in the UK the supply is generally very good. Conditioners seem to be the realms of audiophiles here afaik.
UPSs could be of some use I guess, but I think I’ve had 1 power cut in the last 20-odd years, and only ever hear of brown outs via my trans Atlantic friends. Though to be honest, if it is still doing it with a new motherboard, I’ll probably start pricing up one/both.

I have tried removing every single appliance from their sockets and still the PSU squeaks away.
I had a mid level gaming PC in this same house until last year and had no issues, so I’m baffled still.
Anyway, I’m rambling again.
I’ll post again once the new motherboard is installed and tested.

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Change the vrm switching frequency
I think Asus calls the settings digiVRM
Might be labeled CPU VR freq

Higher means better OC (pointless on X3D) and less efficient power, more heat on vrm (not hotter CPU)
Lower means cooler vrm and more efficient power use

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I’ve had a gpu that had coil whine, but after replacing the power supply it stopped. That gpu didn’t have coil whine in a different computer.
A power supply can be totally fine and still cause coil whine, it really depends on the design and what is connected to it.

It probably is your motherboard that has the issue, something in it’s power supply. You should also check if it is the GPU, this could be the GPU or the power supply of the motherboard to the GPU.

If it is the cpu you can also play around with ryzen master and set different power states. (changing windows power mode to high performance will also prevent the low frequency mode of the amd cpu)

Unless you have really dirty power, doing anything before a high quality power supply most probably won’t do anything, because they are pretty good at filtering the AC input for the frequencies we are talking about. I’m seeing multiple reports online with asus B650s having coil whine, so i would focus on that.

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Thanks for the ideas guys. Tried them already. Not to sound like a know it all, more of a “3 weeks of hair pulling frustrations guy” At least I do now know my way around a B650 BIOS/Ryzen Master now, which is a bonus I guess :slight_smile:
Tried all sorts of C-states shenanigans to no end as well . As well as totally shot in the dark “maybe if I disable secure boot” moments.

New (Gigabyte Aorus Elite) motherboard is a few hours away according to the tracking details. I’m now even more hopeful that is the issue.

I had a look at a review/write up of 35 AM5 motherboards that Hardware Unboxed/Tech Power Up did, and they took particular issue with the VRMs. All the Asus “Prime” had temps of over 100c on the VRMs, compared to the 60s-70s on all the other boards.
I wish I’d seen it before I bought the setup, but there’s only so much research you can do eh.

That got me paying more attention to the actual board. If I isolate the PSU noise momentarily (stick it in a box) then I can hear the motherboard VRMs fizzling away on their own. Not as noisy as the (four, different, high quality) PSUs have been, so it has been masked until now.
It has a very similar high frequency sound signature of the PSU noise as well.

I’ll see how it goes later and update in due course. If it is the motherboard all along then I have a few snooty PSU reviews to edit tonight.

(I have removed the PUS from the box by the way lol)

I’ve had such bad luck with this build.
I had two ProArt 4080s that I had to RMA due to one having a rattling/clicking fan, and it’s replacement having a crazy resonating/howling fan instead.
By the time all that was dealt with I’d saved up enough for a (quiet, cool, fully functioning) 4090, so I should dry my eyes I guess.

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“Hahahahaha, can you hear that”
“Hear what, I can’t hear anything”
“EXACTLY!!”

Oh wait, what’s that?… *cue music - “Silence is Golden by The Tremeloes”

As you may be able to tell, I’m rather happy.
New Mobo, no coil whine from PSU!
All I can hear is the usual quiet fan sounds, the mildest hint of “something electrical is switched on” and my own tinnitus.
Yeah, it was bad enough that it was masking my tinnitus. First time I’ve been happy to hear that again.

So, to answer my own question, and maybe some other internet traveler -
Q - "can a motherboard cause coild whine/noise to come from a PSU?
A - “Yes”

ASUS Prime B650M-A WiFi II is a bad motherboard and has caused me a month of hassle, 3 unnecessary PSU returns (revised reviews incoming) and moments of considering giving up and buying a pre-built PC. After decades of this stuff no less.
New mobo is noted above, but I feel that it was more to do with the Asus being bad than the Gigabyte being good. It is nice though. Feels about twice the weight. And no noise haha.

I keep going over to make sure, haha.
Okay, drama over. Thanks for all the suggestions and good vibes :slight_smile:

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