I'm not a fan of the fan either, excuse the pun. Might swap it, as it has already been done successfully. Too bad they had to "upgrade" the fan to comply with TÃœV, it spoiled the PSU a bit and the electrical sounds did the rest.

I define buzz as a sound onomatopoetic sound, "BZZZ". It sounds just like you would pronounce it in English. I find your specific definitions interesting though, they make sense -- maybe something was loose in there. There are no ground loops here, as every electrical device and its peripherals are connected to the same wall socket, extension cord or UPS.

Two things have happened before the on-again off-again buzz went away: I've switched my rear fan from a Blacknoise XL2 back to an NF-S12-1200, and have two fans running at about 7V instead of all four at 5V. I have also moved the case to the left of the table and rummaged around inside to double-check wiring. So could be load, could be physical alteration. Just glad it's gone, fingers crossed!

Thanks for the input.

I've been reading this thread with much interest and I've been thinking.

Maybe instead of the PSUs being faulty, maybe it's just a case of over-sensitive users? As in maybe indeed all of the mentioned PSUs buzz and whine to a certain degree, but it's only detectable by certain people.

Try inviting some friends (assuming you have friends and don't just spend your days with your ear up against your PSUs ), ask them to listen and see if they too can detect this "unbearable" buzz/whine/whistle.

I know this won't solve your problem, but I for one would find the results most interesting.

No, it's not the case of over-sensitive users. The buzz is louder than my S12E+650's fan at low load (which is about 800 rpm IIRC), quite annoying at 10 cm, but seems to fade away with the distance faster than fan noise. Or maybe it's drowned by my case and CPU fans (2x120 + 2x92 undervolted Nexii, smooth sounding).
SPCR did encounter this buzzing issue when testing the M12s and told Seasonic USA about it, but I've heard nothing since. Quoting from SPCR article:

Surprisingly, our sample had an undue amount of buzzing electrical noise with low 12V loads. The noise was worst with a 4A load on the +12V line, and got fainter as the load was either raised or lowered. The buzzing dominated the noise character at our 65W test load and raised the measured noise level significantly. Perplexed and a bit concerned, we checked three other M12 samples on hand. An M12-600 sample was almost identical to the review sample, while another M12-700 reached maximum noise at ~3A instead of 4A (on the 12V line). A fourth sample, an M12-500, exhibited no audible buzzing at any load. With all the samples, the buzzing basically disappeared above 4A load on the 12V line.

It's difficult to verify whether this buzzing is normal or specific to the samples we obtained. Seasonic USA told us that this was the first time they'd encountered such an issue, and promised to examine it in detail. [...] The fact that one sample did not exhibit the noise suggests some level of sample variance. [/endquote]

Tzupy,

Thanks for reminding me of that. I'd forgotten it altogether. I do recall some kind of answer did come back -- some part was replaced soon thereafter; this was the part that was responsible for the buzz in our samples. I will have to ask again to find out what that part had been, what it was replaced with, and whether any other of their products had used the same part.

Like you said... that wouldn't solve the problem.

Many users go and put extra money for seasonic/corsair mostly becouse its silent and what they get? noise... crazy noise...

And then how wouldn't we be crazy...

Are you all sure that your buzz are from your PSU.
I know some mobo (=motherboard) coils are buzzing. It's the VRM coil. The VRM coil is often near the northbridge.

If that is the case it doesn't matter what PSU you use!
Even a fanless PSU will not help then.

This might also explain why the whine disappear if you change exhaust fan or put your hand near the rear exhaust flow. The coil expansion is related to heat change in it when the current in it is switched.

So please check your mobo coil first, and try switching mobo if all your PSU whine.

It seams PSU, mobo, mouse, flatscreens etc. quite often can have coil whine.

Do me the favor to search for "coil AND whine" and you will see this is discussed everywhere. Search for "coil AND whine AND fix" might help you out.

Here is a mobo coil whine example
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16658&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=coil+whine&start=54

I have a Corsair HX620. It doesn't buzz yet, but my computer is still without CPU and memory and graphics card so the loading is very low.

My Corsair PSU is my main sound source so you cannot blame on anything else. I currently have 2 Scythe S-Flex D (1200 rpm) running at 6.09 V on front.
I have made a very serious job dampening my already silent hard disk.

If you doubt my system is silent read this
http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40884&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=13
and then I let you decide if my system is to loud for you?!

I hope this helped you.
/Alexander

on the quantum level we are wavelike but I don't think that's what you meant.

/end offtopic

Update

I have tested by swapping power supplies between the systems, no change whatsoever.

Well, my Corsair 520w ticks away!! It is audiable. It is like a clock ticking!! Getting me down as my system is really quite.

Yes . The human body acts as an antenna and picks up the 50Hz signal (in case of 220V, 60Hz in case of 110v) from your house's outlets. You can try connecting your fingers to an oscilloscope's probes and see the 50hz waveform (it's not a perfect sine wave, it has some noise). When you got your hand close to the PSU, some sensitive part of it (coils probably) have picked up some of the 50/60Hz signal. The buzz you heard was probably 50/60Hz since you said it was like a bzzzz. The position of your hand to the PSU has amplified the signal picked up by the psu, antenna effect.

You get this effect with a lot of electronic equipment. Waving your hand close to sensitive electronic equipment (e.g. low noise amplifiers, low voltage coils etc) will induce additional "noise". It depends a lot on the person. The human body is an electrolite but the skin resistance varies from person to person, usually it's a few hundreds kilo ohms (you can measure yours with a decent multimeter, it's probably lower than average).

To get back to our whining issue with the corsair and other seasonic psus, I gave a possible explanation of the cause in one of my firsts posts regarding the PSU's less chance to whine when used on 110v than on 220v - which may explain MikeC's experience with them.

To summarize, 220V/50Hz needs a lower input current than the 110V/60Hz to achieve the same output current on the standard 12/5/3.3V lines ... off the top of my head, the frequency of the switched capacitors needs to be higher for the 110V input than the 220V in order to obtain the same output voltage which would explain the audible high pitch sound I heard from many of them on 220V; the switched caps freq for the 110V ones could be somewhere higher in the ultrasound range, inaudible to human hearing - maybe cat owners can try and annoy their cats with the PSU, see if they run away or spit (cats are supposed to react to ultrasound).

I've said it before, many people are very picky and sensitive to electrical whine or buz, like myself. MikeC seems to suggest there aren't enough reports to consider this as being a real issue and i respect that point of view. To me however, it is an issue.

I've also seen numerous reports on Corsair's forums and to be honest, i think that if more power suuply comapnies had active forums, there would be more reports. Right now, there isn't really a reliable way to find out how many reports of electrical whine/buzz there have been since most unhappy users just return or replace the product and don't write about it.

Nice to see many people contributing to this thread. It has grown into something more than the HX520 whine (or no whine for the lucky ones ). Didn't expect that .

I spoke to a Nexus reseller and he promised to get me one NX-8050. I will test it thoroughly and will report back. Hopefully the fan won't ramp up as quickly as it did in the NX-8060 from the SPCR review. I can always mod it and connect the fan to a fan controller or the motherbord and control it with speedfan.

I know that tick very well. Your system probably sucks very low power from the PSU. Anyone can get that tick actually. The easiest way is to disconnect everything from the PSU and short circuit the COM and PS_ON pins of the ATX connector (see http://pinouts.ru/Power/atx_v2_pinout.shtml). They are the 3rd and 4th top-right pins as you look at the connector positioned vertically with the side latch on the right. Both HX520s i tried had a horrible tick this way but no longer any tick at >80W load. The annoying whine is still there though

Thanks! That was bothering me.
I did measure my resistance at some point, but don't remember the results. Maybe I'll do that again once I have my Fluke back.



Yes. I verified it by opening the case side panel and going over the mobo with my ear, no noise. There was also no noise when I used a Smartpower 450W, only the S12II made the noise. My TFT does have a whine on standby power, always has had. Been told it's the inverter.

Obviously, audible electrical noise in PSUs is an issue, otherwise, this thread wouldn't exist. I've also seen the discussion at Corsair. I went through about 10 pages of the PSU forum and found perhaps a dozen separate threads on hum/buzz/whine noise. Almost every thread seems to be a 2-way exchange between ramguy (the mod/rep) and the complainant.

As you say, mastabog, it's hard to determine what kind of numbers we're really seeing. Most often, people who have problems complain and those who don't keep quiet; the latter have no reason to even visit support forums.

Still, I agree that there's obviously some number of Corsair PSUs that are buzzing/humming more than they should. I will make a direct inquiry of my contacts at Corsair and find out how serious the problem has been, and whether it's a bad production batch as someone suggested in the Corsair forum.

BTW, it appears that Corsair has been very responsive to PSU noise complaints, issuing RMAs to pretty much everyone who complains.

Haha, yes, I've seen that too. That guy looks like the strongest elements in Corsair's official online support.


that would be nice. A thorough (and technical) official respond to this is always welcome. When you get around to do it, you could also hint them about the 110V vs 220V issue (see my post above).


Yep, again RamGuy is doing most of the work. Sadly, that doesn't fix the problem, assuming there is a manufacturing one. Even if the majority of their PSUs whine, the number of users who are actually bothered by it might be inferior to what Corsair perceives as profit loss through RMA - and I'm pretty sure they resell most of the units that go back. And if the whining/buzzing is less of a problem for 110V then their concern is even smaller, business-wise.

The Corsair HX PSUs look like the most popular PSUs at the moment so it's only natural people hammer them the most and the number of complaints looks higher (mine still whines though ).

OK, your S12II is a whining one period.
I was just thinking of people having whine problems with all their PSUs. If they are complaining on all their PSUs and if the whine is from somewhere else then I do not like it. I am glad you are not one of them and to me this strengthen yours and others point that Seasonic (and Corsair) seams to have had some whine problems. This is obviously bad news for them.

Hey guys, Redbeard here. This thread is pretty interesting and I'd like to get some more info from you guys.

Corsair is dedicated to the silent PC enthusiast and we want to make our power supply the best possible power supply for balancing high power demands and low noise generation. We've sold tens of thousands in just under a year and are very thankful to the community, you guys obviously made it happen. Without your support our PSUs would still be stuck in a warehouse in Fremont.

The noise complaints we're seeing here are interesting, because they're not standard. Some people have 2 or 3 units and ALWAYS have the noise, others have 2 or 3 units and never have the noise. It's tough to gauge just how bad the complaints are on a forum because what seems like dozens of posts are sometimes made by just a few guys.

So what I'd like to do is start an informal poll, something where you guys could help me out.


Again, the contact info is powerguy@corsairmemory.com

I want to see just when this problem is occurring, because while I've seen it in the labs occasionally, it's certainly not on 100% of the units we have in the lab, and we have dozens for our use here. I've also heard it on other manufacturer's units, sometimes worse. I want to clear this up just so I can see if it's something that we can duplicate in our labs under specific circumstances.

I'll be posting back here occasionally with more info for you guys once we have it. Right now, I'd just like to gather some information.

Cool, an actual official reply. Please feed the data along for your Corsair so that the mystery may unravel.

My Corsair 520W comes tomorrow so I will let you all know if it ticks/whines or buzzes as I am very very picky.

I just got mine...sadly it looks like it'll take at least 3-4 hours of work to switch psu's...not looking forward to that. I'll post regarding how buzzy/whiny it is as well. Btw it's a REV B2W built in June 07 it looks...hopefully the recent date is promising.

Mines in!

Its superb, very very quiet. There is a very slight 'buzz' if I put my ear right to the PSU and you can hear it about 10cm away, anymore than that and all I can hear are the 2 Antec P180 fans (and my rattling IceQ3 which needs sorting out).

If I stop the fans and stop the IceQ fan I still can't hear any 'buzz' unless I get my head right down to the the PSU near the floor.

I am happy with that!

In the process though I snapped the left hand side front clips on my P180 front where the door housing is, I dont think they can be replaced either as they seem to be molded onto the front bezel

Mike

stormy -- the behavior of your sample is no surprise.

While I sympathize folks who have reported buzzing problems here, after speaking at length to Corsair reps, all indications are that the return rate of the HX series PSUs is extremely low, much lower than the norm for retail components of this type. I know that Seasonic's return rate is also very low -- <1% worldwide. What I am saying is, you shouldn't have to hold your breath about noise issues when buying either Corsair or Seasonic PSUs on the SPCR recommended list. The odds of getting a buzzy unit is very low.

I don't quite know how to react to this statement.

Extrapolating from a <1% return rate to assert that the odds of getting a buzzy unit is very low is making a whole pile of assumptions about who HX520s sell to, what their motives are for choosing that PSU, what systems they put them in and what their criteria are for returning them.

The HX520 is a quiet PSU compared to many others, even with the buzzing and the clattering fan. Anyone whose buying it as their first remotely quiet PSU it'll blow their socks off. But that says nothing about the rate of occurrence of buzzing.

Tell me MikeC, if you had to guess, what fraction of HX520s sold would you say go into systems which are otherwise quiet enough that the buzzing could be noticed by a normal, non-SPCR-oriented person? And of those what fraction would annoy enough to force them to rip their PC apart and send the unit back?

It's basically a counter to the (unstated?) sentiment that a user is lucky to get a non-buzzy unit. I say they're unlucky to get a buzzy one.


To the first paragraph, I would say, not really.

Even if gamers represent the bulk of buyers, based on the feedback on the buzzy units here, they'd have to be deaf not to hear it, right? And more than half the forum participants these days appear to be gamers seeking quiet systems, so I think it's safe to say those who are buying the Corsairs have quiet as one of their desired targets. After all, very low noise is one of the most commonly noted traits of these PSUs by reviewers, and echoed in forums all over.


I wouldn't conjecture with such details.... but based on the feedback in this thread and in Corsair's forum, it looks like the total number of buzzy returns reported is well under 30. That's after nearly a year of sales. How many do I think they've sold? Thousands. Many thousands. Will Corsair release detailed stats for general consumption? No way. No more than would Enermax, Antec, FSP or any other brand.

I know from watching, sometimes participating, and occasionally working with some component companies over the past 10 years that the vast majority of tech problems with DIY components are reported with highly exaggerated incidence. Just as Redbeard said, often dozens of posts in multiple forums are made by just a few guys. I'm sure there are many other who have seen this many times before.

OK.



Quiet mean different things to different people, as I'm sure you well know.

When it comes to other reviews, as I already said this PSU is a very quiet PSU even with the buzzing. But if that's all I wanted from a PSU I wouldn't hang around here. IMO the HX520 I have isn't SPCR quiet, or at least it's not what I thought SPCR quiet meant. Maybe I'm wrong



None of which really contradicts my thesis that the vast bulk of HX520 buyers have systems which are quiet in their own ears but which drown out any noise from the PSU. "I can't hear it over the stock cooler on my 8800GTX" and that sort of stuff.

Well I tried the theory on mine, unplugged the all the P180 fans and put my fingers on the HIS X1900XT IceQ3 to stop it spinning, only my CPU fan (an Artic Cooler Freezer Pro 7) and the PSU fans were running and I could not hear the 'buzz' unless I got my head right down next to my PSU. So maybe all HX520's are not created equally, if I am further than around 10cms away I can't hear it and the fan is near silent.

Incidently, mine also doesnt "tick" at low load. I tested the PSU out of the case before I took it all to bits because I was worried about all these 'buzzing' posts and with just the mobo, CPU and ram. there was no ticking. I am not sure if the load needs to be even less than that to make it tick of course.

Mike

I'm not sure that's entirely fair . I for one (and I've seen others too) have stated repeatedly that I am sensitive to high pitch and to noise in general and noise that people can cope with or can't really hear or aren't bothered by, to me may be unacceptable, it may annoy the hell out of me to extents that I can't work at the PC. I'm a freak. I'm not the only one but the/our problem is that we are still a minority for a retailer or manufacturer.

Also, a lot of these units are sold in the US. I twice mentioned a possible different behaviour of the HX520 when on UK 220V or US 110V and gave a possible explanation - any feedback on that from Corsair? Just out of curiosity, Stormy, are you on 110V?

Also, and please forgive me if the following sounds inappropriate, it is understandable to defend your own reviews and recommendations. However it seems a bit odd that a few posts back you seem to recognize there is/could be a problem with the HXs and would try and speak with your contacts and now, after apparently speaking with them, your opinions seem to have changed: you recommend buying it without worrying about possible whine/buzz because chances of that are really very low and the people reporting buzz/whine in this thread are just a handful and have just been unlucky (bluntly put), and have managed to get a thread to ~150 replies long which can be misleading as there are actually few complaints. It may be true, it could be that all of us (and the ones at the Corsair forums) have just been unlucky and that there is absolutely no problem out of the ordinary. It just seems like you are trying to make whatever problem there is/could be go away by saying there is really no problem. It could also just be because I had a really bad day .

I just might get a 3rd HX520. Two in a row bought from eBuyer in the UK had the exact same tick at very low loads (<60W) and the exact same high pitch whine (a bit chirping) omnipresent, independed of load. tested in 3 different households in different locations. I just can't call that bad luck just yet (the S12 doesn't have any of that but has other buzzing). In fact, if the Nexus NX-8050 that should arrive next week has noise or fan ramping issues, I will order a 3rd HX520.


Do you mean you have short-circuit the two pins on the atx connector to start it with no load on the PSU (i.e. nothing connected to it)? I would be surprised if it didn't tick. Otherwise, that X1900XT can never get you to the "low-load" level the ticking appears. I heard that tick when the load on the PSU is below 50-60W (DC). With the 1900XT, you may approach 100W, depending on your CPU (and other stuff it powers). Above 80-90W it doesn't tick. At least the two I tested didn't.

mastabog --

I think you miss many of my points altogether.

1) Yes, there are some units that buzz
2) They are not many
3) The buzzing is a real problem
4) But if you have several samples that buzz, then you're unlucky -- not only because you got a bunch of bad units but because there is probably some kind of interactive problem between your components and the PSU.

I am not trying to make the problem go away, or to simply defend SPCR's review. I am saying look at it in realistic perspective. If only one unit out of a hundred is returned, and presumably not all are returned for the buzz problem, then what's the best way for the mfg to deal with it? By replacing the unit and keeping fingers crossed, probably. Why not throw resources at solving the proiblem?

Well, they're having a hard time replicating it in the first place*, and most products have a very finite life cycle; I doubt these will go more than another 6-12 mos. Is that great for those who want a silent as possible? No, but... we all live in the real world.

And yes, I do think the risk of getting a buzzing unit that drives most people crazy is low. IMO, it's 1% or less for the general Corsair or Seasonic buyer. Maybe it's 10% for a "freak" -- as you describe yourself. I think that is still low. And if you are so sensitive as to be bothered by all manner of noise, then I have to say your expectations may be too high to ever be satisfied without taking matters into your own hands -- without modding and hacking.

Finally, I am not sure what you think I'm being unfair about re - the noise sensitivity of gamers. Are you saying I am wrong? That they are indeed insensitive and you are so much more sensitive?

----------
*You have to remember that the collective intelligence here about quiet computing is vast compared to the knowledge of the typical system integrator... or PSU developer. The PSU techs listen for hum in the context of a real system of components that have caused hum for complaining customers... but maybe they can't hear it. Maybe it's because the way they've set that system up, it's too loud for the hum to be heard as a discrete sound. Do we then blame them? Or do we look for a different combo of components that doesn't cause audible hum in the PSU, or do a couple more RMAs to get a less reactive sample? I mean, you admit it, you're obsessed about low noise, and most people in the world are not. You just can't expect them to have the same standard you do. I don't anyway.

to be fair there's not a lot of modding and hacking that can be done to eliminate electronic noise, apart from burying the PSU in some kind of noiseproof chamber with baffled exhausts etc. most people don't have room in their case for that.



was this with the exact same components (ie P5k/E4300)? can you list all of your components (sorry if you have done this before, as you said thread is over 150 replies long...)

may be a better option to try a different PSU if the Nexus doesn't work out, seems Corsair just doesn't play nice with your system; maybe try and Antec Earthwatts?