Hi,
I've been trying to figure this out for a while now. Whenever there is a significant visual update on my screen (E.G, loading a webpage, or playing a game) my desktop emits a constant but "snowy" or "rough" sounding high pitch squeal. So high, in fact, that I can't isolate where it's coming from. Logic leads me to one of these components in order of decreasing probability:
VGA card: Radeon 9800 Pro
PSU: Noname, 350W, perhaps borderline overloaded
Motherboard: Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Welcome to 2004, Baby!
Anyhow, has anyone else experienced this and successfully fixed it? I'm finding it quite distracting. If it's a mystery to others also, I may do some tests, but there's no point tearing my system apart if someone else has the solution already.
Thanks for any input you may have.
Squealing sounds during display updates / gaming
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I suppose it is coil whine. I have it myself with an Asus 8800GTS 512MB in similar conditions. Try rolling a sheet of paper as a thin tube, put the other end to your ear, and the other end very near each coil on the GPU card in turn, while making the computer emit that sound. the tube should be able to pick up the offender and isolate it from the other noise sources, or not.
The coils induce changing magnetic fields from the current that flows through them, and the magnetic field pulls the coil around, making it vibrate physically.
A potential fix, once you find the coil that makes the sound, would be to pour hot glue over it so that it stays put and can not vibrate.
You do this completely at your own risk though.
Sound dampening materials are pretty good at dampening high frequency sounds, so if all else fails, you could line your case with such material.
Be sure to let us know if you succeed in fixing it.
The coils induce changing magnetic fields from the current that flows through them, and the magnetic field pulls the coil around, making it vibrate physically.
A potential fix, once you find the coil that makes the sound, would be to pour hot glue over it so that it stays put and can not vibrate.
You do this completely at your own risk though.
Sound dampening materials are pretty good at dampening high frequency sounds, so if all else fails, you could line your case with such material.
Be sure to let us know if you succeed in fixing it.
Thanks, I'll give that trick a shot when I can reproduce the whine again (Doesn't seem to occur in the mornings)
However...
What does occur in the mornings is an oscillating high pitch tone. The kind you hear from a television - very crisp without any of the "roughness" like with VGA coil whine. It seems to oscillate and change in period so the first thing I did was stop each fan individually. No dice. Any idea what could cause this? I seem to notice it only in the mornings...
I tried to isolate it with your paper tube trick but had no success. In doing so, I did notice the metal cap on a capacitor near my CPU had burst and there is a buildup of rust or some kind of corrosion developing. Evidently this is bad, but are there any serious consequences if I don't bother to replace it? I'd rather not hit my motherboard with a soldering iron for fear of overheating sensitive components or raising tracks.
Hope I haven't drifted too far from the area of interest of this website
Edit: I generated a tone in Audacity that sounds pretty similar. Click here to download it:
http://www.2shared.com/file/3412959/1d8 ... _Tone.html
It's not *exactly* the same - the true sound oscillates in a more random fashion. I had to generate a tone rather than record it because I don't have any microphones responsive enough to pick up this high pitch.
However...
What does occur in the mornings is an oscillating high pitch tone. The kind you hear from a television - very crisp without any of the "roughness" like with VGA coil whine. It seems to oscillate and change in period so the first thing I did was stop each fan individually. No dice. Any idea what could cause this? I seem to notice it only in the mornings...
I tried to isolate it with your paper tube trick but had no success. In doing so, I did notice the metal cap on a capacitor near my CPU had burst and there is a buildup of rust or some kind of corrosion developing. Evidently this is bad, but are there any serious consequences if I don't bother to replace it? I'd rather not hit my motherboard with a soldering iron for fear of overheating sensitive components or raising tracks.
Hope I haven't drifted too far from the area of interest of this website
Edit: I generated a tone in Audacity that sounds pretty similar. Click here to download it:
http://www.2shared.com/file/3412959/1d8 ... _Tone.html
It's not *exactly* the same - the true sound oscillates in a more random fashion. I had to generate a tone rather than record it because I don't have any microphones responsive enough to pick up this high pitch.
What type of monitor is it? LCD or CRT. I've seen (heard) CRTs do this with extremely bright screens (all white) when stressing the power of the device. I've also seen it in slow, steady refreshes (slowly auto-scrolling a web page, for example) on LCDs. Also, when an LCD inverter is dying it can emit some high pitched noises, particularly when brightness is lowered.