Question Annoying buzzing sound coming from my PC

[zSCHIZOz]

So when I play certain games on my PC I get an annoying buzzing sound coming from my computer. I believe its the PSU. The make and model is SeaSonic Prime 1000W Titanium. It has a hybrid fan switch on the back of it which I toggled on after it being off. It worked to a degree but it still buzzes, just not as much.

My GPU is liquid cooled so its not the GPU buzzing. I'm pretty sure its not the chipset fan, X570. Which leaves only the PSU to be the culprit.

Now I'm not sure what to do. Sure my PC runs fine, its just a very annoying buzzing sound on certain games. When I'm just idling there is no buzzing.

Any suggestions?

 

[Oussebon]

When people say buzzing I think of an electronic type noise, i.e. coil whine, which isn't down to fan noise. So I wouldn't have expected it to be affected by turning the fan off/down, if that's what you did with the switch.

You could try inverting the PSU to see if that affects the noise. If it does it could be a problem with the fan, in which case Seasonic would presumably RMA it.

 

[zSCHIZOz]

Yes, it does sound like coil while. The hybrid fan was off already when the PSU was making noise. I turned the fan on to lessen the noise, which worked to a degree. Unfortunately the whine still persists, just not as loud or as much.

The way my case is designed the PSU rests on its side with the fan intake facing the tempered glass panel. Inverting its position would choke it so I'm not doing that.

I don't know. It seems silly to RMA it if it works fine but just whines on some applications. I have a 12 year warranty on it so I may do it in the distant future if the condition worsens.

Just hoping someone has a solution other than RMA'ing.

 

[Oussebon]

Inverting the PSU when the fan is making a noise is a known workaround for fan noise on some Corsair units when in a conventional tower case, which is why I suggested it, without noting your specs hidden behind the spoiler button. That said you could still invert the PSU and just not have it mounted to see if it makes a difference if it bothers you that much.

Ultimately if it's coil whine you don't have any options to fix it that don't involve using the warranty (assuming Seagate even accept it as a defect - it's often not) or invalidating it.

 

[Inspireless Llama]

To clarify, does it sound like this? This is coil whine:

 

[zSCHIZOz]

@Inspireless Llama, Yup. Its coil whine. Turning the hybrid fan on helped but its still rather annoying. I guess I'll just have to live with it for now. It would probably take forever to get a new PSU from SeaSonic due to COVID so I'm not going to even bother right now.

Oh well. First world problems.😭

 

[spvtnik1]

I've never experienced this! I have listened to electronics whine before but not like that. I wonder if the power source (at wall) has anything to do with it? Does a good UPS or power filterer fix this?