Question Capacitor squeal? Annoying or concerning?

[blackkeys1098]

It hasn't come up with any other game but now that I boot up Mechwarrior 5 I get what sounds like capacitor squeeling. Not that bad but still annoying. For what it's worth, my old 650 psu and RX 5600 xt didn't have this problem on medium settings. I was using a 27" 60 hz monitor, now on a 32" 240hz. Adjusting the graphics settings on the new hardware doesn't seem to make a difference. Neither does dropping the refresh rate from 240 down to 60hz.

Is that something I need to remedy to prevent damage or is it harmless?

PSU Corsair HX850
MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT
Ryzen 7 5800x
MSI 32" monitor, 1080p at 240hz

 

[Lutfij]

PSU Corsair HX850
How old is the PSU?

I would roll a sheet of A4 paper and then hold one end to your ear and then use the other end to probe for the source of the noise to help narrow down a culprit.

You speak of an older PSU, what was it and how old was the unit? As for the GPU swap to the RX6800, did you remove your prior drivers before dropping in the new GPU, to manually reinstall with the latest driver in an elevated command?

 

[blackkeys1098]

PSU Corsair HX850
How old is the PSU?

I would roll a sheet of A4 paper and then hold one end to your ear and then use the other end to probe for the source of the noise to help narrow down a culprit.

Bought it back in november

I really didn't know what coil whine was until I started googling it an hour ago. I can live with it if it's not causing damage but I want to rule that part out first.

 

[blackkeys1098]

You speak of an older PSU, what was it and how old was the unit? As for the GPU swap to the RX6800, did you remove your prior drivers before dropping in the new GPU, to manually reinstall with the latest driver in an elevated command?

The older one was an evga supernova. I didn't do anything specific with the drivers except update them in the linux terminal.

 

[--SID--]

Corsair HX850

Is the PSU set on 12v single rail or 12v multi rail?

How many seperate cables from PSU te GPU?

 

[blackkeys1098]

Is the PSU set on 12v single rail or 12v multi rail?

How many seperate cables from PSU te GPU?

I'm not sure if it's single or multiple. There's no toggle switch.

Three separate 8 pin cables from the PSU to GPU

 

[--SID--]

I'm not sure if it's single or multiple. There's no toggle switch.

My bad, the switch is on the modular board of the PSU or do you accidantally have the HX850i?

 

[BFG-9000]

Both capacitor noise and coil whine are caused by things physically moving/vibrating which is what generates the sound. Ceramic capacitors ringing at a high frequency will generally cause no damage but will annoy any nearby dogs or cats, however coil whine can resonate at a low enough frequency to cause metal fatigue and cracked/cold solder joints. It comes down to the selection of the coil for operation at that load, and the DIY-type solution of globbing a bunch of heat-resistant glue on the offending coil only reduces the issue.

20 years ago I had to replace all of the ceramic "c11" caps in the then-popular Logitech MX Mice (MX300, MX500, MX510 and even the 1600dpi MX518 v1.0) because even I could hear the annoying 15kHz whine all of the time so imagine what it must've been like for pets with much better hearing. Logitech didn't get around to fixing the issue until around 2008, midway through the 1800dpi MX518 v2.0 run.

 

[blackkeys1098]

My bad, the switch is on the modular board of the PSU or do you accidantally have the HX850i?

No, I got this exact one from newegg back in November

https://www.newegg.com/corsair-hx-series-hx850-850-w/p/N82E16817139311?item=N82E16817139311

Are you thinking switching to multi rail may fix it? Again, the same card doesn't have this problem with other games of similar or even greater graphics demands. It also starts the second the game loads, it doesn't change much when the heavy rendering comes into play. It's actually more noticable in frequency from one menu to the next, sometimes even stopping when the gameplay actually starts. Maybe it's not the gpu? Is it possibly an in game setting that needs adjusting?

 

[blackkeys1098]

No, I got this exact one from newegg back in November

https://www.newegg.com/corsair-hx-series-hx850-850-w/p/N82E16817139311?item=N82E16817139311

Both capacitor noise and coil whine are caused by things physically moving/vibrating which is what generates the sound. Ceramic capacitors ringing at a high frequency will generally cause no damage but will annoy any nearby dogs or cats, however coil whine can resonate at a low enough frequency to cause metal fatigue and cracked/cold solder joints. It comes down to the selection of the coil for operation at that load, and the DIY-type solution of globbing a bunch of heat-resistant glue on the offending coil only reduces the issue.

20 years ago I had to replace all of the ceramic "c11" caps in the then-popular Logitech MX Mice (MX300, MX500, MX510 and even the 1600dpi MX518 v1.0) because even I could hear the annoying 15kHz whine all of the time so imagine what it must've been like for pets with much better hearing. Logitech didn't get around to fixing the issue until around 2008, midway through the 1800dpi MX518 v2.0 run.

I can live with the noise as long as it's not going to eventually burn out my gpu or start a fire.