- May 1, 2023
- 194
- 7
- 95
typically if I go around asking people about my PSU, it was about buzzing, which I eventually realized was the GPU's coil whine, but yesterday I took notice of a strange somewhat loud humming coming from the PSU area. the sound is like a constant "mrrr", sort of like the sound you'd hear from airflow, but it sounds odd to me. it might've always been here, but the reason I took notice of it was because it actually obstructs the sounds that I can usually hear at the back of the PC
the humming itself is not constant, it does go away, and seems to appear primarily under some loads or after I get off a game. when the humming does occur, it is a largely uninterrupted "mrrrr" kind of sound, with slight variations in the volume, like small up-and-down waves but if you just heard it at face value, it's a pretty stagnant sound. seems somewhat separate from the fan; the humming does not really seem to match the PSU fan's rotation, and when under load, I can hear the fan separate from the hum.
on startup, I can hear the fan perfectly, but there is no humming present, and it essentially seems that the hum does not come from the fan itself exactly. that being said, I think I've noticed a pattern after running Heaven Benchmark and some games that I know ramp up my fan (Nioh 2 and Elden Ring):
-when the fan gets faster, the humming seems to disappear or at least get significantly quieter; I thought it might be due to the fan drowning out the hum, but the fan is not loud enough to really drown anything out, and on several occasions, I've literally had the hum just abruptly stop when the fan spins faster
-when closing these applications, as soon as the fan slows, the humming rises back up and takes over, almost as if the hum is related to slowing down the fan or speeding it up
I do have 2 or 3 videos that I took to try and capture the noise but I don't think they're really effective, I think the hum blends in with the airflow over the mic; and it is important to note that I can't actually hear it with headphones and my ceiling fan, I can only identify it if my ceiling fan is off. I'm just trying to figure out if the noise spells something bad, or if it's nothing to be concerned about
I asked techpowerup forums, and I couldn't really gain anything from it, despite the help, but I have narrowed it to the PSU as far as I can tell (it's most prominent when my ear is near the bottom of the case, or close to the PSU vent), and I did receive the suggestion that it could be a transformer humming? but again, I'm just unsure, especially based on how the hum seems to react to the fan speed
PSU does not feel abnormally warmed up, CPU + GPU temps are normal as well, same with the power draw; the fan of the PSU also does not sound different, it sounds completely fine, it's just the humming that feels a bit louder at times under load. in games like Roblox, the opposite effect happens as well: this is where the hum is actually most prominent and doesn't fade out, but that game also doesn't push my fan into faster speeds. the hum also continues after getting off Roblox, but just like every other application, the humming does disappear/become super quiet once I'm idle again:
View: https://imgur.com/a/iqsUhrl#Bg9IcmJ
View: https://imgur.com/a/Unf09Tp#bhrqUf4
here are the links to the videos; they probably won't be much help, but best to set the volume to 100% if you want to try anyway. might as well put them in though. PSU is a Phanteks Revolt 1000w btw; Asus B550-F Motherboard and an RTX 3070 gpu
the humming itself is not constant, it does go away, and seems to appear primarily under some loads or after I get off a game. when the humming does occur, it is a largely uninterrupted "mrrrr" kind of sound, with slight variations in the volume, like small up-and-down waves but if you just heard it at face value, it's a pretty stagnant sound. seems somewhat separate from the fan; the humming does not really seem to match the PSU fan's rotation, and when under load, I can hear the fan separate from the hum.
on startup, I can hear the fan perfectly, but there is no humming present, and it essentially seems that the hum does not come from the fan itself exactly. that being said, I think I've noticed a pattern after running Heaven Benchmark and some games that I know ramp up my fan (Nioh 2 and Elden Ring):
-when the fan gets faster, the humming seems to disappear or at least get significantly quieter; I thought it might be due to the fan drowning out the hum, but the fan is not loud enough to really drown anything out, and on several occasions, I've literally had the hum just abruptly stop when the fan spins faster
-when closing these applications, as soon as the fan slows, the humming rises back up and takes over, almost as if the hum is related to slowing down the fan or speeding it up
I do have 2 or 3 videos that I took to try and capture the noise but I don't think they're really effective, I think the hum blends in with the airflow over the mic; and it is important to note that I can't actually hear it with headphones and my ceiling fan, I can only identify it if my ceiling fan is off. I'm just trying to figure out if the noise spells something bad, or if it's nothing to be concerned about
I asked techpowerup forums, and I couldn't really gain anything from it, despite the help, but I have narrowed it to the PSU as far as I can tell (it's most prominent when my ear is near the bottom of the case, or close to the PSU vent), and I did receive the suggestion that it could be a transformer humming? but again, I'm just unsure, especially based on how the hum seems to react to the fan speed
PSU does not feel abnormally warmed up, CPU + GPU temps are normal as well, same with the power draw; the fan of the PSU also does not sound different, it sounds completely fine, it's just the humming that feels a bit louder at times under load. in games like Roblox, the opposite effect happens as well: this is where the hum is actually most prominent and doesn't fade out, but that game also doesn't push my fan into faster speeds. the hum also continues after getting off Roblox, but just like every other application, the humming does disappear/become super quiet once I'm idle again:
View: https://imgur.com/a/iqsUhrl#Bg9IcmJ
View: https://imgur.com/a/Unf09Tp#bhrqUf4
here are the links to the videos; they probably won't be much help, but best to set the volume to 100% if you want to try anyway. might as well put them in though. PSU is a Phanteks Revolt 1000w btw; Asus B550-F Motherboard and an RTX 3070 gpu
Last edited:
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