[SOLVED] New Self-Built PC Is Severely Triggering My Tinnitus

[bjerregaard90]

I apologize in advance for the long read. I am writing this post from a place of deep frustration and sadness as I feel like my new self-built PC - on which I've spent quite a bit of time and money constructing and troubleshooting - is harmful to me in its current state.

Around November 2018, I purchased and assembled the components from the following list (ignore the prices; I'm from Denmark, and there is no Danish version of pcpartpicker): https://se.pcpartpicker.com/list/DDGhNQ

The building process went relatively straightforward, and the system was completed late November (there was some delay due to the case being sent later than the rest of the components). Benchmarks showed that the performance of the system was in line with what you would expect from a system like this. So I'm happy and I begin using my new PC for gaming and everyday use.

Early December, I begin to notice that my Tinnitus - which I've suffered since I was a teenager (I'm 28 now) - was starting to get noticeably worse.

It took me some time before I realized that there was a correlation between the severity of the ringing in my ears and my exposure to the PC when it is turned on. Initially, I thought that it was the PC (or some other electronic device in my home) that was making the ringing noise that I was experiencing. After a lot of experimenting with unplugging various electronic devices in my home and listening for buzzing sounds, I realized that whenever I was exposed to the new PC for more than say 10-15 minutes when it was turned on, the ringing in my ears would spike like crazy (persisting even after turning off the PC). So far, the ringing has more or less gone back to normal levels (maybe a tad higher than my old "normal") after not exposing myself to the PC for a few days, but I'm very nervous about it becoming permanent, which is why I'm not too keen on using the PC.

I turned to my brother for help; he is an audio engineer. He wanted to analyze the sound spectrum that the PC produces, so he brought home some recording equipment from work. Interestingly, the results of his analysis showed that the PC - when turned on - produces a relatively loud noise around a frequency of 20 kHz (unfortunately, the FFT analyzer that we used did not go higher than 20 kHz, so there is a possibility that the audio spectrum goes well beyond this frequency). See the following graph which was taken while the microphone was held near the GPU while the PC was running Witcher 3 at ultra settings: https://imgur.com/a/m4Wslf0

My brother believes that this high-frequency noise is what is bothering my ears. Some additional findings that we made during this process:

• 
  The 20 kHz noise becomes present as soon as the fully-assembled PC is turned on (even when it's idling in Windows).
  The 20 kHz noise becomes louder when the GPU is stressed (e.g. running a demanding game or a benchmark).
  The 20 kHz noise does not become louder when the CPU is stressed exclusively (running e.g. Prime95).
  The signal from the 20 kHz noise becomes stronger when the microphone is moved closer to the GPU, and weaker when the microphone is moved away from the GPU.
  If the GPU is removed from the PC, the 20 kHz noise completely disappears.

Based on the findings above, our hypothesis was that the unwanted noise was stemming from the GPU. I opened an RMA ticket with the retailer from which I bought the GPU, they accepted the ticket and took the GPU in for "repair" (I believe they sent it to an MSI workshop for "repair"). After a month or so of waiting (with a useless PC in the meanwhile), I finally received word that they would send me a brand new GPU of the same make and model (but with a different serial number so it's not the same GPU). There was no explanation as to what findings they had made at the workshop.

I received the brand new GPU yesterday, plugged it into my PC, and to my horror, my ears started ringing like crazy once again after a short while (and they are still on fire today - I'm hoping that it'll die down sooner or later).

So maybe the GPU wasn't the culprit afterall, or the new GPU suffers from the same "defect" as the old one (if there even was a defect - maybe MSI just didn't want anymore to do with me so they just sent me a new GPU to shut me up?). Or it's the GPU in combination with some of the other component(s) (e.g. motherboard/CPU/PSU). Or it's in fact the motherboard or PSU that's the culprit. Or a combination of the above.

List of ideas that I have for moving forward (to measure the effect of these initiatives, I feel like I would need the recording equipment from my brother's workplace in order to analyze the changes to the audio spectrum - and we haven't set a date for this yet):

• 
  Try putting the GPU in another PC to see if it also makes the dreaded high-frequency noise there (issue: I don't have access to another PC).
  Try using another PSU in my current PC to see if that changes the noise output (issue: I don't have access to another PSU).
  Try undervolting the GPU (I've never done this before but I suppose there are guides that can be followed).
  Try to "burn in" the GPU (I've read that coil whine - which I'm not exactly sure this is - can be alleviated by "burning in" a GPU by stressing it for a prolonged period of time e.g. overnight while you sleep (never tried this before and not sure if it would help / is safe)).

Have you guys ever experienced or heard of anything similar to what I have described here, and do you have any good/concrete advice for me on how I should proceed to resolve my issue?

Edit: Minor change to a sentence for more clarity.

 

[USAFRet]

I would suspect the PSU as the culprit.

Hypothesis: Removing the GPU causes less stress on the PSU, or that particular circuitry is not being used, resulting in no whine.

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

I know you can get longer HDMI cables and USB extensions. Perhaps it's possible to move the PC further away from you? It could be there is a small amount of coil whine from the power supply or GPU. You might check to see if there is a silent power supply.

I haven't used be quiet products before, maybe their power supplies would be more silent?

 

[mortemas]

Firstly, I sympathize with you because I have a bit of tinnitus as well, although I don’t think it’s really triggered by anything - it’s just always there. In my case I attribute this ear damage to too much loud music and use of loud power tools without ear protection. Now, I warn people when I see them doing these things without use of ear protection.

You have options for this PC noise problem. Ohio has a good idea - locating the PC remotely using long cables and/or active KVM extenders if necessary. Another option would be adding sound deadening material to your existing case, getting a case already made this way, or getting/making a sound deadening enclosure to put your existing PC case into. Some research is in order here to find out what the best solution is, but we should also know what your budget is. Some ready-made solutions are expensive. Another option not mentioned, but which is a bit more risky, is to find the exact components within the PSU and/or GPU that are vibrating and immobilize them with an adhesive that is appropriate for use in electronics. Unfortunately, this mod will void the warranty on your computer parts, so I think one of the previous solutions would be preferable. See some of the results here:

http://www.google.com/search?q=soundproof+computer+case

 

[assasin32]

Go to Headfi website, to the computer audio section and ask. Their more versed in sound, it’s where the audiophiles hang out.

But 20khz range, I’m not versed to well in this but that sounds like something a fan won’t make and probably more electrical in nature. I tried sampling a sound of it and I can’t hear it. You may need a decibel reader and start testing parts, start with the loud baseline and go from there. Talk to some mom and pop computer shops, if you promise a sale for the offending part or pay them for their time you may get their help.

I don’t think sound insulation will be enough, and it could still be damaging for the ears afterwards so try to eliminate it instead of masking it.

And no I’ve never heard of this before.

 

[mortemas]

Assasin, we’re not talking about high energy waves here. I’m confident that with the right enclosure OP can virtually eliminate the energy waves being emitted. Please watch the video on this product page: https://www.californiaairtools.com/sound-proof-cabinet-ultra-quiet-air-compressors/cat-spc03/

This cabinet retails for just under $500 USD and reduces air compressor noise by 40%. Put a PC in there and the noise should be close to nil. It should work for the same reason that you can’t hear a whisper through a brick wall. The one thing to watch out for with these kinds of enclosures is noise created by in-built ventilation fans. You can’t put a PC in a box to eliminate noise only to have it become an oven, so you need ventilation fans. Further investigation into these kinds of products is warranted, but I think it is a solution with good potential. Soundproof server enclosures might be the product to look for. The air compressor enclosure was just to illustrate the amount of sound that can be reduced with this kind of product. OP, see here for some cabinets that might suit your need:

http://www.google.com/search?q=soundproof+server+enclosure

 

[bjerregaard90]

Thank you for all of your replies.

I've come up with a plan which I will attempt to complete sometime during the next weekend. My brother has agreed to bring his own homebuilt PC (a rather old system - but it's working) as well as the recording equipment that he borrowed from work during our last analysis. I figure the following experiments might help illuminate which of the components is actually the culprit (and of course testing for the 20 kHz sound for each setup):

1) Swap GPUs (my GPU in my brother's PC and his in mine) and test.
2) With the GPUs still being swapped, swap PSUs (my PSU in my brother's PC and his in mine) and test.
3) Revert to the original setup. Swap PSUs (my PSU in my brothers PC and his in mine) and test.

This should hopefully allow us to determine which of the components (or which combination of these) that are generating the sound - the assumption being that it's either the GPU, the PSU, or the motherboard (or a combination of them). This would also allow me to figure out if the problem is indeed solvable by replacing one or more of the problematic components.

Additionally, we will be trying to undervolt the GPU in its current setup to see if that makes any significant difference.

And - before all of this happens - I think I'm going to try the proposed "burn-in" method of stressing the GPU overnight (I read somewhere that this supposedly should alleviate coil whine in certain cases, although results may vary). I'm not entirely sure what the best way of going about this is, though. Maybe just leaving it the PC on overnight in a game like Witcher 3 on Ultra with hairworks on (with the door closed into my bedroom)? I'm open to suggestions here - is there is a GPU benchmarking tool that can (safely) be put on repeat overnight?

If we end up finding a solution to my issue using the aforementioned process - great!

If not, I might consider taking it a step further and looking more into those sound proofing cabinets (are you supposed to put the entire case into the cabinet, or rather remove the parts from my current cabinet and assemble them within the sound proofing cabinet?). One thing though is that my current cabinet (the Fractal Design Define C) already comes with "dense sound dampening material" (according to the product description), so I'm not too sure how much of a difference another cabinet might make.

And if all else fails, I guess I'd still have the possibility of selling the PC (or the components individually) at a loss on the used-electronic-goods market (with a full disclaimer describing my experience - but, ears and hearing vary, so I suppose everyone might not be as affected).

In any case, it feels good to have a plan.

I'd love to hear comments or suggestions with respect to my outlined plan.

(Oh, and my ears are unfortunately still ringing more than usual after my exposure to the PC this weekend when I was testing the new card - hopefully it'll return to "normal" before long.)

 

[ohiou_grad_2006]

Another idea as well. If you are gaming, would it help to get a good set of noise cancelling headphones? These aren't noise cancelling, but they still seem to do a good job for me at least with average hearing of drowning out noise around me. My computer is in my basement where my furnace etc is and using these drowns out most of that and they sound decent as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-201-Lightweight-Headphones/dp/B0007XJSQC

Maybe a good set of studio headphones for while you are gaming would help to drown out the noise you hear and allow you to enjoy the PC?

 

[mortemas]

Ok, good to see you have a plan to work with. For the sound proofing cabinets, I would say put the whole PC case into it. If the source is somewhere inside the PC then the PC case itself is already attenuating it to some degree. You could try to add sound deadening mats to the inside of the PC case, too. The cabinets are probably the most expensive solution, so you might want to try some cheaper alternatives first. I'm wondering what the threshold of your hearing is as far as this 20kHz sound wave and its ability to trigger the tinnitis. I have thought about what assasin said and it is possible some of the bad noise could get through some of these solutions. It's going to be dependent on the energy level of the sound wave source versus the ability of the sound dampening solution, whatever it may be, to absorb the energy of the wave or prevent it from escaping containment. The Isobox, for example, does have openings at the bottom and back to allow airflow. There is a baffle in front of the bottom intake and a labyrinth built around the exhaust fans to mitigate the amount of sound that escapes the cabinet. The manufacturer stated that the noise reduction can be as high as 29dB, but that's at 3.2kHz. See here: https://www.soundconstructionsupply.com/isobox-noise-reduction/ The final noise level is a function of the level of the sound source minus the attenuation. I'm hoping one of these solutions, or a combination, can reduce it below your threshold.

 

[bjerregaard90]

First of all: Once again, thank you for all of your replies and suggestions.

Yesterday, my brother and I went forward with the plan that I outlined in my last post. We used the Unigine Valley Benchmark on the highest possible settings for stress testing the systems. The results were as follows:

1. No matter which components we combined the MSI 2080 DUKE GPU with, the awful noise around the 20 kHz frequency area were present in all cases when the system was being stress. The noise simply followed this particular GPU.
2. For all of the setups where the MSI 2080 DUKE was not present (and in these setups, we used my brother’s GPU which is an old thing from the RADEON 5800 series), there was no spike around the 20 kHz frequency area when the system was being stressed.

Our conclusions were that 1) it is almost certainly the GPU that is the culprit and 2) the issue cannot be fixed by changing other components e.g. PSU or motherboard.

In case you are curious, I have added two of the screenshots that we took during our testing.

Screenshot 1 shows the audio spectrum that is being generated by my new PC while under stress with the MSI 2080 DUKE GPU: https://imgur.com/a/xAWSxzD

Screenshot 2 shows the audio spectrum that is being generated by my new PC while under stress with the much older RADEON 5800 series GPU: https://imgur.com/a/6jvG5nv

Anyway, I have contacted the retailer from which I bought the GPU, and they have agreed to take back the card and give me back my money. Additionally, they gave me a link to this site - https://www.howtogeek.com/297166/what-is-coil-whine-and-can-i-get-rid-of-it-on-my-pc/ - and told me that the issue that I am experiencing might just be one of those things that cannot be fixed and that they are probably the result of the awesome processing power of the new generation of GPUs. However, I am not really convinced that this really is coil whine...

But, if it indeed is the case that all newer GPUs have this issue (2080 or better), then I suppose that is bad news for me.

I am thinking that I might try another version of the 2080 card (maybe the ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 2080). Alternatively - in case it really is true that all of the 2080 models have this issue like the retailer suggested - I might go down to a 2070 and see if that makes a difference. However, I find that somewhat hard to believe considering I have not been able to find any posts describing anything similar to what I am experiencing with my 2080 card since this new generation was released by NVIDIA back in 2018. It could of course be that my ears are just extra sensitive and that other people are not impacted in the same way as I am.

If all else fails, I might still end up going for a sound proofing cabinet, although I really would like to not go this route as it seems somewhat expensive, a tad tedious, and I am also somewhat worried about temperatures/airflow with a setup like this.

Cheers everyone.

 

[jjohn82]

Hey, not sure if you're still checking this forum. But I just wanted to say thank you. I've been scouring sites trying to find my issue and it seems our problem is near identical.

I built a new system with a gigabyte 2080.

After a couple of weeks with it I was fine. Only after I put it under stress (overclocking/4k gaming) did I notice as I was walking upstairs to go to bed, did I have this insane noise in my ears.

The thing is, I've never had tinnitus before I built my PC. Now it won't go away.

Did you ever switch the GPU out permanently? Or find a solution to block the 20hz frequency?

Thanks again.