Question Noctua cooler causing electrical buzzing noise with both fans on now after 5 months

DV THE FOX

Distinguished
Jul 16, 2014
8
0
18,510
(Sorry for the long post but the more info the better, right?)

First of all, it's mounted on an ASUS X570 TUF GAMING PLUS with a huge GIGABYTE RTX 4070 Super GAMING OC GPU and a gigantic Be Quiet! DARK BASE PRO 901. Previously i had a Noctua NH-U12S CB cooler

CPU cooler and GPU bought about 4-5 months ago in the same buy

The other day i was finding out the source of a weird noise from the PC (Turns out it was my HDD) and had to pull away the turned off PC from below the table and whenever i laid it down on the ground the Display Port cable did a pull and maybe a slight "crack" noise from the GPU. I thought i screwed up the GPU because the DP port where it was connected had an opening at the top golden plate thingy of the DP (However, even right now, the same port works with my monitor without artifacts on screen, etc)

However, a new , faint but kinda noticeable "Bee-eeeee(p)" ELECTRICAL noise/buzz was heard more the moment i turned the PC back on with the tempered glass on... So i was investigating. I thought it was the GPU due to the DP topic above, so i turned off the PC, removed the CPU cooler's middle fan using a flat screwdriver to pull off the holder closer to the GPU (The GPU is so huge and the CPU cooler is SO HUGE it cannot be removed that easily with the fingers) then grabbed a long screwdriver to push down the PCI-E's eject button, making sure it didn't touched the motherboard (although maybe i hit the MB once but lightly some time before, see later), removed the GPU and disconnected all cables from it and then removed the CPU fans to clean them up along the fins with a dry brush. Tons of dust came out.

However i wanted to try something first... I placed the GPU outside the tower without cables connected to it and turned on the PC. The noise was there... My left ear could hear it and my right one barely (sensitive ears but slight tinnitus doing it's stuff), so i used my left ear to explore the PC again from all sides with the tower's fans at MINIMUM until i reached the CPU... The sound was coming from there!...

Placed and held a tad bit tight my right index finger to the fan above the RAM's "circle" and the noise was GONE....I've noticed the heatsink's fins were BENT OUT from pulling the middle fan with the screwdriver but also the "above RAM" fan's area but with the FINGERS...The bottom side (aiming to the GPU) of the fins from both heatsink towers were mostly bent out from the holders' positions. So i grabbed the flat screwdriver and leveled em up some (Of course with the PC off). However even still the noise was still there when the PC turned on and beeped the POST...

I already tried changing the fans' placement, changing the CPU FAN headers' positions, mixing the previous 2 things around too... However, if i left the middle fan there using it's cable with both CPU FAN headers (while the above RAM fan removed) the noise was GONE.... If i placed the removed fan , turned on along with the middle fan, without the holders, hand holding it against the fins, the noise was there again...

So my questions are:
  1. Are the heatsink's bent fins the issue?
  2. Could it be that the motherboard is affected by this?. If i go to the BIOS and lower the CPU fanS to the minimum the noise is gone. Could it be that maybe one of them light screwdriver hits caused the motherboard to malfunction when fans are at close to high speed?.. But if so, how come with just the middle fan connected first to one CPU FAN header and then the other didn't caused this issue with the speed i've set up (Below 1500RPM), same if you put the middle fan to the OPTIONAL CPU FAN header and the Above RAM fan to the main CPU FAN header?
  3. Are the fans really causing some kind of electrical noise instead of errr "turbulence"?
If the CPU cooler is the blame to this and maybe not the motheboard (Please, not the MB...), could i replace the cooler with another one of the same or even go to the NH-U12S i had before (Would have to buy it again tho)?

Here are some photos of the motherboard if that helps identify things out. Note that the "Above RAM" fan is NOT touching the RAM at all and the RAM sticks on A2 B2 were reseated and cleaned properly, slots too, same goes for the GPU

View: https://x.com/DV2THEFOX/status/1831190878934663451

View: https://x.com/DV2THEFOX/status/1831190891270168819


Vid proof
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9A2yIVHn3Q


Sorry for the long text. Thanks in advance!
 
most of your description doesn't make much sense.
just seems more like rambling?

if a single fan is producing noise, only above a certain RPM, then this fan would be the issue.
replace said fan.

if any fan connected to a certain header causes the noise, then it's likely the header.
this could usually not be fixed.
if it was the CPU_FAN header, likely the board would need to be replaced because most systems will only return system error with nothing plugged in here.
if it's the CPU_OPT header, you could just use a splitter on the CPU_FAN header and continue using it.

the cooler itself cannot make any noise because it is just static metal, no moving parts and no electrical current.
if it was vibrating in place, this would mean that it is is coming detached from it's mounting hardware and may be vibrating against the mount itself.
if this seems to be more like what you are facing, remove and reseat the entire cooler.