[SOLVED] Seasonic Focus-GX Electrical Buzzing noise

[FriedBirdio]

Hello!

I have a Seasonic Focus GX 80+ Gold 650W that I bought in December 2020. It has been fine until about January - February when it started making some buzzing sounds. It's worse under load, as I can sometimes hear it though the headphones. If the load isn't high, then I have to get close to it to be able to hear it.
I haven't had much time to test around until this month. I've cleaned the entire case, reseated the PSU, recabled everything and yet the noise persists.

I sent the PSU to the seller twice, under warranty, but they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it so they sent it back both times. All of my interactions with them this year proved that they are trained very poorly though, so I have doubts they tested it under any kind of load or even connected to any other components for that matter.
I don't know if there's any way of checking the PSU's temperature, but the rest of the components are working within normal ranges.

Another thing I've thought about was interference in the apartment's circuit, but I don't really know how to check for that either.
As far as I know, this apartment only has one grounded outlet and it's in the kitchen. I've tried plugging the PC in an extension cord which says it's grounded (not sure if this is possible, since the outlet isn't, but it was worth a shot) and the same thing is happening.

Specs:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X,
GPU: Asus RTX 3060Ti Dual O8C,
RAM: 16GB DDR4 HyperX Predator (2x8GB),
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DSH3
PSU: Seasonic Focus-GX 80+ Gold 650W,
SSD M.2: ADATA XPG Gammix S11 Pro 256GB
SSD SATA: ADATA Ultimate SU650 480GB,
Case: Deepcool Macube 310P

I'm sure it's the PSU because the noise doesn't get any louder as I open the case's side panel. The PSU is separated from the other components and its intake is at the bottom of the case.
Here is a recording I made while under load: https://streamable.com/acoq4c

Any thoughts on what it could be and how I could fix it?

 

[jonnyguru]

I sent the PSU to the seller twice, under warranty, but they said they couldn't find anything wrong with it so they sent it back both times. All of my interactions with them this year proved that they are trained very poorly though, so I have doubts they tested it under any kind of load or even connected to any other components for that matter.

Why send it to the reseller instead of Seasonic?

Any way... that kind of buzz isn't mains related. Mains related buzz would be constant regardless of load. If it gets louder under load, it's either the main transformer or the output choke.

You had it since December, but did you have it powering a 3060 Ti since December? Does the appearance of the noise coincide with the upgrade of the graphics card?

 

[FriedBirdio]

Why send it to the reseller instead of Seasonic?

I asked Seasonic Support and they said I should send it to the seller.
They didn't actually give me any information, just asked some questions (which I've already answered here through the main post) and said I should send it to the seller.

You had it since December, but did you have it powering a 3060 Ti since December? Does the appearance of the noise coincide with the upgrade of the graphics card?

It has powered the same graphics card since December.
I actually don't know when the noise started exactly. I remember I was playing Control on a combination of high/ultra settings and Raytracing and the only noise I was hearing was from the fans.

 

[jonnyguru]

Can you run Prime95 (small FFT torture test) and Furmark at 1080p with 2x MSAA at the same time?

 

[FriedBirdio]

Can you run Prime95 (small FFT torture test) and Furmark at 1080p with 2x MSAA at the same time?

I only held them both on for a few seconds because my CPU was nearing 90C and GPU 77C, but there was no buzzing to be noticed.

I've done another test yesterday; I thought it might have something to do with my microphone/speakers/desk fan, since their quality is not that great, so I took out the USBs and went on Final Fantasy XIV, which used to start the buzzing pretty quickly.
What I've seen is that it did indeed start buzzing after a few seconds, but about 5 minutes later the buzzing stopped completely. I played for about 10 more minutes and there was still no buzzing.
At one point I alt-tabbed and tabbed back in and the buzzing started again for about 30 seconds, after which it went away again.

I'm thinking it could be the PSU fan, as when I'm testing in Escape From Tarkov, the buzzing doesn't start immediately and it doesn't go away immediately after I close the game either.
It could be why the people testing for the warranty couldn't hear the buzzing either. Their testbench is probably in open air to facilitate easy cabling and their ambiental temperature might be lower, so the PSU runs cooler than in my case.

What do you think?

 

[Juular]

This sounds more like something else in the case is vibrating in resonance with the PSU fan. When that starts, try to nudge the case around, pushing side panels in slightly, tilting the case slightly from side to side to see if the noise ceases.

 

[FriedBirdio]

This sounds more like something else in the case is vibrating in resonance with the PSU fan. When that starts, try to nudge the case around, pushing side panels in slightly, tilting the case slightly from side to side to see if the noise ceases.

I've tried nudging it a bit, pushing side panels in, tilting the case and lifting it, but there has been no change in noise

 

[FriedBirdio]

I think I found the issue and it wasn't the PSU.

I noticed that the CPU was running pretty hot when the buzzing was starting and I figured I should try a different cooler.
I replaced my Wraith Spire with a Noctua NH-U9S, my temps went down by a lot and the buzzing only starts when doing something very CPU intensive.
The noise might have reverberated within the case and that's what made me think it was coming from the PSU.

Now I'm guessing it's whine from the VRM, as I've read that a lot of people complain about this on AM4 motherboards

Thanks for your help