Strange Clicking Noise Coming from PSU or GPU?

Jun 27, 2014
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Alright TH community, so here is my conundrum. I recently built a new PC, and it's been running fantastically for the past week. There has been no glaring errors that I have had, and everything seems to be running at normal capacity. However I recently noticed a clicking noise accompanied by a strange humming sound emaciating from my tower. I opened up the case, thinking it to be the HDD. However I realized the noise was coming from my PSU/GPU area. I'm fairly certain the sound is coming from my PSU, however. My PSU is the Antec Trupower Classic Series 650w. My GPU is the Sapphire r9 280. I have tested a few issues. There is nothing blocking/obstructing the fan to my knowledge, and I turned off my case LEDs and room lights to check for arcing (I was unable to find any signs of it). I don't think it's a faulty fan bearing because the fan seems to be running just fine. I plugged my PSU into a wall outlet of mine on the off chance the sounds were caused by the power strip. The sounds still persisted. It could possibly be coil whine, but I doubt coil whine is to blame for clicking. I also turned on my second computer I have plugged in to the power strip (which is a archer s power strip), and the PSU from it was making a whining noise too. I'm pretty sure it is coil whine, and I just never noticed it before. I don't remember if my computer started making these noises off the bat and I just noticed them for some odd reason, or if my homes electrical grid is to blame somehow. I also wonder if the introduction of my new PC somehow caused the whine in my old one, if coil whine is not to blame. At any rate I would like some possible explanations for these issues, as I am drawing blanks across the board. Please do not suggest RMA'ing the PSU unless absolutely necessary (meaning you literally have no logical explanations as to what is happening). I only wish to do that as a complete last resort, as I will be extremely busy in the ensuing months.

Here are sound files of what the two PCs sound like.
PC I built a week ago
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Old PC (a super old dell optiplex QX520)
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When is the sound most noticeable, when the system is at idle at windows desktop.
Or when for example the PSU and the R9 280 card is under load when playing a game.

If the answer is the latter, then a lot of 280 cards along with the old 7970 range of Ati cards suffered from coil whine.
It`s the power phase or the Vrm on the graphics card, or the motherboard Vrm modules near or around the Cpu socket of the board. More power consumption can cause parts to work at higher frequency and where coil whine due to oscillation of electronic components start to happen culprits are, graphics card, motherboard, or a PSU.

 


It pretty much stays consistent regardless of GPU state. Then again I haven't really played any graphically intensive games as of late...
 

Yet another update- it's not coming from the power supply it's coming from the GPU. I think one of the fan blades might be scratching the aluminum heatsink or something. I'm still open to other possible solutions though!