I got a replacement desktop recently because the first one had pretty severe coil whine. I think it’s distinct from the noisy PSU fan issue since I could hear the whine jitter dynamically depending on loading certain apps/files on the desktop.
But I also noticed that the second desktop, while having a little less coil whine, still had it. Has anyone else experienced something similar? I’d say it’s slightly quieter than when the PSU fan starts getting loud.
I also can hear coil whine (separately from PSU fan) – louder than on any other PC I’ve previously owned. This is batch 16.
It only happens during specific workloads (e.g. high-performance matrix multiplication), both on CPU (openBLAS, MKL) and on GPU (rocBLAS).
Beside the noise itself - does anyone know if this could be causing any damage in the long run, or is it harmless?
To my knowledge coil whine is somewhat common in any computer, especially components like mobo/gpu/psu, but is unlikely to cause damage.
I was more surprised how much coil whine there was. Similar to you, it has the most whine compared to other PCs I have owned before. Especially considering that most users report this desktop being extremely quiet (other than the PSU fan, but that’s a separate issue).
I have a Desktop board only build with custom other parts. I think I can hear some coil wine at the beginning (maybe first 1 minute or so) of a workload (e.g. AI or gaming). It starts at the same time as my CPU fan starts to spin (is at 0% idle and ramps up to 25% when it starts). After about 30-60 seconds it is gone or the CPU and case fan noise overtakes the cail whine noise.
I can live with it.
After getting my hands on multiple desktops, and also going through a lot of the recordings in the Noisy PSU fan thread, it seems like many units have some degree of coil whine. I’m not sure about how much can be attributed to the motherboard versus the power supply specifically. But, the degree of coil whine can vary a bit. I think for most people though, the coil whine is still quieter than a larger system with more fans.
I am on my second board after RMA of the first for severe coil whine and the second is even worse. I wish I could just live with it but it is louder than the fan by quite a bit. Working now on seeing what framework will do about this one. Batch 18.
As far as I can tell, the only manufacturer putting serious R&D and engineering into eliminating coil whine is Apple.
Every other computer I’ve owned (including the Desktop) has had it to some extent.
That’s a good point too. It could be especially easier to hear on the Desktop units since they are otherwise pretty quiet. One silver lining is that if FW figures out the fan curve issue ( Noisy PSU fan - #439 by Eagle ), there’s a small chance it could lead to reduced coil whine if it involves a revision and replacement.