PSU Coil Whine: Causes & Fixes
A high-pitched squeal from your computer can be frustrating. This guide explains the causes of PSU coil whine and methods to mitigate it.
What is Coil Whine?
Inside your PSU, inductors (coils of wire wound around magnetic cores) act as filters to smooth voltages. When current passes through these windings, it creates magnetic fields that cause the wire coils to vibrate.
Under heavy loads or high frame rates, these vibrations occur at frequencies within human hearing range, resulting in a high-pitched whine.
Common Triggers
- GPU Frame Rates: Uncapped frame rates in menus (e.g. 500+ FPS) cause rapid GPU transient spikes, inducing resonance in the PSU inductors.
- Electrical Resonance: Minor mismatch between GPU VRM and PSU switching frequencies.
- House Wiring issues: High electrical noise on the AC wall input.
Mitigation Methods
- Cap Frame Rates: Enable V-Sync or set global limits in NVIDIA Control Panel or Radeon Settings to limit extreme current oscillations.
- Use Surge Protection/UPS: Active line conditioning smooths out AC harmonics entering the PSU.
- Stress Testing: Often, letting the system run a heavy workload for 24-48 hours can break in the coil adhesives, damping the acoustics over time.