ATX3.0 psu’s and coil whine

[Jay85]

So straight to the point, i’ve tried 2 SFX-L Asus Loki PSU’s so far and both exhibited Electrical buzzing and Coil Whine, quite extreme as well to the point of being irritating. From what i know these are the Seasonic OEM’s Edit: spoke to someone else and i am now told that the 850w variants are made by Great wall! It would be great if someone could confirm this.

I’m wondering if any of you who have had Atx 3.0 psu’s had the same issues?

Just to clarify, the whine only happens during GPU load, whether gaming or gpu stress testing. Cpu intensive loads had no whine and idle is also fine.

My system specs are:

12700K
Asus ROG Z690-I itx board
RTX 3090 Palit gaming
Couple of SSD’s and Nvme drives

Short video:

 

[Jay85]

Are you sure it's psu and not the gpu ?

It's defo the psu, the noise is clearly coming from something within the psu itself. The GPU sits to the left of the psu and behind the motherboard tray and there is no noise coming from that region whatsoever.

 

[Jay85]

Added a video to the original post

 

[Jay85]

Yes you can clearly hear that.

Guessing you got a replacement , any chance of changing it to a different manufacturer ?

I got a second unit to try and it still had the same coil whine but much less. This new unit seems to not exhibit the same symptoms during benchmarking and stress testing but still does have some coil whine during gaming.

I don’t think there’s any other SFX atx 3.0 psu’s available right now?

 

[Jay85]

Replying from the watercooled case gallery. It's hard to tell on mine because the GPU has coil whine. So it either doesn't have any whine or it's being drowned out by the GPU. I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary though.

Worst case scenario below. Running heaven at 400-700 fps.

4090 + loki coil whine

www.youtube.com

Other setups for reference.

3090 Suprim + Corsair SF750

IMG 6734

www.youtube.com

3090 FE + Seasonic Prime 1000W

Coil whine

www.youtube.com

Thermaltake have SFX 850W and 1000W versions but haven't seen any reviews on them yet.

Maybe im being too sensitive since ive had not had any coil whine for any components in such a long time so this is really stirring up my senses.

I’ll try a few things tonight including undervolting the gpu to see if it helps.

 

[Jay85]

Abit of testing tonight, tried a few things including returning the cpu overclock to stock and resetting bios to see if it does anything.

The only thing that worked and made a real difference was power limiting the gpu to 85% which reduces the wattage down to under 300w from 360w. Noise is basically gone now!

Not ideal but there's very little difference in fps between 85% and 100% so will stick with this for now.

 

[Jay85]

A postive result and saved a few pounds on electricity.

Yeah true lol especially with todays electric rates! Will try a few more games but certainly with the ones im playing currently there's very little difference.

 

[Jay85]

Can’t say I’ve noticed any coil whine from mine, but then as above the 4090 drowns it out if there was any.

Silly me didn't realise how bad the 4090 coil whine was, im really contemplating going for something like a 7900 xtx instead as an upgrade but then some research tells me they don't fair well either with coil whine.

 

[Jay85]

I think every gpu from the last two generations has had significant coil whine.

Unfortunate, this might not be avoidable it seems. A combo of psu and gpu might cause it as well so just because x person doesn't get it with their system, doesn't mean i won't if running different psu's, specs etc.

 

[Jay85]

I must be lucky, my 4090FE has no coil whine that i can notice...then again i have an EK water block on it, in comparison my previous 3080FE did have some coil whine while gaming.

What psu have you paired it with?

 

[Jay85]

Just using my 5 year old Seasonic Prime Platinum 850. And no, no coil whine from the psu.

I do wonder if the older psu's have more built into them that helps prevent coil whine. It seems a lot of new stuff is more geared towards "just live with it" rather than fix it so it doesn't happen again.

Regret selling my Corsair SF750 somewhat but it was always abit limited in terms of future power proofing. Tempted to try the older SX1000 from Silverstone to see how that fairs but ocuk is out of stock right now.

 

[Jay85]

Can confirm my 3080 FE screams like a banshee.

Which psu have you paired it with?

The only “fix” that worked for me was undervolting. At 937mv @1950mhz it draws under 300w on my 3090 which basically kills the coil whine.

I had a play with my cpu overclock as well which also seemed to affect it but only marginally.

 

[Jay85]

I have a SF750 psu.

I’m used to it by now. It also helps that my chassis is no longer on my desk.

Tempted to do this, maybe build a shelf and wall mount it at least 4 or 5 feet away from me. Hoping over time it will quieten down.

Weirdly i had the SF750 before this Loki unit and it had zero coil whine. The only thing that really annoyed me was the fan when under load, it was super noisy.

 

[Jay85]

I have a 4090 FE that has no coil whine that I can hear. The fans on the other hand.....

I'm going to order the Thermaltake SFX ATX 3 PSU so will update this thread to let you know if there's any coil whine from that.

Have a read of this thread i created as well. There's abit more info in there regarding some of the other higher power SFX and SFX-L psu's. Some to defo avoid!

Edit: Seen a few complaints about the fans, is it really that bad?

ATX 3.0 Psu’s and coil whine?

www.overclock.net

 

[Jay85]

The SF750 PSU is great, it’s the 3080 FE that is the issue.

Most PC components make a little bit of noise so having it further away could solve all of the issues.

I know people who put their PC in the loft above them and run cables down to their office/PC room with a power on/off switch also run to the office.

It’s a bit tricky to do but it means that the mess is out of sight and the sound doesn’t affect you.

It has the added benefit of if someone breaks into your house, they aren’t likely to have the time to go into the loft to steal the PC.

Right now i can live with it with the undervolt but if and when i get a 4090 and its a lot worse then i may very well need to consider this!

I mean i like looking at my pc, seeing all the nice components i've invested in etc and easy access to fix and change things when i want to within arms reach but i cannot deal with coil whine right now.

 

[Jay85]

What's the power draw of a 4080 in games? The SF750 can deliver 850 970 watts if needed (I'll confirm if that's momentary or continuous draw).

Edit: review says this. Is that continuous?

Corsair SF750 PSU Review: A Tiny Power Factory

The SF750 is the strongest SFX power supply that money can buy today, however it is among the most expensive as well. So is it worth spending so much to get it?

www.tomshardware.com

That is a lot of power before it shuts down, 970w on a 750w rated psu is pretty insane. Is it really that overspecced? I mean i ran one for a good part of 6 months and it was solid but the fan noise drove me crazy as well lol.

If they made one in the same spec level, 850w and a SFX-L form factor with a 120mm fan i would be all over it! I just need one to exist now....

 

[Jay85]

I've ordered the 750w Thermaltake ATX3 SFX PSU. I would have preferred the 850w but the 750w should be enough as I plan to undervolt the 4090 and 13700k to keep temps in check.

Let me know how you get on with it. Like you, probably upgraded so we can take advantage of the atx3.0 12vhpwr cable instead of using an adapter just seemed like the better thing to do.

I have a watt meter that i got from the old Maplin days where you can plug the meter into the wall and the power cable into the meter, it can tell me wattage, volts and amperage etc. On gaming load right now i draw around 560w with a small overclock on the cpu and a stock 3090. An undervolted 3090 at around 937mv will draw around 300w or less so draw from the socket will be around 500-510w plus efficiency losses should be well under 500w at the psu. I was more concerned with the 4090 being able to draw 600w which could easily take me over that 750w rated psu but like you say with an undervolt it should more than fine.

 

[Jay85]

Yes ASUS ROG LOKI 750W and 850W PSU OEM manufacturer is Great Wall.

https://www.cybenetics.com/d/cybenetics_bEc_eu.pdf

https://www.cybenetics.com/d/cybenetics_6G1.pdf

ASUS ROG LOKI 1000W PSU OEM manufacturer is CWT.

https://www.cybenetics.com/d/cybenetics_gE3_eu.pdf

Seems its CWT for the Thermaltake ones. Not sure if they are any good.

Same i've heard of Great Wall before but never heard of CWT. Doing abit of research now to see what else they make that might be reputable.

 

[Jay85]

Yes ASUS ROG LOKI 750W and 850W PSU OEM manufacturer is Great Wall.

https://www.cybenetics.com/d/cybenetics_bEc_eu.pdf

https://www.cybenetics.com/d/cybenetics_6G1.pdf

ASUS ROG LOKI 1000W PSU OEM manufacturer is CWT.

Actually the Loki 1000w one doesn't add up, the fan spec on that says 135mm on the cybenetics spec sheet. It's an SFX-L so i think max size is 120mm?

 

[Jay85]

Seems its CWT for the Thermaltake ones. Not sure if they are any good.

I've tried to do some research and it seems CWT also make their own psu's now as well. I've only found some much older posts regarding quality of them. Mediocre at best but that was a long time ago, maybe things have changed now? Doesn't seem to be a lot of talk about them in general.