Buzzing only when playing a game?

Daze · 11 Mar 2013 at 22:26

When I'm playing a game, I can hear a high pitched electrical buzzing coming from inside my PC. If I'm in a Skype call, friends complain that they can hear the buzzing down my mic, but again, it's only when I'm tabbed into a game. I don't have a soundcard - I use onboard, I have a double ended 3.5mm cable running from my mic imput to my Astro mixamp, I have a splitter splitting the audio in, one 3.5mm from this splitter runs into the back of my monitor, the other into my Astro mixamp. Specs are i5 2500k @4.3ghz, 8gigs 1600mhz DDR3 ram and a GTX570 twin frozr iii.

Any ideas? I've had a look at the wires and made sure none were loose etc but I really don't know what else to try in this case.

Cheers

anthony566 · 12 Mar 2013 at 00:54

Is the sound comming from a fan ??

dacads · 12 Mar 2013 at 00:56

Sounds like GPU or PSU coil whine

Akagi · 12 Mar 2013 at 00:58

It could be coil while from your PSU. I have a PSU in one of my rigs which makes a high pitched whining/buzzing sound when the system is stressed (e.g playing a game). It is almost silent under regular desktop usage. Alternatively it could be a fan on your CPU cooler, GPU, or even PSU if they are PWM fans that adjust depending on temperature. Because when you put load on the system, they would speed up and perhaps one of them makes the noise, but doesnt at a lower speed.

Daze · 12 Mar 2013 at 01:07

I think I'll take my PC apart tomorrow, give it a good dust, perhaps lower overclockers/fan speeds and see if that works. Any solution to coil whine and can I lower the fan speed on my PSU?

Akagi · 12 Mar 2013 at 02:20

Daze said:
I think I'll take my PC apart tomorrow, give it a good dust, perhaps lower overclockers/fan speeds and see if that works. Any solution to coil whine and can I lower the fan speed on my PSU?

The only way I can think of to lower the fan speed in a PSU is to physically take the casing off of the PSU and add a resistor between the fan plug and the fan header inside the PSU. I really don't recommend doing this though as it will void your warranty, and it is also not the safest of moves.

As far as I am aware, there is no easy fix for coil whine.

odincastle · 12 Mar 2013 at 05:01

If it is your PSU. You can always get another one. PSU's are cheap. At least the lower wattage ones are.

FeFiDoh · 12 Mar 2013 at 05:51

Do you have any of the power saving features on? Like C1E is it or EIST something like that. I found before that having these on seemed to make a whine noise. Turned one or two off and it seemed to fix it.

Akagi · 12 Mar 2013 at 06:48

odincastle said:
If it is your PSU. You can always get another one. PSU's are cheap. At least the lower wattage ones are.

Cheap PSU's are as bad as this piece of advice. :rolleyes:

bilston · 12 Mar 2013 at 08:30

So you can hear this noise when tabbed in game? I mean without headphones on? Or is it something you can hear through headphones?

I would try taking off the splitter/amp and just seeing if that fixes it. When I have got my xbox controller receiver plugged on to my front usb along with my headphones and mic, I could hear a loud buzz. When I remove it, the buzz goes away. Maybe something, i.e. the splitter/amp, is causing this added frequency. If not, and you can hear it normally it is probably coil whine. Sign of a failing capacitor/transistor on electronics, and because it happens in game only it's probably the gfx card as others have mentioned. Try stressing the computer without the graphics, such as prime or something to determine if it's the PSU.

nick.lidgett · 12 Mar 2013 at 09:26

I have coil whine on my 7950 but, and i could be wrong, but it seems like it happens when the game is using DX11 features. Some games where i can turn DX11 off, i think Crysis 2 is one of them the noise dissapears. Anyway my suggestion to the OP is to replace all of your audio cables with quality branded ones and tidy them up so they are not touching any power cables. This should rule out any interferance with audio, then if the problem persists i would think about checking gpu and psu.

alexl89 · 12 Mar 2013 at 11:00

I also have coil whine coming from my brand new PSU, to begin with it was always making the whine noise, now it only makes the noise when my computer is under any sort of load (playing games, photoshop etc.)

I have been assured that the only thing this damages is your ears though...

If it really annoys you, I would try and get a replacement (which is what I am doing if it doesn't stop in the next few days). Or just get noise cancelling headphones

ubersonic · 12 Mar 2013 at 11:29

Queen wasps, my uncle kills them for a living.

:(Rhodri:) · 12 Mar 2013 at 16:33

FeFiDoh said:
Do you have any of the power saving features on? Like C1E is it or EIST something like that. I found before that having these on seemed to make a whine noise. Turned one or two off and it seemed to fix it.

Try this before doing anything too drastic, I used to have the exact same problem with C1E making my caps buzz like mad.