PSU whine - almost solved

shannowx · 29 Mar 2010 at 19:56

Hi,

I am quite new to all this overclocking stuff but I just bought one of the 4 Ghz i7 930 overclocked systems from here. It all seemed to be working fine until a strange whining noise started to be produced from the PSU. The sound was intermittent but would occur with just Windows running and no applications.

I found out though that if I started a game (in this instance Assassins Creed 2) the whine would go away. So I investigated a bit more. I installed Easy Tune6 so I could monitor the voltage levels and I managed to grab two screenshots - one when the whine was occurring and one not. The difference - when not whining the 3.3V was 3.376 but when whining it was always 3.328. This always seems to be the case - when it starts to whine it is at 3.328 and then I start AC2 - it goes to 3.376 and the sound goes away. Also when I close the game the voltage stays at 3.376 for a while but then randomly it goes back to 3.328 and the whining starts again.

So I have a workaround - starting AC2 but is there a way I can force the 3.3V to always be at least 3.376 - a BIOS setting maybe?

Cheers for any help on this...

shannowx · 29 Mar 2010 at 20:13

Forgot to add hardware specs:

i7 930 overclocked to 4GHz
Gigabyte x58A-UD3R
Corsair TX850 PSU
Nvidia 260 graphics card
6 GB Memory

AbuG · 29 Mar 2010 at 23:13

is it definately PSU some have reported it to be the x58a-ud3r comming from the capacitors near the CPU.

D-Ranged · 30 Mar 2010 at 12:15

My corsair 650 used to do that when i first got it then went away after a month.

RJC · 30 Mar 2010 at 13:17

Is speedstep enabled?

On my UD5 the board whines if speedstep is enabled.

Robes · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:27

RJC said:
Is speedstep enabled?

On my UD5 the board whines if speedstep is enabled.

A board that doesn't like power saving!

shannowx · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:30

Thank-you for the suggestions.

I am pretty sure that the noise is coming from the PSU but I will check again tonight.

I have already tried to turn off speedstep (which is called CPU EIST in the BIOS) - unfortunately it did not make a difference.

The BIOS version is the first version (F1) and version F5 is out now so I might try and update it but I will then have to set up all the overclock settings and I am not sure if Overclockers still support the machine if you flash the BIOS.

FrenchTart · 30 Mar 2010 at 14:43

It's most likely one of your fans whining at low speed. Could be one of the PSU fans or elsewhere.

For myself I have annoying whine when my 5870 fan is below 30%. The instant it goes above that (e.g. in a warm room or when the card is in use in a game), the whine goes.

RJC · 30 Mar 2010 at 16:24

Did you disable c1e as well as EIST.

shannowx · 31 Mar 2010 at 09:28

Yes - I did try to disable c1e as well - it made no difference.

Anyway the machine is going back for repair so soon I should have a quiet system

Thanks for all the suggestions.