Terrible Coil Whine HX850

[p_monks33]

I have a HX850 that has the worst coil whine I have ever heard, it is weird though that it only does this while at idle, if I load it up with anything GPU, or CPU intensive the whine is instantly gone and the PC is totally silent again. What could cause such an anomaly? Videocards I have had with coil whine typically did it under a heavy load.

 

[Bman123]

I have a cx430v2 that does the exact same thing. At idle you can hear the whine but when gaming it is dead silent. I've seen a lot of posts about corsair quality within the last couple years and this is becoming more frequent. I wont be buying another corsair PSU that's for sure.

I have no clue why it does it, and I would really like to know why myself

 

[p_monks33]

I will be buying another Kingwin in the future. Hopefully I can get an RMA.

 

[Rhezuss]

It's nothing dangerous or defective with the unit. It's something common in electronics.

Coil whine is mechanical resonance of the coil with the frequency of the signal passing through it. Physically, a coil is just loops of wire, sometimes with a core other than air. If the frequency of the signal is in resonance with the physical wires of the coil, the coil may vibrate. Oft times, the vibration is beyond human hearing but other times it's in the range of human hearing.

I got the whine on my Gigabyte 7950 but only when FPS is really high...like above 60-70. I can't hear it while I game but sometimes it's audible when there's a static image like the one when you close the Unigine bench.

 

[p_monks33]

I have had coil whine with videocards, not even close to as loud as this. Being at idle makes it worse.

 

[NumericalMethods]

I had a Tagan branded Topower PSU that used to scream like a stuck pig when loaded. Totally unacceptable for use in a quiet room. I RMA'd that because there are acceptable and unacceptable levels of coil whine. Sounds like you have the later, OP