Suspicious high pitch noise

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samgri

Member
I have noticed a suspicious high pitched noise recently. I can only hear it when the pc has power, but is not turned on (if you see what i mean, not sure what the right words to use are).
When i turn on the power supply switch at the back the noise starts immediately, and then quickly goes up to a higher continuous pitch. If i turn off the power supply switch, the pitch of the noise increases until the green power LED on the motherboard goes off. From unplugging everything and testing one by one I've found that the sound is coming from the motherboard. But i have no idea what it is and whether it's a serious problem or not. I can't tell if its still there when the computer is actually on and running (like it is right now) because it's only a very quiet noise and i can't hear it over the fans.
Performance is the same as usual and i haven't noticed anything else so it doesn't seem to be affecting anything yet.
Anyone got a clue what this could be? I'm rather worried.

Full spec:
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM) 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling INTEL SOCKET LGA1155 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
 
vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
Sounds like "Coil whine" or "cap whine" these are terms used to describe high pitched sounds that can emanate from components such as capacitors or inductors on the motherboard or GPU for example.This is usually caused by high frequency power draw from the PSU & is normal to a certain extent.If the noise is excessive a replacement PSU may be required.
 
S

samgri

Member
Seeing as i can barely notice it, i probably haven't got much to worry about then?
The only problem with that theory is that power supply switch is on, so there's power. But the computer is off, not booted up, whatever. So there shouldn't be any power draw?
 
vanthus

vanthus

Member Resting in Peace
samgri said:
Seeing as i can barely notice it, i probably haven't got much to worry about then?
The only problem with that theory is that power supply switch is on, so there's power. But the computer is off, not booted up, whatever. So there shouldn't be any power draw?
Click to expand...
That's true,I can only guess it's caused by a capacitor (which can store power on it's own) as an electrician I have experienced a few belts from capacitors that don't have any power going to them.:)
 
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