Is there any other components that can produce an extremely high pitched noise ?

[Tunnah]

When my computer is on, it is aggravating my tinnitus. I thought it might be a fan but I've turned them off one by one and it still does it. Is this what coil whine is ? It's a new development, and it is EXTREMELY painful for me. It's gotten so bad I can't sit near the PC anymore which is mucho inconvenient.

This noise isn't even a noise it's so high pitched, I can just feel it rather than hear it

[DanceswithUnix]

Some hard disks are quite screechy.

[cptwhite_uk]

Could be the power supply / all fans - gpu, cpu, case fan, power supply / hard drive / optical drives

[Saracen]

A common cause of high pitched and loud whine is a sort-of resonance in transformer windings. If so, a new PSU may be in your future.

Thing is, it's easier to diagnose if you hear it rather than read a description. A tranny whine is normally a very pure sort of whine, while DWU's disk screech would be more fingernails down blackboard teeth-aching kind of noise.

That disk screech can be LOUD through. When I started it up in my office, I had complaints from two floors up. Seriously. But it raises the question, how loud is a loud noise? Unpleasant from three feet, or fingers-in-ears from 50 feet? Or whatever.

I had one brand new HD that I took back some years ago because of noise. I told the shop it was noisy, and he said "they all make noise". Not that loud, I told him. After 5 mins of arguing, he got a tech to "take it to our lab and test it." The bloke walked about 75 feet across the store, opened a door, went through and closed it. About a minute later, this god-awful screech, sounding a bit like a whole horde of angry harpies all with beakache, and PMT, started up .... through the closed door. I looked at the sales guy, winked and said "told you it was loud". He said something rude that I can't repeat without banning myself, but was a four letter expletive followed by "me" .... and replaced it.

[Tunnah]

Some hard disks are quite screechy.

That is a possibility. I have 6 in this box. 1 has been on the dying list for ages I've just not gotten around to replacing it as it's part of a 5 disk RAID0 that I built before realizing how stupid that is.

Could be the power supply / all fans - gpu, cpu, fan, power supply / hard drive / optical drives

Apart from the PSU fan, all fans were stopped with a finger

A common cause of high pitched and loud whine is a sort-of resonance in transformer windings. If so, a new PSU may be in your future.

Thing is, it's easier to diagnose if you hear it rather than read a description. A tranny whine is normally a very pure sort of whine, while DWU's disk screech would be more fingernails down blackboard teeth-aching kind of noise.

That disk screech can be LOUD through. When I started it up in my office, I had complaints from two floors up. Seriously. But it raises the question, how loud is a loud noise? Unpleasant from three feet, or fingers-in-ears from 50 feet? Or whatever.

I had one brand new HD that I took back some years ago because of noise. I told the shop it was noisy, and he said "they all make noise". Not that loud, I told him. After 5 mins of arguing, he got a tech to "take it to our lab and test it." The bloke walked about 75 feet across the store, opened a door, went through and closed it. About a minute later, this god-awful screech, sounding a bit like a whole horde of angry harpies all with beakache, and PMT, started up .... through the closed door. I looked at the sales guy, winked and said "told you it was loud". He said something rude that I can't repeat without banning myself, but was a four letter expletive followed by "me" .... and replaced it.

It's inaudible as a noise, for ages I didn't realize it was my PC I just thought my tinnitus was flairing up. But when cleaning the computer one day (so it was turned off - it's never turned off) I realized the pain had subsided. Turning on the computer again made the tinnitus feeling come back. Nobody else can hear it.

It's hard to describe as a noise, if you've ever had ringing in your ears, it's just like that, but more high pitched. If you've ever done shotgun shooting and forgotten your ear muffs, it is EXACTLY that ring (also one of the reasons I have tinnitus in the first place...I was so dumb younger ha)

[Domestic_Ginger]

Roll up a piece of paper and listen through it at your components.

JumpStart PSU with a paper clip and see if it starts? Not sure if load makes a difference.

[cptwhite_uk]

Must admit my firs thought was the power supply (read transformer)

[shaithis]

Anything with a capacitor on it can emit a high-pitched noise (Screaming Capacitor)

Which means, just about ANYTHING in your PC. Your going to need to do some targeted investigation to identify the culprit.

[b0redom]

it's part of a 5 disk RAID0 that I built before realizing how stupid that is.

- that is all.

[Gronich26]

As a fellow tinnitus sufferer you have my sympathy! I have just found out it is coffee which causes mine - thirty days of loud motorway traffic noise in my left ear, cut out the coffee and it vanished overnight!

My money is on one or more of your HDD resonating...

[Tunnah]

Roll up a piece of paper and listen through it at your components.

JumpStart PSU with a paper clip and see if it starts? Not sure if load makes a difference.

First part maybe, second part are you bloody crazy. I will most definitely blow my nads off

Must admit my firs thought was the power supply (read transformer)

Yeah

Anything with a capacitor on it can emit a high-pitched noise (Screaming Capacitor)

Which means, just about ANYTHING in your PC. Your going to need to do some targeted investigation to identify the culprit.

Yeah this is the problem. I've got a bad back and it's such a massive effort doing any of this, the computer is on the floor, it weighs about 50 kilos if not more. Meh

- that is all.

As a fellow tinnitus sufferer you have my sympathy! I have just found out it is coffee which causes mine - thirty days of loud motorway traffic noise in my left ear, cut out the coffee and it vanished overnight!

My money is on one or more of your HDD resonating...

Oh really ? Funnily enough I've only recently (new year) got into coffee. I don't like instant, so I got a cafetiere and some nice coffee. I only have 1 cup a day (well, 2 cups, at once though, the effort into making em means I just make 1 big one ha) but I've gotten bored of it already, it's just not nice enough to bother with it. Realizing it could potentially exacerbate (my lord, pre-spell check that word was exxsaserbate) it is another reason to stop.

I'm waiting to get a gas bottle fixed (for filling air rifles, but it's brilliant for cleaning computers) so will wait until then before trying these.

The HDDs are easy enough to test, to test if it's the PSU I'll just remove the ATX cable from the mobo as well then it'll be the only thing running (as the graphics card won't start up).

Thanks for all your info, I'll let you know what it was If it's the PSU I'm just gonna have to stick with an ear plug in for a while because I'm skint for a couple of weeks

[peterb]

Chokes in the power supply are generally the usual culprit. They carry a high current and the changing magnetic field causes vibration.

Capacitors can be noisy, but it is more likely in high voltage devices where the changing eliric field causes the dielectric to vibrate. Iron cored transformers can because of an effect known as magnetos traction, but switch mode pause tend to use ferrite cored transformers which don't exhibit that effect, although the coils can vibrate - it is fairly unusual though.

You need to identify the component though, there have been some tips earlier in the thread.

However Do not remove the covers of the PSU unless you are absolutely sure you know what you are doing. It contains voltages that can be lethal, even after it has been switched off.