How to get rid of coil whine just by tweaking BIOS

Finally. No more ringing in my ears!

I had a really bad case of coil whine with my computer. In the end I fixed it just by tweaking the BIOS!

The coil whine was at it's worst when the PC was idling or under a light load. 

Coil whine is a high-pitched sound that is produced by coils resonating at a high frequency. It is really hard to sense where exactly it's coming from. This is because humans cannot sense direction for high-pitched sounds.

At first I thought it was my graphics adapter. So I bought a new used one. But the ringing was still there after the upgrade.

Next up, I suspected my PSU was the culprit. So I changed the power supply to a newer 80 Plus Platinum model. I hate changing the PSU. And it didn't help.

So it looked like my motherboard was the cause. It's an older ASUS motherboard, P8H67-V. 

After googling around a bit, I found people talking about ASUS motherboards and coil whine when power-saving features are on in the BIOS. The so-called "C-state" settings seem to cause coil whine in some cases.

Without further ado, I headed to BIOS.

A restart of the computer and holding the DEL key took me to the BIOS menu.

There, select Advanced Menu -> Advanced -> CPU configuration -> CPU Power settings

From there, I disabled all of these:

  • Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology
  • Turbo Mode
  • C1E 
  • CPU C3 Report 
  • CPU C6 Report 

Save & exit by pressing F10.

When I booted up my machine, the coil whine was gone, no matter what kind of load the PC was under.

I don't even care that I upgraded my PSU and a graphics card for no reason.

The whine is gone.

Peace, at last.

Update: After 4 and a half months of writing this post, the motherboard finally died on me. So the coil whine was a sign of trouble to come. The board was very old (nearing 10 years?) anyway, but I managed to get some more usable months out of it with this trick. 

I don't really know when the coil whine started in the first place. My quess is that it gradually increased to a point I started noticing it.

I want to add that if you get coil whine with a motherboard still under warranty, I recommend you to return it and get it replaced.

Comments

  1. Jamie://September 13, 2021 at 8:12 PM

    ended up at your channel because I was having issues with VRM noise on my mobo, literally made these exact changes and it's solved my whole issue. thank you for being an internet legend

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ZFSeptember 14, 2021 at 9:03 AM

      Thanks for reading! I write this blog mainly for myself in order to remember the tweaks I did. But you random readers are the second big reason I write this blog and it's awesome to be able to help you. Getting feedback really makes me happy. Google Adsense income has basically gone to zero nowadays with adblockers being so common, and it never paid much in the first place. So it's good to get some inspiring comments to keep going :)

      Delete
  2. Pair-A-DyceSeptember 15, 2021 at 10:50 AM

    I have an Asus z590-A so my settings aren't exactly the same but I disabled what was similar. I still had a bit of noise so another step I did was turn off AI Overclocking in the BIOS. I still have a small amount of noise but not near as bad so I can love with this. Definitely going to look into a different motherboard at some point down the line but thanks for some guidance

    ReplyDelete
  3. Robbie KhanNovember 20, 2021 at 12:50 AM

    Hi, I actually just built a new Intel 12700KF system and experienced loud coil whine when in the BIOS and feint coil while when in Windows and certain tasks were being done like watching a video in media player or launching Rockstar Games Launcher.

    I did some trial and error with the C-States, as C-States is a top level option which has sub-options within. You can disable the top level which turns all subs off, or individually adjust sub-options.

    For me turning off C1E was all that was needed. No more whine at any point.

    It does mean my CPU won't throttle down when idle, but it still consumes low power because the E Cores are active when idle not P Cores.

    This article put me on the right tracks though!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. NikosMarch 12, 2022 at 4:24 AM

      thank you all for your help. had the same issue on the same cpu(12700). Disabled c states and seems to be ok. The sound wasnt that loud but i could hear it. thank you again.

      Delete

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