AX760 coil whine even when off.:(

Hello, i upgraded from my HX520 to a AX760 cause i'm going SLI with GTX 670s, but as soon as i plugged in and turned on the PSU there was this high pitched noise which was very annoying. It's definitely something electronics related, not the fan or anything, and its at the higher end of the noise spectrum. Anyways its very annoying cause i can hear it through my Corsair 300R case (which has holes at the top) and because i sleep in the same room i have to unplug the PSU every time i wana sleep. I googled it and found this is a common issue with alot of people who own this PSU. Very disappointing as it cost $165+ tax, how could they overlook this?

 

Is there any way to reduce this coil whine or do i just have to return it to the store i bought it? Thanks in advance.

 

UPDATE: i found a post on another forum that said Seasonic was encouraging its customers to enable "ErP" and disable "Audio always on" in the BIOS. My mobo has an ErP option and i enabled it, that has managed to stop coil whine while the system is off, but while it's on i still get it.:( I have 2 SSDs and a Noctua heatsink on my CPU so the system is completely silent.... therefore the coil whine while the system is on is very audible and annoying while surfing the web or just working on my comp (if gaming the audio drowns out the coil whine, but i use my computer mostly for non gaming purposes).

thank you. I called the store and they said i can go back and exchange it for another AX760 (same PSU). Now, if i go back and exchange it, will i still get the coil whine? is it hit and miss? or is it a certain batch, or just random? i've never had this issue before (my Corsair HX520 was flawless for 6 years).

Thank you for offering. I went back to the store and did an exchange, but the 2nd ax760 had the same coil whine and i even tried it on a 2nd computer.:( so i decided to go for something a little more expensive and got the Season Platinum 760 (SS-760XP2) which isn't based on the Seasonic KM3 model and.... no coil whine!!!! finally! spent a good 3 hours going back and forth installing and uninstalling, and finally got a platinum PSU that works @ the platinum level with no coil whine.:)

 

I love Corsair (have Corsair Force pro 120gb, Corsair 300r & 600t, and had a HX520wt), but they dropped the ball on this one. The Seasonic Platinum 760 only cost $15 more and at this price range ($170+) for a 760wt PSU it shouldn't be happening. Anyways, thanks for your help. I'll try the other PSU lines for other builds but the ax line is off limits for me.

You said many months ago that a fix was in place for the platinum AX series that had noise issues.

 

Where is the fix?

 

When people submit an RMA, what are you sending them? AXi units? I don't see that as a fix, especially now that many people are sleeving their cables and the AX and AXi cables are not compatible with eachother.

especially now that many people are sleeving their cables and the AX and AXi cables are not compatible with eachother.

Your lucky they even let you sleeve them without voiding your warranty. Most PSU manufacturers will not allow it.

 

And that has been a long standing rule, that if your going to mod your PC , you should be prepared to void warranties and deal with issues like this.

 

As far as replacements that are sent, the AX1200's are not even on the site anymore. I can only assume that means they are discontinued or possibly that they are revamping the non"i" series units... in that case they will send out a comparable PSU.

 

Also in the past, if a user has had multiple issues with the same unit they will often "upgrade " you to a different model in hopes of avoiding further issues.

i believe there are bad batches of these psus out there, and for some of them the coil whine is only noticeable if you go down there and listen for it, while others its alot more marked.

 

With that said, the Seasonic platinum 760 (SS-760XP2) uses more glue around the capacitors and thus has absolutely no coil whine even if your ear is next to it. The Seasonic X series didn't have this extra glue, and it also has coil whine (the ax760 series is based on a modified seasonic X series psu, but unfortunately the extra glue was never added so the coil whine was never fixed). Corsair is a great company with very high standards, but for a computer part that u only buy once every 6-7+ years, i'd stick with something that i'm 100% satisfied with, especially in this price range.

i believe there are bad batches of these psus out there, and for some of them the coil whine is only noticeable if you go down there and listen for it, while others its alot more marked.

 

With that said, the Seasonic platinum 760 (SS-760XP2) uses more glue around the capacitors and thus has absolutely no coil whine even if your ear is next to it. The Seasonic X series didn't have this extra glue, and it also has coil whine (the ax760 series is based on a modified seasonic X series psu, but unfortunately the extra glue was never added so the coil whine was never fixed). Corsair is a great company with very high standards, but for a computer part that u only buy once every 6-7+ years, i'd stick with something that i'm 100% satisfied with, especially in this price range.

 

I completely agree with you poohbear,

 

If Corsair's PSU manufacturers would have put more glue on their coils (especially in the AX and AXi series), i'm pretty sure there would be way less coil whine complains or even none at all.

 

Even though It could be easily be fixed, they don't seem to care that much about fixing it anytime soon because people are reporting this issue for years and it's still very present to this day.

 

I would understand if such flaw was present on a cheap 50$ PSU but it far from being the case.

 

I'm talking about a high-end Corsair AX1200i 350$ flagship PSU that I've replaced three times and still have the same issue.

 

Corsair, if you really care about your customers satisfaction, you would do what it takes to fix this annoyance as soon as possible.