SSD whines when under load

By McKay
in Hardware Hangout

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Grand Master

McKay

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I have Windows installed on a Samsung 840 Evo SSD, and randomly when it comes under load it will let out a split second whining sound, audible when through the case. Things like emptying the recycle bin can trigger it, also opening tabs on Chrome occasionally do it. 

 

I thought there are no components in an SSD capable of making sound? Is this normal?

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Grand Master

HoochieMamma

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Pretty sure it's not the SSD. Like you said, nothing in it can produce sound. By any chance do you have watercooling? I know my H100i can make that sort of sound if it's dead silent in the room every so often.

Grand Master

McKay

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Pretty sure it's not the SSD. Like you said, nothing in it can produce sound. By any chance do you have watercooling? I know my H100i can make that sort of sound if it's dead silent in the room every so often.

 

No watercooling no, just a split second high pitched whine from the front of the tower where the drives are located, when something accesses the drive after it's been inactive for a while.

Grand Master

Hum

Posted
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... just a split second high pitched whine from the front of the tower where the drives are located

 

 

Is there an extra cooling fan located there ?

 

It could be dirty/bad.

 

Some info here:

 

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2362022

 

yeah if I leave it idle there is a constant noise but when it works I can hear variations.

Also when I'm changing settings in samsung magician (like disabling RAPID) the noise stops.

 

UPDATE: RMAed it and got a new one, I still hear whistling. It must be the PSU that doesn't like two hard drives.

It's the motherboard that's doing the noise.

p7p55d

 

Proficient

satysin

Posted
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It is perfectly possible for it to be the SSD, not sure why people are saying otherwise.

 

If you can reproduce it I would recommended getting a replacement for the drive just to be on the safe side. It may be nothing but I can imagine it is annoying more than anything else.

 

I have a laptop which made an annoying high pitch noise when the battery was changing, turned out to be a small fault in the connector. Got it replaced and the noise went away. More than likely the same kind of thing here. Sometimes a capacitor can make annoying sounds such as this.

Grand Master

+JHBrown Subscriber¹

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My old Intel 520 SSD made the same noise under load. I thought it was my power supply or video card. Intel replaced the drive after I swapped both the GPU and PSU and the problem still persisted. Once I installed the new drive, whine was gone.

Grand Master

Astra.Xtreme

Posted
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The noise is almost certainly a capacitor.  This sort of thing is more common in PSUs and GPUs, but I guess it's a possibility in a SSD.

 

It probably won't be something to be super concerned about (more annoying than anything), but it's probably something that you could file an RMA for.

Grand Master

neufuse Veteran

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it is actually possible for it to be the SSD, if there is a failing part it can make a very high pitched squeal... I've heard it a lot in electronics with high frequency data transfer when something isn't right... usually it's caused on a power supply with a bad ground, but that is just one case

 

it's creating a pizo electic type effect and vibrating really fast to make that squeal

Collaborator

Seketh

Posted
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My laptop had the same whine.

 

It's CPU whine. More specifically, Intel Speedstep and the diferent CPU power states.

 

Disabling the power saving states solved it for me (including C1E).

 

Whine with the Intel Core series is pretty common, do a web search. You can probably disable the power states in bios. I had to disable them in Windows:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975530/en-us (just add the reg key)

 

Might even make your PC marginally faster, just more power consumption and heat. I was pretty lucky with my laptop, marginal battery loss, no heat difference and moar speed!

Grand Master

Aergan

Posted
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It will likely be EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) - something in your setup is poorly shielded or you're pushing a component beyond it's shielded capabilities. Typically this is either your PSU, motherboard or GFX card whilst warming up to beyond room temperature or when under heavy load.

Experienced

Arkos Reed

Posted
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I had that kind of issue when transferring files over my LAN, every time I used the motherboard's onboard NIC, I heard a high pitched whine. It was a badly shielded PSU (an old Enermax Infiniti 720W). Got rid of it, no more electrical noises.

Grand Master

Krome

Posted
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SSDs can make sound. They have capacitors and electrical components in them that can whine.

If you can show me the picture of the board that contains such component, then yes I believe you.  But most of the picture I saw that belongs to SSD does not have any component that make sound.  I don't think those old caps are used on any of the known SSD.

 

 

Grand Master

Astra.Xtreme

Posted
Posted

If you can show me the picture of the board that contains such component, then yes I believe you.  But most of the picture I saw that belongs to SSD does not have any component that make sound.  I don't think those old caps are used on any of the known SSD.

There are all sorts of capacitors on there (this is a Samsung 840 Evo board).  The buzzing is caused by the component resonating at something around 20 kHz.

 

StorageReview-Samsung-840-EVO-SSD-PCB-To

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