Techie creates a database of coil-whining graphics cards, power supplies, and liquid cooler pumps — open-source project wants community reports of affected parts

Most of us who build our own PCs have at some point experienced this: you install a new graphics card, fire up your favorite game that now runs faster, and you're greeted by this weird buzzing noise. That's called "coil whine," and while it's most prevalent in graphics cards, it can also affect power supplies, AIO cooler pumps, and many other electronics. Buying pricier gear is no guarantee it won't be affected, too, which is probably why Lowell K. Wood IV (aka iBlessi) of TechFuelHQ created a community-powered database of coil-whining parts.

Anyone can submit a report to the database using this simple form here, or submit a pull request in the database repository if they're feeling fancy. The form covers the aforementioned product categories and lets the user pick out the precise brand, product version, SKU, and year. The coil whine is graded from 0 for "silent" to 4 for "audible at idle", a category that I personally would rename to "toss out the window." Reporters also get to pick out whether the issue happens at idle, load, in a game menu with uncapped framerate, or running Furmark.

The main project page remarks on the importance of having reports about hardware that is silent, given the natural tendency that "annoyed owners over-report and silent units under-report." Wood notes that the published coil-whine percentage for any one piece of gear is a ceiling rather than an estimate. For example, having 20 reports of coil whine and 20 reports of silence for a part doesn't automatically imply that half of the units are noisy. A part will only show a coil-whine verdict once at least 5 reports are collected.

If you're wondering what causes coil whine, it's a vibration-induced noise that originates in components that switch states at high frequencies. While physics dictates that low rumbles travel further, the human ear and brain are tuned for mid-range frequencies, which is why a whine with a low decibel reading might be exceedingly annoying (and also the reason why a crying baby sounds louder than anything else).

The "coil whine" designation originates from inductors with literal wire coiled around a core material, but is now colloquially used for other parts that can exhibit similar behaviors like transformers, chokes, and ceramic capacitors.

The Coil Whine Database ought to start showing results as soon as enough data rolls in, and it's one of Wood's several open-source projects of this type. He's also authored the GPU Undervolt Settings Database (with a GitHub project here), and a PC Builder with compatibility verification, similar in concept to the popular PCPartPicker website.

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