The high-pitched buzzing caused by the vibration of a coil carrying current in electronic devices has recently been causing problems, particularly in PC power supplies, graphics cards and cooling pumps. Investigating rumors circulating online, Lowell Wood founded the Coil Whine Database.
The database rates the coil whine of hardware on a scale from 0 to 4 based on user reports: 0 indicates a sound that cannot be heard in a quiet room, 2 indicates a sound audible from a desk while the computer is under load, and 4 indicates a sound audible even when the device is idle. The system is still largely empty; Wood also reported his own ROG Astral RTX 5080 card. Users can report quiet or noisy units through a form.
A device will not be published until it has received at least 5 reports. Reports of quiet components will carry more weight because their owners are less likely to submit reports. The database aims to show how much noise different components produce, taking variations between devices into account. The project files are available on GitHub.
Why it matters
Recording coil whine on a common scale aims to turn scattered user comments into data that can be compared across hardware. This information is particularly relevant to those who want to build quiet systems and to users trying to determine whether the sound they hear is specific to a particular model. However, since noise levels can vary between different units of the same model, meaningful results depend on collecting a sufficient number and variety of reports. The five-report threshold and the additional weight given to quiet samples are intended to reduce the impact of individual experiences and the bias resulting from only users experiencing problems submitting reports. The database being largely empty, however, leaves open for now the question of which hardware can be reliably compared.