Answer

Sometimes a high-pitched/high-frequency noise can be heard from a notebook, and it’s not coming from the speakers nor the fans. This kind of high-pitched noise is a physical phenomenon that usually happens on electronic components and called “Coil Whine”. Coil Whine comes from the vibration of the electronic component when a current passes through. It is normal behavior with a working notebook and it’s not related to a hardware defect.

What is Coil Whine?

When a current passes through the Electrical Inductor, the coil will vibrate at a certain frequency depending on the current flow. In certain situations, if the electronic components vibrate at an audible frequency, people will hear the high-pitch noise, so-called "Coil Whine".

What causes Coil Whine?

The coils are contained in GPU, PSU, hard drives, or motherboard. When coil whine occurs, the noise of vibration is usually emitted by high-powered components, especially from the CPU or GPU. Depends on different scenarios, it can be much easier to hear the coil whine when intensive CPU or GPU tasks are in use such as gaming or video editing.

How to prevent Coil Whine?

Depending on different people and environmental noise, it’s easier to hear the high-pitch noise in a quiet environment, and for the people who can hear higher frequency sound or are more sensitive with high frequency. MSI has made every effort to mitigate the noise level in all notebook products. However, this physical phenomenon cannot be completely removed and nor for all other notebook manufacturers.