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Sony really cheaped out on their PSUs didn't they?

Edgelord79

Gold Member
Gamers Nexus during their partial teardown didn't seem to be too impressed with the way certain components were installed.

This doesn't surprise me.
 

SoraNoKuni

Member
Mine makes the same noise but it's certainly coming from the top of the console and it doesn't resemble coil whine, I am pretty sure I have the sticker fan issue.

It makes sense that even that changes with what you are doing as the fan spins faster when you demand more from the soc.

I think there is no warranty void if I open it up so I'll probably just do that.


Edit: Oops, that's coil whine. The most aggressive coil whine I've ever heard.
Well when I play with my normal volume I can't hear it at all, and at night I use headphone so everything is good.
Still I bought this machine expecting a quiet experience, not nice sony, not nice.
 
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Am I the only one that can't hear a thing in that video of the "coil whine"? I know i can't hear ultra high pitched sounds (do to hearing damage from decades of headphone wearing) but I can usually at least hear things in video at top volume. My launch day PS4 fan sounds like a jet engine and ups the temp 10 degrees, but it is noticable in the extreme. This seems minor.

I have 9 fans in my pc (including psu/gpu/cpu fans) and I can hear the case fans, but that is due to me keeping them at max settings for most air flow. When wearing headphones I don't hear it. I can deal with minor fan noise, its the loud ps4 jet engine sounds and heat creation that bugs the hell out of me.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Am I the only one that can't hear a thing in that video of the "coil whine"? I know i can't hear ultra high pitched sounds (do to hearing damage from decades of headphone wearing) but I can usually at least hear things in video at top volume. My launch day PS4 fan sounds like a jet engine and ups the temp 10 degrees, but it is noticable in the extreme. This seems minor.

I have 9 fans in my pc (including psu/gpu/cpu fans) and I can hear the case fans, but that is due to me keeping them at max settings for most air flow. When wearing headphones I don't hear it. I can deal with minor fan noise, its the loud ps4 jet engine sounds and heat creation that bugs the hell out of me.
Thing is, hearing of humans varies a lot. There is a reason why musical engineers or in this day and age mastering tools are so heavy on loudness and "just right" EQ.
 
Mine is super quiet but man is it ugly and you have to use that ghetto stand in both orientations. The perfect representation for it’s the inside that counts ugly girl.
Right, look. You'd still hit it though...right?
At the end of the day, pussy is pussy. It's good no matter how you dress it.

Just like PS. You hit no matter the warts, scars, floppy bits and other repulsive body features. Same with PS5.
Ugly as it may be you'd still hit it and you'll love it. You'll love it long time.
 
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Larlight

Member
Right, look. You'd still hit it though...right?
At the end of the day, pussy is pussy. It's good no matter how you dress it.

Just like PS. You hit no matter the warts, scars, floppy bits and other repulsive body features. Same with PS5.
Ugly as it may be you'd still hit it and you'll love it. You'll love it long time.

The console can look like a shoe for all I care. I’d still put my dick inside its shoe hole.
 

BluRayHiDef

Banned
My PS5 has no coil whine. Do you mind posting a picture of the side of the console that displays its manufacturing information? Perhaps the units that suffer from coil while were manufactured during a particular period of time or at a particular location.

KOYZnEq.jpg
 

RedVIper

Banned
There's this poll from other place that seems to mirror my impressions of other impressions, and every time someone I know gets one I make a point to ask about their noise situation. It seems like the majority are very silent, coil whine is the next concern, and less people than that have notable fan noise from a reasonable distance.

Sucks for those with a less than stellar unit, I feel for ya and it's probably going to be hard to swap with these supply constraints. But I do think the overall design is quiet if you haven't gotten a minority issue.


EnInog3.png

10% of users having coil whine isn't really acceptable.

Fan noise is expecteded, and it's pretty good this time around.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Put in for a replacement. If your unit is poorly put together or has components that are not functioning correctly you don't have to settle for it.

My first impression when taking the PS5 out of its box was that it feels cheap and not as sturdy as any other console I've previously owned (a lot of that is down to the poxy plates) but thankfully I've not had any noise or hardware related issues with it.
I despise the design but I touch the thing so rarely I don't care too much.

But they are so incredibly far up their own ass with that design lol. I await the $40 side panels that don’t make it look ugly to 90% of people.

I’m seriously impressed with Sony it’s such a dick swing move to sell an ugly system to the hungry first wave of buyers and then sell the nice looking ones later and probably an expensive but cheap to make accessory for us early adopters lol
 

Tmack

Member
I once had a PC PSU with incredible coil whine but it developed over years of use and the unit was defective.... i dont believe that explains a problem is brand new hardware....
 

LordOfChaos

Member
Any poll about coil whine is pointless, because that problem depends on way to many variables.
1. It is on end of audible spectrum which means that some people will not hear it.
2. It can be heard only from specific points of space in relation to console. No joke I had whining PSU in notebook which you could hear in like 1m diameter sphere, just when my head was when I was sleeping.
3. It depends on what you actually play
4. For some people background noise can totally hide the noise.
5. Even where you put it can change how loud whine is.

Even without that all in mind 12% of people hearing coils whining is terrible result.

10% of users having coil whine isn't really acceptable.

Fan noise is expecteded, and it's pretty good this time around.

I do agree with both of you, 12% of people having coil whine means Sony doesn't care about coil whine and I wish they did.

But when I see 75% of people also reporting no *coil whine, to my mind that also says the 'canon' design for lack of a better word can be silent and mostly is, and it doesn't have to take years to a Slim revision, it may be addressable by added QC on the fans and coils. As far as the list of reasons a user may miss coil whine that is theoretically there, in the end the result is 75% of people could not hear it, if it's out of auditory frequency or whatever.

Honestly, most standard electronics companies don't care about coil whine, you will notice it on most laptop power bricks. Apple is the standout that historically has, and I think by way of trying to compete with them with Surface, Microsoft picked up on these things as well and the Surface team had that input for Xbox, which they (from the lack of complaints I've heard) have done quite well here.
 
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Pimpbaa

Member
You pay a premium price but you don't get a premium product. How does this get past the quality assurance phase?

I've paid a premium price (often prices higher than a PS5) for various premium PC parts and TVs that had noticeable coil whine for decades. You either deal with it or send it back. It may be annoying to those with more sensitive ears but it's not indicative to a potential failure of the device thus fine by QA of most hardware manufacturers.
 

reinking

Gold Member
I feel bad for people that have the issue. We have two PS5s and zero noise. Both are scary quiet. Same with my Series X. The only time I am getting noise from any of the three consoles is when I put a disc in. The PS5s have a ramp up noise for about 30-40 seconds and then goes silent again. The Series X makes a grinding noise to a point that I will not put disc in it anymore.
 

Kagey K

Banned
The thing is if it’s happening already, it’s not going to get better, it’s only going to worse for that console. I would be trying to exchange or return it for a better one as quickly as possible.

Anyone that says it’s good enough is going to be kicking themselves in a year or 2 when it really starts making noise.
 
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v_iHuGi

Banned
Mine does very very few sound, checks sometimes the disk and that´s it.

In order to ear it i´ve to be really close.

But i use top end headphones so even Pro was not a problem to me so i could care less but good that mine is quiet.
 
Mine kept having the crashing issues. I played it long enough to beat Spiderman MM and Demon Souls and honestly...I wasn't even gonna be playing it too much until something else exclusive came out(Got a 3090 and a Series X/Switch)...Went ahead and sent it in to Sony - hopefully I get it back before Xmas. If not then I really don't care as long as its here before the new year lol. Mine was crashing every other play session...then it started crashing every hour or two of play time...by the time I finally decided to mail it in it was crashing like every 30-45 minutes..like it pretty much was breaking down.
 

kuncol02

Banned
I do agree with both of you, 12% of people having coil whine means Sony doesn't care about coil whine and I wish they did.

But when I see 75% of people also reporting no noise, to my mind that also says the 'canon' design for lack of a better word can be silent and mostly is, and it doesn't have to take years to a Slim revision, it may be addressable by added QC on the fans and coils. As far as the list of reasons a user may miss coil whine that is theoretically there, in the end the result is 75% of people could not hear it, if it's out of auditory frequency or whatever.

Honestly, most standard electronics companies don't care about coil whine, you will notice it on most laptop power bricks. Apple is the standout that historically has, and I think by way of trying to compete with them with Surface, Microsoft picked up on these things as well and the Surface team had that input for Xbox, which they (from the lack of complaints I've heard) have done quite well here.
No noise is reported by only 46% of people. For console designed to be dead silent in first place that's not great result. Especially that IMO coil whine is worse than fans (unless they are broken). It drills straight into your brain.
 

Mokus

Member
So far I'm lucky with my PS5. Hopefully it will hold out until the next major revision. I don't want to go back to PS4 "God of Wind" Pro.
 

Jokerevo

Banned
Jesus fucking Christ this is getting annoying now, I've been adoring my time with the PS5, the games are great, the UI is snappy and beautiful, the controller is a delight and the system itself is gorgeous.

However there's one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb whenever I go from my Series X to the PS5, the sound. The Series X is a marvel in how quiet it is for the power it holds, you can tell the engineering team did a top job, taking care with every minute component.

The PS5 on the other hand is starting to feel like a cheap hunk of junk in that department. It really feels like Sony cheaped out with their PSUs as not only my PS5 but my entire friend groups are making the most annoying coil whine which seem to have gotten worse since Nov.19

Here's a little diary of my coil whine experience:

Nov 19: quiet as hell, no fan or coil whine sound at all, Astro and Miles Morales running with no issues.

Nov 22: start to notice some very quiet humming from around the PSU of the console, only flairs up when on Miles Morales, everything else is fine and the sound was only audible as I was sorting out my cable management whilst game was on.

Nov 25: coil whine evolves into a more audible sound, has a pretty noticeable whine when TV is quiet now when on Miles Morales, no other games creating a hum.

Nov 27: coil whine evolves again, this time easing itself into not only Miles Morales but Spider-Man Remastered, Astro, AC Valhalla and even when I power it on, still not a major annoyance but it now varies in sound from app to app.

Nov 29: coil whine fucking evolves tenfold as it now starts to get slightly louder and the fan starts to kick in whenever I start a game, pretty audible noises from the fan doing its work on games which never made it work this hard before, coil whine frequency changes wildly from game to game.

Dec 1: Coil whine reaches a new phase of fuckery, I didn't record my own as my phone doesn't pick it up well but this YouTube video sounds exactly like mine, the coil whine and fan have gotten slightly louder, I must stress with my TV on around 20 volume or with headphones in you can't hear it, it's only when the game hits a quiet spot on TV or the volume is low, but now the coil whine is rapidly changing frequency out of nowhere whilst playing Valhalla, it only stopped doing this once I closed the app entirely but even then it slowly whirred down to a quiet hum. Video below is just like mine.



All in all I'm very disappointed, especially seeing as barely any review units have mentioned coil whine yet most people I know on here who have a PS5 are experiencing this to a degree, seems like something Sony were aware of as they wouldn't have not noticed this during testing, but as it wasn't a threat to the system health they let it through to be sold, which is very poor on their part seeing as all we hear is how quiet the system is.

As it stands I won't be replacing my unit yet as I want to wait for Sony to address this or make a slightly revised model under the radar which solves this by grounding the coils so this coil whine doesn't happen on as many consoles. I'm still loving my PS5 but I think this was something that Sony have really fucked their customers over on.


OP have you reported this, I'd ask for a replacement? This is the risk early adopters take, there's always a % chance of stuff going wrong because this is still the beta test imo.
 

DonJorginho

Banned
OP have you reported this, I'd ask for a replacement? This is the risk early adopters take, there's always a % chance of stuff going wrong because this is still the beta test imo.
I want to get a replacement but not yet I feel as Coil whine isn't a system killing issue and the noise isn't unbearable, also this time of year is the worst to ship things due to Christmas madness so may wait a few more months.

And this is my first day one adoption of a console, I usually wait, this is why aha.
 

DonJorginho

Banned
rofif rofif would you say this is coming from the GPU as it changes wildly depending on what I am doing and on second inspection it is pretty audible from the top of the console so perhaps it is just reverberation which makes it audible from the bottom?

Also as far as I am aware this doesn't cause danger to the system itself does it? so theoretically I could just man up and use headphones and not worry about it.
 
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dotnotbot

Member
Fun fact: they never fixed coil whine in PS4. Newewst PS4 Pros (CUH-7200) still suffer from it, you can read complaints on the web.

Personally I had PS4 fat, slim and currently I own pro 7100, all of them had coil whine.
 
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sol_bad

Member
Yeah. My coil whine as thankfully gotten more quiet actually, not as bad as it once was.. but it really pisses me off how my first two days with the system, it was completely silent.. but now I can hear a slight fan plus the coil whine, like wtf happened?


It's so fucking embarrassing and humiliating for Mark Cerny to be honest considering how big the god damn thing is. That size and yet it still can't be more quiet than a series x (which more powerful going by the sheets).

As you said everything else is great on the system, but the god damn sacrifices we put up with to experience greatness.. I swear.

When I get back to campus it's gonna be embarrassing as fuck if my xbox/nintendo fanboy of a roommate will be able to hear the ps5 considering I boasted about the size and that's why it would be quiet compared to the ps4 pro.. but he'll just rub it in my face and embarrassing me with his ultra silent series x

First world problems.
Dayum.
 

RaySoft

Member
Put some rubber O-rings on all four fan screws and also between the fan and fan cover. (metal against metal)
This solves the fan noise at least.
 

JeloSWE

Member
My PS5 also has coil whine. Hearing the video it's clear it's how mine behaves a well. I f**king hate electronics that makes these annoying noise, manufacturers and Sony in this case should not let this s**t slip through. I'd definitely try and get mine replaced in a couple of months.
 

xacto

Member
People ITT still saying it's because of launch units and it will get better with newer revisions... no it won't anytime soon.

People with coil whiney PSUs in their PS4 Pros rev. 71XXb were already hoping that this will be fixed with the 72XXb and everyone was sure that the PS5 won't have it anymore, but look at where we are now, 3 years later.

If Sony has a 10 year contract with the PSU manufacturer who is making the affected PSU, then we'll be seeing this throughout this generation and unless Sony addresses this officially, I wouldn't hold my breath for any changes being made here.

Revisions. No one goes through a 10-year production period without revisions. Manufacturing 101.
 

xacto

Member
LOL. I mean yeah that's why I'm happy I didnt buy a launch console but yeah LOL what you're saying is true.

Now... I am thinking, "should I have bought a launch console and play the lottery of getting *maybe* a good one or get even a worse one and switch it down the road".

But alas, that's a moot point now, when it seems the only people getting a next-gen console are the scalpers 😂
 

manzo

Member
So that's coil whine. Sounds like a broken ball-bearer in a fan. Never heard those from my consoles, as I play games with sound on.
 
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