dante`afk wrote:
All of the sudden today I started hearing coil whine out of my case, going crazy listening to every component, I came to the conclusion it is from the RGB/Aura. If I disable the Aura via the application, the coil whine gets even louder, unbearable.

What is happening?

You should be able to pin point where exactly this winning is coming from. Get a 2' [60cm] hose about the size of your little finger in diameter, and use it as a stethoscope, by putting one open end of the hose to your ear, and the other end of the hose move it around the motherboard until you find where exactly the whining is coming from. It's most likely a choke [a ferrite core with copper wire winding] which is the usual passive electronic component that whines under certain load [if it's part of an isolating circuit e.g.]. If scanning each component on the motherboard is unsuccessful, then move the open end of the hose to the power supply unit [PSU]. There are many vents around PSU case that you can check for whining. If any whining sound is coming from any of the PSU vents, then it's your PSU that might need replacing.

For those technically capable, the chokes that cause whining have probably come loose usually because the silicone glue used to secure the coil/core to the motherboard simply needs to be replaced. A dry solder joint could also be the cause of a whining component and cleaning the solder joint and re soldering followed by glueing with silicon glue is a remedy. But this is for those with experience and a FYI.

Anything which loads the PWMs or VRMs could cause coil whine.
And once those diodes start oscillating or those caps start failing it tends to get worse more often than it tends to self-correct.

If it's "unbearable" then ASUS might approve an RMA ticket. At their discretion. (They're not strictly required to do so, if you read your fine print, but I've read many reports where they have done so anyways.)

If it's "unbearable" and the mobo is still spanking new then you might still be able to exchange/refund it through your vendor without dealing with ASUS warranty.

Your only other options are to live with it (and just hope it goes away), or maybe reduce it with a different hardware config, or a DIY "repair" (with potting agent, epoxy, anti-vibration pads, etc), or a proper component-level electrical/hardware repair. Upgrading your PSU or turning your OC down a couple notches might work, too, but nothing is certain without proper diagnosis.

I just got my Maximus XI Formula up and running today and I also have the whine from the motherboard's onboard RGB lights, but in my case it only seems to be when the system is off (the lights stay on when the PC is powered down). I have the lights set to the breathing effect when the system is off, and the whine comes and goes as the lights fade in and out. I'm not sure if it's just that it's so quiet that it's immediately drowned out by any system noise when the PC is turned on, but I think it actually goes away when I power on the system. Hard to be sure. My previous Maximus X Hero and Maximus X Code did not emit any noise from the onboard lights whether the system was powered on or off though, so I feel like this may be a slight yet common flaw in the Z390 ROG boards specifically.

On a side note, I'm actually quite disappointed in the lighting on the XI Formula. The lighting is so dim on the I/O panel you have to squint to see it. It's not uniform across the lower areas of the board either, some areas are bright while others are dim. This surprised me at first because the images of the board on the ASUS webpage make it look a HELL of a lot better than it does IRL. I looked up some youtube videos of the board powered on and in every one of them it looks pretty similar, dim and not entirely uniform, so I don't think it's a defect, just a pretty bad lighting implementation in general. It's a shame because when the board was shown at CES (I think it was CES, there's a video on youtube) the ASUS rep says that the lighting and aesthetic comes from the Rampage VI, but it looks WAY better on the Rampage when you see videos of it. The way it's implemented on the Formula looks like a low cost copy of the Rampage VI.

Other things I found is that the mirror finish on the EK VRM block has some minor scratches on it (although not that bad when I saw online other people had samples where the finish was partially scuffed off like it was hit with sand paper) and the mirror panel on the I/O shield (that has the lighting underneath) partially popped out when I was peeling the protective film off it as well... Some quality concerns there. Not sure I feel like I'm getting the kind of quality one would expect from a board of this price 😕

The Livedash OLED panel on this edition is a pretty big improvement though, so I'm glad to see I got something for my $719 AUD lol.