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High pitch squeal making me go cRaZy!

post #1 of 19
3/28/05 at 4:36am
Thread Starter 
I recently purchased a D610 and for the most part I love it. I can play Battlefield Vietnam, World of Warcraft and of course do work... I'm really happy with the performance of this machine though I wish Dell would have given my the option to go with a X600 graphics card...

Anyway the problem I'm having is with a high-pitched squeal coming from the laptop when its plugged into AC and a slightly less loud squeal when its on battery.
At first I thought it was coming from the modem since the sound seemed to be emitting from the area of the modem and cmos battery. However after disabling the modem and later removing it entirely I realize that its not the modem but something else in that area... I have no idea how to get rid of this noise, and I was hopping someone else here might have a solution or at least be able to confirm if this is a consistent D610 issue. If not then I'll try and swap this system out for another one because this noise is honestly giving me a headache.
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post #2 of 19
3/28/05 at 5:17am
This is going to sound stupid, but listen to the back lid of the LCD. Probably the lower portion. Does the squeal change if you change the brightness of the LCD?

If so, it's your backlight inverter. Ask Dell to fix it.
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post #3 of 19
3/28/05 at 8:58am
Thread Starter 
No it doesn't change at all when I alter the brightness. Also I am certain it is coming from the area below the Caps Lock / Tab buttons (and I do not believe it is the fan).

Oddly enough the sound goes away entirely if there is any load on the CPU. Scrolling through a webpage stops it and you can make the sound stop and start completely based on your movement of the scroll bar. I mentioned scrolling in a webpage but anything that uses the CPU makes it go away for the duration of the CPU activity.

Could someone with a D610 put their ear near the area of the Caps Lock key and the underside near the modem bay (panel C) and see if their laptop makes any noise when its on AC power.
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post #4 of 19
3/28/05 at 11:57am
Try disabling power management on any one of the usb root hubs
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post #5 of 19
3/28/05 at 6:22pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, I tried that on one and then all of the root hubs. It did change the sound slightly, but seemed to actally make it louder.

Please keep the suggestions coming; I'm desperate here. I keep putting the system into standby anytime I'm not working on the system for more than a few minutes, otherwise I get a headache.
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post #6 of 19
3/28/05 at 6:23pm
Try this: take out the battery and run it on AC. Do you still hear it?
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post #7 of 19
3/28/05 at 7:24pm
I had the same problem with a 15" LCD with built-in speakers. The volume was set at 100% (on the monitor itself, not in Windows). I turned it down and the high pitch squeal went away. But I'm not even sure if the D610 has speakers on the monitor...
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post #8 of 19
3/28/05 at 8:00pm
Thread Starter 
With the battery removed the noise is still there.

It definitly has something to do with power, so I think we're on the right track. When the battery is charging the noise is not there and as soon as the battery is charged it comes back.

To clarify there are no speakers on the monitor. Also I am certain the noise is not coming from the monitor/LCD area.
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post #9 of 19
3/28/05 at 8:31pm
Hmm. Is this sound beeping (with short stops) or a continuous one?

Is the battery led light flashing every 8 seconds or so while it does this?

Try disabling powerplay
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post #10 of 19
3/28/05 at 8:54pm
Thread Starter 
Oddly enough its usally continuous, but there have been a few times when it was more of a series of chirps. When I say continious its almost non-stop, but there are breaks every 10 seconds or so, but that is because at that point there is some slight CPU activity.

Powerplay is not disabled, but the noise is still there.

Does anyone know if there are schematics for the D610 anywhere? If I could look at some I might be able to figure out exactly what component is causing this noise.
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post #11 of 19
3/28/05 at 9:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigredergib
Does anyone know if there are schematics for the D610 anywhere? If I could look at some I might be able to figure out exactly what component is causing this noise.
Service manual is here - you can look at the internals there.

Here is a shot of the motherboard:


Get FanGUI (including the reg fix) and see if the noise corresponds to fan speed. There is also a mini-pci card around the area where you say the noise comes from.
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post #12 of 19
3/28/05 at 10:37pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah the wireless card. Its possible that its coming from there, but it sounds like its coming from below that card. Also turning wireless on and off has no effect on the noise.

I installed FanGUI and changing the fan speed didn't have any effect on the noise.
From looking at the documentation I can't see anything that could be causing this, but then again I couldn't find any info about what is in that area other than the modem, battery, fan and Wi-Fi card.
In the picture you can see a black plastic flap right by the line below #1. I think that may be part of the power stage. Perhaps it’s a regulator that’s acting up. If it uses PWM its base frequency might be low enough that the harmonics its creating are hitting just at the right frequency for me to hear them. But then its likely that all D610s would have the same issue.
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post #13 of 19
3/29/05 at 1:08am
My 1150 actually did this sometimes too. It would make a very slight squeel when i scrolled.

The difference was that it would make that noise when scrolling only and not all the time.

I think this might be the same as the problems with old Tvs. Some electrical components get "loose" and actually vibrate enough to create an audible sound.
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post #14 of 19
3/29/05 at 1:24am
Thread Starter 
See mine is the exact opposite. The squeal stops when scrolling or doing anything that creates CPU activity.
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post #15 of 19
4/17/05 at 7:11am
Thread Starter 
*Update*

I ended up getting my laptop replaced since dell forgot to install the bluetooth module in the first one and didn't trust me to install it and apply the sticker...
Anyways, the good news is that the buzz/whine is not present on the new system. Well thats not totally true... Its not there at the same times that it was on the old laptop, but I do hear a very very similar squeal when I have any USB device plugged in...

Something else I noticed that is unrelated is that although the laptops are supposed to be identical (except for bluetooth) their components are quite different. The Hard Drive, cd burner, fan, GPU heatsink and keyboard are all different. Since I have both I decided that instead of reinstalling my OS and apps I just swapped the drives, as well as the keyboard since the one on my old laptop was much stiffer and has better keys.
I find it odd almost troubling that Dell has such variations in their products...
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post #16 of 19
4/17/05 at 7:23am
Thread Starter 
*Update*

I ended up getting my laptop replaced since dell forgot to install the bluetooth module in the first one and didn't trust me to install it and apply the sticker...
Anyways, the good news is that the buzz/whine is not present on the new system. Well thats not totally true... Its not there at the same times that it was on the old laptop, but I do hear a very very similar squeal when I have any USB device plugged in...

Something else I noticed that is unrelated is that although the laptops are supposed to be identical (except for bluetooth) their components are quite different. The Hard Drive, cd burner, fan, GPU heatsink and keyboard are all different. Since I have both I decided that instead of reinstalling my OS and apps I just swapped the drives, as well as the keyboard since the one on my old laptop was much stiffer and has better keys.
I find it odd almost troubling that Dell has such variations in their products...
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post #17 of 19
4/17/05 at 7:37am
Thread Starter 
*Update*

I ended up getting my laptop replaced since dell forgot to install the bluetooth module in the first one and didn't trust me to install it and apply the sticker...
Anyways, the good news is that the buzz/whine is not present on the new system. Well thats not totally true... Its not there at the same times that it was on the old laptop, but I do hear a very very similar squeal when I have any USB device plugged in...

Something else I noticed that is unrelated is that although the laptops are supposed to be identical (except for bluetooth) their components are quite different. The Hard Drive, cd burner, fan, GPU heatsink and keyboard are all different. Since I have both I decided that instead of reinstalling my OS and apps I just swapped the drives, as well as the keyboard since the one on my old laptop was much stiffer and has better keys.
I find it odd almost troubling that Dell has such variations in their products...
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post #18 of 19
5/25/05 at 6:43pm
I recently got a Dell Latitude D610, and am experiencing the same problem. There is some kind of a electrical noise or a squeal near the Tab key. The noise is kind of loud when on battery and slightly less when powered in. I noticed that the sounds completely stops when scrolling thru a website, and when there is any kind of load on the CPU. Any suggestions? Should I just send it back to Dell and have it replaced?
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post #19 of 19
4/17/09 at 3:12pm

high pitched squeal noise d610

I have a dell d610

I also have the high pitched squeal noise

i read this on another forum

"Is the high-pitched noise coming from the general direction where the CPU is located (upper-left corner on 1710)? If so, then it's related to the different power saving sleep states that the CPU uses. There are a couple of the states that apparently alter the frequency from the CPU power regulatory circuitry into a range that is audible at times. A way to test to make sure this is the culprit would be to go a few web pages that have lots of ads and then scroll up and down. If the noise changes in pitch and has a variable pattern, then it's the power reg circuitry. The reason that this test influences the noise is that the CPU is going in and out of sleep states quickly when it's processing the ads.

As far as I've seen, this slight noise is normal (unless it's unordinarily loud or not coming from the CPU area). When I first got my 9400, I was wondering about this too. I tested several other laptops from several different manufactures with different CPU's, from different generations (even an old Celeron 366 ) and they all exhibited the same problem, albeit with slight differences between them.

Maybe some other users can chime in on this as well. The only thing I found that got rid of it was to use a workaround possible by using RMClock (there's a thread here with the info on how to do it, I'll see if I can find it) but in the end I decided it wasn't really worth the small amount of trouble to me of having another application running. Eventually I just got used to it and ignore it now. ^^"

the scrolling does chnge the sound for me ..... im going to check the power options in the bios....im pretty sure i saw some settings there about the processor speed

it sounds like morse code....and when i was recording narration for a video i was making the high pitched sound was caught on that....soundcard probably picks it up thru the case ground? i dont know ...just guesses there
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