ID my noise

guises · Post by **guises** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:40 pm

I've got this... sound. A whine or a rapid clicking, you might say. I'm having difficulty figuring out where it's coming from but it has a peculiar characteristic - it goes away whenever I do something mildly taxing on the system.

So, for example, when I scroll a webpage very quickly in Firefox, the noise stops (briefly).

The only noise makers in my system (that I'm aware of) are the hard drive (suspended Samsung spinpoint), power supply (corsair 450w), and reserator. I'm a little afraid that it might be a capacitor though and my motherboard (Asus A7N8X-DLX) does have two capacitors that appear to have burst. Or at least they have a little gunk around the top. I've noticed no system instability or other problems that might be coming from these capacitors though.

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 5:21 pm

Hello,

I doubt that it is the capacitors making the noise. It might be the coils (aka chokes), however.

guises · Post by **guises** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 5:28 pm

All right. Is that something that I can fix?

If it were just broken capacitors, than I could swap out the motherboard for a new one. Pain in the butt, but it would fix the problem. If it's an intrinsic problem though, and not something that's broken, I'm not sure what to do.

guises · Post by **guises** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 5:36 pm

Could there be a software solution to this? I just booted into Windows and I'm not having the problem. At least not at the moment. I first noticed the problem yesterday, but I can't remember whether I was booted into Windows at the time.

I'll mention if it shows up in Windows - usually I use Linux.

guises · Post by **guises** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 4:10 pm

I'm going to resurrect this thread 'cause I never got the problem fixed and it's driving me nuts. It gets particularly bad when I suspend the computer.

Does anyone know how I can address this?

Update to my previous post: Yes, this has been happening in Windows too.

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Fri Nov 28, 2008 4:33 pm

I'd suspect the power supply. I've encountered a number of power supplies that produce the noise you describe at extremely low load ... which is why we started doing low-load testing in our reviews.

The problem can sometimes be solved by loading up the +5VSB line (perhaps with USB peripherals), or by wiring a resistor into the circuit if you are handy with electronics. Unfortunately, every system and every power supply is different, so it's impossible to ID the noise positively.

Not sure how many spare parts you have lying around, but if you're a Linux user, maybe you do. If you can, try swapping out the PSU and see if you can isolate the problem that way.

guises · Post by **guises** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:06 am

Well my MP3 player apparently isn't enough of a power drain to make a difference, if that is what's causing the problems.

I don't have another quiet power supply, and the sound would likely just get drowned out by a noisier one, but shorting the 5v line to ground seems like an easy test and an easy fix if it works out.

What size resistor would you recommend? Maybe I should just try a bunch and see what works.

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 1:30 pm

Note, you're not shorting +5V to ground, you're loading +5VSB (separate from regular +5V) with a resistor. Shorting any line to ground will kill the PSU or at a minimum activate the over current protection.

Most likely, your +5VSB line has a capacity between 2~3A, and you should only need a couple watts to load it up. A 10 Ohm resistor should draw half an amp or 2.5W ... I'd look for something in that range.

Come to think of it ... you could probably test all the lines using this trick ... a 10 Ohm resistor should draw 14.4W from 12V, 2.5W from 5V, and ~1W from 3.3V. Just make sure your resistor can dissipate 15W of heat if you're going to test +12V (or switch to a 20 Ohm resistor). You'll also want to make sure you look up the colour codes for the wires going into the ATX header so you know what line you're loading.

Good luck, and be careful!

bonestonne · Post by **bonestonne** » Sat Nov 29, 2008 3:02 pm

oddly enough, i have that same problem on a Thinkpad T22, except it disappears when i plug in headphones.

seeing as there's a terrible dirty audio output from my thinkpad, i hate using it to crank tunes though (but it beats a null output from my gateway).

can't say much about windows though, i never use windows on this.

maybe try the "foam inside choke" method and see if it stops?