Whining Components

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Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Mon Apr 07, 2008 6:21 am

AuraAllan wrote:I recently replaced my MX500 with a Deathadder, but my MX500 has never whined.

At work I use a MX518. That doesnt whine either.
Nor does any of the other MX510, MX518s we have at work (25-30 mice).
This is what I thought initially... but lift one up and put it to your ear - you'll hear the sound, and if your hearing is sharp and surroundings silent, you'll hear it ever after. No choice but to replace. :twisted:

(I thought my inverter had now started squealing whilst the display was on, but it was just the mouse.)

LG is noisy
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Post by LG is noisy » Wed Apr 23, 2008 10:16 am

wally wrote:
Edwood wrote:The LCD in the Wacom Cintiq 15x makes a high pitched noise as well. It is at a pretty low level at least. I'm guessing it's the inverter for the LCD's backlight.

-Ed
Right on the spot!

Today I modded my NSK-3300 rig with 3 Nexus fans (120 for case fan, 92 for PSU and another 92 for CPU) and replaced my noisy&hot Samsung SP2504C with a 80gB Seagate Momentus 5400.3 2.5". I was really stunned at first, but then noticed something weird:

The noisiest component of was my 20" LG l204wt LCD. Thanks to Edwood, I now know what's the problem. The less brightnes the more whine from inverter, as usually. That particular monitor is totally inaudible, when brightnes is set to 91 (of 100). Normally I use brightnes under 50.. So you can choose between tired eyes or ears..

Maybe some voltage mod for that backlight would solve the problem, not sure I'll do that.

I should maybe clarify, that that LG's whining is maybe too faint to notice for 'normal users'.
obviously my nickname is that for a reason ;)

liquidporkgun
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Post by liquidporkgun » Sun May 11, 2008 9:43 am

I'll add the Wacom Bamboo Fun to the list (whines horribly whenever it's on)

CountTyro
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Post by CountTyro » Thu May 15, 2008 9:31 am

liquidporkgun wrote:I'll add the Wacom Bamboo Fun to the list (whines horribly whenever it's on)
The regular Bamboo as well. I can hear how far from the surface the pen is and it's annoying to the point where I can't draw unless I listen to music at the same time.. >_<

realme
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Post by realme » Thu May 15, 2008 12:12 pm

Hi guys!

I had to register and come to tell you about the whining problem of my PSU kind of which I have never encountered. It is really driving me nuts - what on earth is happening inside of my computer when such irrelevant things may have an effect on your PSU?

I have the Thermaltake Toughpower 750W Cable Management PSU which is still quite new as my computer (bought in July 2007). It has worked nicely without a single whine until last monday I noticed that it started whining quite loud everytime I was scrolling a web page up and down with a wheel button of a mouse or arrow keys. First I thought the whining was coming from my Asus Geforce 8800 GTX graphics card but a closer check showed it was coming clearly from the PSU.

What makes it more interesting is that it happens only in Internet Explorer when the option "Use smooth scrolling" is set on but not, for example, in Firefox with the similar option. But there is more. It happens only in 64 bit Vista SP1 but not in 32 bit XP Pro SP2 (I have both OS's on the same computer). Are we now talking about a secret combination of several elements (PSU, graphics card, OS, drivers) which may results in whining PSU in certain circumstances and only god knows why there is no whining in XP but in Vista. :)

This "Use smooth scrolling" issue seems to be a well-known fact amongst many users on the Internet and it is funny to read how others are also struggling with IE and wheel mouses. Since when wheel mouses and arrow keys have started their rebel against PSUs by putting them whining?

Here are some similar user experiences I found from the Internet:

"This is a weird one. When scrolling in Internet Explorer, and only Internet Explorer (tested Notepad, MSWord, Opera, etc), a strange noise comes from inside my case (not from speakers), like a comibination of a whooshing and whirring noise. It is not coming from a fan, and it occurs only while the page is moving. I have a MSI GeForce FX5900, and an Intel 865 motherboard."

"If your using a mouse specifically a Microsoft mouse and you hear a strange noise when using the scroll wheel in Internet Explorer and you have a GeForceFX 5900 or an Ultra model, the fix is to turn off smooth scrolling in Internet options and the noise should disappear."

"This was discussed on another forum, it turned out to be the capacitors on certain graphics cards. To stop it happening you need to turn off "Smooth Scrolling". Under the "Internet Options" tab, Click "Advanced" then scroll a bit down and unselect "Use Smooth Scrolling" click Apply, and OK then your done. It seemed to fix alot of peoples problems, let me know if it fixed yours."

"Get Alienware to exchange the card. Its a problem with some cards and cannot be completely fixed by drivers. The problem is capacators on the card clicking/resonating when you scroll."

"One or two out of the large amount of people fixed the problem by switching PSUs, but for the most part it seems unfixable (I am currently using an Antec TruePower 430w). eVGA and Gainward have both given responses, eVGA just stating it 'has something to do with the voltage across the card when it does a blit...'"

zenzero-2001
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Samsung SM-2232BW annoying buzz / whine

Post by zenzero-2001 » Sat May 17, 2008 1:14 am

Hi,

I'm just posting this to add my Samsung SM-2232BW monitor to the whining / buzzing component list.

The buzzing starts when turning the brightness down to about 92-93. At 70 the buzzing reaches its peak and stays that way down to 0 brightness. I find the sound to be very irritating. The buzzing cannot be heard at 100 brightness, but this is headache inducingly bright!

I am sending the monitor back and I will not be getting another Samsung. I would not recommend this monitor for a quiet system.

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Post by kiwik » Mon May 19, 2008 12:45 pm

I had a DFI 790FX-T2RS and from the moment I hit the power button, the thing just whined a really high pitched scream from the voltage regulators. I sent it on RMA and the new one I got worked great. I heard there were bad batches of these boards sent out.

macq
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NEC LCD2470WNX buzzes

Post by macq » Thu May 22, 2008 8:10 pm

This monitor is quiet from 95%-100% brightness but has an annoying buzz at lower levels. My home office is very quiet and my quiet PC is about 8' away on the other side of a bookcase. And, my wife says I have the ears of a dog. So, I may be more sensitive than most but I cannot stand the hum. Otherwise it's great.

I guess from other threads I need to start looking for an LCD with an external power supply. Oh joy.

RaptorZX3
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Post by RaptorZX3 » Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:03 pm

i recently switched to a Corsair TX650W power supply, and the problem is mainly only on cold boot!

when booting up the computer, the power supply do some kind of high-pitched whine, and after a while, it gradually quiet down as it gets warmer in my computer.

everything seem to work fine though. voltages are fine

I even tried to "hold" the fan so it won't spin to see if it really come from the fan or inside the PSU, and it really come from the electronics inside it. So i suspect it might be coil whines and with the time they warm up and it makes the sound disappear.

so i don't know if i return it to the store and exchange it, if i would have the same problem because this particular PSU could be problematic on my board. But do you think this noise can be dangerous or something?

RaptorZX3
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Post by RaptorZX3 » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:09 am

went to the store, but now i have to wait, the guy told me "i have to get the OK from the boss before exchanging it", he have to test it with a load on, and check what it's doing.

tell me, is it possible that a power supply, any kind of quality it have, can whine because of a single component inside the computer?

my "whine" is real strange though, it whine on cold start only, when i use a components-heating software (like a 3D-heavy game or benchmark softwares...), when it gets hot enough it stops whining for all the time i have the computer on. Until i close it for the night, and when i come back to turn it on, it whines again on cold start...

the guy at the store tested my TX650W with a PSU tester (small device where you plug the PSU connectors in), powered it up and it doesn't whine. Maybe because it don't have a single load on it.

My S12 430W doesn't whine on cold start by the way...

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:06 pm

The Benq G2400W monitor has a horrible howl. I've had it for a week now, and it doesn't show signs of going away. It does, however, go away when I crank brightness up to full, but after that it tends to burn my eyes.

Guess I should've forked out that extra cash for an Eizo after all... :roll:

RaptorZX3
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Post by RaptorZX3 » Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:54 pm

i tend to stay away from strange brands like BenQ, or Acer...or any strange-name-brand (Samsung seem to be good for monitors)

Modo
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Post by Modo » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:45 am

RaptorZX3 wrote:i tend to stay away from strange brands like BenQ, or Acer...or any strange-name-brand (Samsung seem to be good for monitors)
Note that BenQ is not that strange in Europe. Gateway is, though. ;)

RaptorZX3
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Post by RaptorZX3 » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:14 am

well, BenQ, Gateway....2 brands i don't trust, even HP seem to have low-quality monitors with too-high response times...

ck8-04
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Post by ck8-04 » Sun Sep 28, 2008 7:26 pm

NEC LCD2090UXi

This monitor whines almost inaudibly from about 1m away, but when the background becomes white, the whine becomes more noticeable although not too irritating. Just about any other source of noise will drown out the whine.

Dell 2001FP

The whine is irritatingly noticeable when the brightness is set to 50, but when it is decreased or increased, the whine fades away.

Dell 2007FP (S-IPS version)

No noticeable whine at all. I've put my ear next to this thing in all sorts of situations and I have never heard a peep out of it.[/b]

themicah
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Post by themicah » Wed Oct 15, 2008 7:38 pm

I have a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H mobo that I think is producing a whine.

My system (Antec Sonata Designer case with Earthwatts 500W PSU and stock fans, AMD 4850e CPU with stock cooler and fan, 4GB Crucial RAM, WD GP 750GB, Samsung/Pioneer DVD drives) is otherwise remarkably quiet.

But when my speakers (built into my Viewsonic VX1962wm) are unmuted and hooked up to the mobo's integrated audio out (via the Viewsonic 1/8"-1/8" cable), the whine is annoying as heck. It seems to come and go, but I can't figure out what makes it come and go. I suppose it could be the stock AMD fan sending vibrations into the audio system. Or it might just be some sort of capacitor whine.

Is there anything I can do? Does anybody sell a cheap outboard digital-analog converter I can put between the mobo's SPDIF port and the speakers on the monitor? I'm not looking for audiophile sound (this is a budget system and I don't really use it for music), but I don't want this persistent whining either.

[edited to add:] It seems the whining is much more pronounced when I am viewing a page in Firefox that includes any sort of Flash. As soon as I close the page with Flash, the whining decreases significantly.

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Tue Nov 04, 2008 3:51 am

Scratch the previous bollocks: my new monitor's 'groan' is certainly still there, it's my tinnitus that's just gotten worse. Tried Mike's trick on my G2400W and it certainly proved to me once again that there is a noise present, and that it is a rather tiring one. Only goes away at 92 Brightness (Photo mode). Same with the old squealing Viewsonic, got so fed up sitting at the desk with that gosh-darn piercing sonuva...

Guess the upside about this hearing impairment is that soon I will be able to use all sorts of whining components without a hitch... :roll:

Edit: on the other hand Mike reported his G2400W going down in volume over time, so I guess mine might actually be a lot quieter than it was when I first set it up ("horrible howl"). It's just irritating to know that there would've been better, just as affordable choices out there.

ck8-04
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Post by ck8-04 » Fri Feb 06, 2009 7:17 am

I ditched my NEC LCD2090UXi for an HP LP2065. The panels are the same (S-IPS), but the HP is much quieter. There is a slight hum when I put my ear to the back of it, but it is inaudible under normal conditions. Finally, an S-IPS panel that is as close to silent as possible. The NEC was much better with respect to image quality related features, but I'll take silence over those extra features any day.

lb_felipe
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Post by lb_felipe » Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:28 am

Message posted in wrong local. I apologize.

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sat Jun 27, 2009 6:34 am

Fujitsu-Siemens laptop, model Pi 2530-11P. Power converter whines loudly when battery has been fully charged and machine sits at idle or off. Disappears if charge is drained or the machine gets some heavy exercise.

Bad for when concentrating on work at home, good for letting me know when the battery is full. Mixed blessing. :P

BrytaPlanka
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Post by BrytaPlanka » Sun Jul 26, 2009 4:46 am

Some years ago I had a squeal/whine problem when I:
* Moved mouse pointer
* Minimised/Maximixed windows
* HDD was working.
The sound was coming from my speakers and headhones.

After several months of futile attemts to solve the problem I found a really odd solution to the problem! I moved the handheld telephone charging unit to a diffrent location! :D The charging unit was placed on the window sill and the computer was placed on the floor directly below the window sill. It was about a half meter between them. Im not to good at making conclusions of these sort of things, but to me it seems like the magnetic field from the charging unit somehow was the cause, ecause the whining dissapeared when I moved the charging unit to the other side of the room, connected to the same electrical output.

Today I have encountered the other kind of squeal we are talking about in this thread.
This kind of squeal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4d23F2jehQ
And This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQa79pWC0OQ
This video above have lcated my problem. Its VSync (Vertical Sync). I cannot find anything about VSync anywhere in the settings of the newest ATI Catalyst Control Center for Windows 7.

My combination is from a Silverstone Nightjar ST30NF 300W PSU and a newly installed passive Passive Gigabyte Radeon HD4850
I think the squeal comes from the PSU only, but im not 100% sure on that yet. It only appears in some certain situations, like when im in the menu of some games. I never had any squealing/whine problems when I used the integrated graphic card on my motherboard (Asrock 4Core1333-FullHD) with this PSU, but I never tried starting these games then either, so I cannot be certain.

If its possible to force VSync to stay on at all times to reduce the noice somehow, the squealing may be reduced. If I manage to make silence the squealing with tweaking settings, ill report back in this thread.

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Sun Feb 28, 2010 4:39 am

Asus EAH5770 CuCore/2DI/1GD5. Moderate coil whine, very noticeable with ATITool artifact test.

Zirbmonkey
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GPU related whine

Post by Zirbmonkey » Tue Apr 13, 2010 9:25 am

EVGA X58 3xSLI
i7 920 @ 3.3GHz - Stock Voltage
Megahalems + Scythe PWM fan.
Zalman 850W PSU
Sapphire HD5870

I get a very tonal whine that corresponds with what's on screen. Here's a short list of actions that cause the whine:

Scrolling through web pages - Makes a gritty noise when scrolling though pages fast. Lower frequency, grainy sounding. This is at the windows desktop, with just a browser open (Firefox and Chrome). Scrolling up and down this forum page generates the sound.

Loading screens - It's the most noticeable in Crysis. Really high pitch and intense whine as the loading bar moves. Also does it in WoW, but the pitch is much lower. Oddly, the whining tends to be worse during a loading screen than while in the game.

3D games - Happens in nearly all 3D games. Different games have different degrees of whine.

Here's the puzzler. I play WoW in windowed mode so I can surf browsers on the side and watch hulu. After I log in and get to the character select screen, really bad whine. But if I click out of the WoW window and onto the desktop or a web browser or anything else, the whine immediately stops. Now the 3D character is still in the windowed WoW frame, still apparently rendering smooth and fine. I click back into WoW, selecting the game, and the whining starts back up as WoW becomes the active window. Click off to another window, and the whining stops... completely.

...

I can't tell exactly where the whine is coming from. I think it's coming from either the video card or perhaps the MB near the CPU. Both of which are in the same area. The CPU area is cramped by a giant cooler, and the video card is boxed in the standard factory shell. Obviously the whine is directly tied to my video card, so if it's not coming from the video card itself it's off the MB power coils feeding the PCI-e lane. Right?

Wibla
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Post by Wibla » Tue Apr 13, 2010 10:01 am

Might be the graphics card switching from 2D to 3D mode, and thus increasing clocks...

wouterr5
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Post by wouterr5 » Wed May 05, 2010 1:49 pm

Wow, it seems that graphics card are terrible with coil whine :shock:

Does anyone here have a modern graphics card (5750, 8800 gt or more powerful) that does NOT exhibit coil whine?

Das_Saunamies
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Post by Das_Saunamies » Wed May 05, 2010 10:56 pm

wouterr5 wrote:Wow, it seems that graphics card are terrible with coil whine :shock:

Does anyone here have a modern graphics card (5750, 8800 gt or more powerful) that does NOT exhibit coil whine?
My EVGA 8800 GTS 512 had none whatsoever. I had my head in the case, trying to listen for whining components, and couldn't hear anything but the fans, 3D stress or no.

Too bad Asus' fan control crapped out, stopped two case fans and fried that card over time. Then I got the Asus 5770, and that thing WHINES. The fan is also noisy, whereas the EVGA GeForce was quiet at all loads. At least the 5770 runs much cooler and draws less power than the 8800 GTS, so I can even play games like TF2 and FO3 without winding up the case fans to full blast.

Just an ordinary rabbit
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Re: Whining Components

Post by Just an ordinary rabbit » Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:01 am

The VRM toroids on my Asrock K10N78FullHD-hSLI mobo squeal a lot when the machine is idle. When folding@home runs they 'beep' regularly (about 1 beep per second). When under heavy load, they stop making the annoying high pitched noise, but if you listen very very carefully you can still hear them chattering away.

I tried putting a finger on each of the toroids individually but it had no effect on the sound, although it's definitely coming from the VRM area as I did the cardboard tube/stethoscope test.
One thing that I did notice is that I can't keep my finger on the coils for much longer than a couple of seconds.
Do you guys reckon its safe for them to be so hot?

I am currently trying over/under clocking and undervolting my CPU to see if I can get these things to shut up...

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Re: Whining Components

Post by MikeC » Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:38 am

Just an ordinary rabbit wrote:The VRM toroids on my Asrock K10N78FullHD-hSLI mobo squeal a lot when the machine is idle.....
One thing that I did notice is that I can't keep my finger on the coils for much longer than a couple of seconds. Do you guys reckon its safe for them to be so hot?
That's normal. MOSFETS and inductors regularly run really hot.

This might be worth trying to seal with hot glue. Depending on the exact type, it starts to gets soft above 160F -- that temp is often cited for general purpose glue sticks, but industrial or heavy duty stuff might stay harder to a higher temp.

You could also try a bit of silicone glue or seal like GE Silicone II seal or glue -- but make sure it is fully cured before powering up the board again. This stuff usually keeps its basic rubbery consistency to >400 deg F.

Just an ordinary rabbit
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Re: Whining Components

Post by Just an ordinary rabbit » Sun Mar 13, 2011 9:59 am

I might give some blu-tak a go first, I'd prefer to avoid sealing the entire coils in glue/silicon for fear of overheating them.
I'll post back when I get time to experiment some more.

Dr. Jim Pomatter
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Re: GPU related whine

Post by Dr. Jim Pomatter » Sat May 07, 2011 1:55 pm

I don't know if the 3 pages of discussion of specific components from 2005-2008 is really useful. I guess SPCR does not mind boring the snot out of newbies.

Info:
In music recording, you need to sample twice as fast as the highest frequency that you want to be able to reproduce. CD music only sample at 44khz, but most MP3s only sample at 32khz or even 22khz. Many people do not notice that every sound with a frequency above 11khz has been removed.

Most people (particularly old folks) don't hear high frequencies well. Young people and the (un) lucky can hear frequencies up to 20,000 Hz (20khz).
Zirbmonkey wrote: Scrolling through web pages - Makes a gritty noise when scrolling though pages fast[...]
Loading screens - It's the most noticeable in Crysis[...]
Both of these activities have a spots of higher load then idle.
Zirbmonkey wrote: Here's the puzzler. I play WoW in windowed mode so I can surf browsers on the side and watch hulu. After I log in and get to the character select screen, really bad whine. But if I click out of the WoW window and onto the desktop or a web browser or anything else, the whine immediately stops. Now the 3D character is still in the windowed WoW frame, still apparently rendering smooth and fine. I click back into WoW, selecting the game, and the whining starts back up as WoW becomes the active window. Click off to another window, and the whining stops... completely.
Again, this is load. In windowed mode, WoW drops the frame rate to 20 fps (AFAIR). In most systems, this means that the CPU and GPU drop into a lower-power state.
Zirbmonkey wrote: I can't tell exactly where the whine is coming from. I think it's coming from either the video card or perhaps the MB near the CPU. Both of which are in the same area. The CPU area is cramped by a giant cooler, and the video card is boxed in the standard factory shell. Obviously the whine is directly tied to my video card, so if it's not coming from the video card itself it's off the MB power coils feeding the PCI-e lane. Right?
Your power supply will be switching in the range of 50 kHz to 1 MHz. They will hit a transistor that switches voltage swing direction, and then charge a DC capacitor, etc. The power supply then has more switches to feed the specific lines to your system.

I expect that the coil noise can be from a component, or a set of components where their power supplies and power draws cause this 50kHz-1MHz noise to drop into the perceivable range.

If you read about CPU power supply phases work, you realize that not all of them are in use all of the time. They are turned on and off depending on load. The CPU can switch from one to the next in a fraction of a second.

So if you have a power supply that is running at 100kHz, and you have a CPU power supply that is hitting its fourth phase at 5kHz, you might hear a buzz at 20kHz due to the interaction of power supplies.

This could happen inside one component that produces multiple outputs. A main board produces CPU, RAM, and "South Bridge" voltages. A graphics card produces GPU and RAM voltages. A power supply produces 12v 5v 3.3v, -3.3v and -5v (AFAIR). With all the interactions, you might have a hard time hunting down the component(s) responsible.

As high-frequency noise does not travel far, I would solve this with distance. A long HDMI cable, USB audio, and a USB extender (or two) should put you 40 ft. from the noise.

Most facts are from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_range

Also try moving your computer to another direction/distance from your head:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization


EDIT: If Mike Chan and Gabriel Torres (of hardwaresecrets.com) had a weekend together with all their tools & toys, I bet they could make a good article about this process.

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