My system whined: you will never guess why
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My system whined: you will never guess why
After upgrading my HD3850 to a 8800GT, I noticed my system was making an annoying whining type sound when I had my head turned at certain angles. Conveniently it was at every angle facing my desk. I spent an hour moving it to different parts of the desk, the floor, angling it parallel to my monitor - you name it, I tried it. So I gave up, thinking I'm going to have to try a HD3870 instead.
Later, I went to the system tray to close uTorrent but I accidently closed Trillian instead. Amazingly, the whining stopped when I did this. That's right, my instant messaging client was causing my system to whine. I never turn it off and it's set to start up on log-in. W. T. F.
Update: some online video sites also make it whine... seems like the integrated NIC or southbridge is the problem.
Later, I went to the system tray to close uTorrent but I accidently closed Trillian instead. Amazingly, the whining stopped when I did this. That's right, my instant messaging client was causing my system to whine. I never turn it off and it's set to start up on log-in. W. T. F.
Update: some online video sites also make it whine... seems like the integrated NIC or southbridge is the problem.
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Yeah... I can basically use Trillian as a switch to make it whine. I must be really sensitive to these things because no one else I know can hear it. Guess thats what happens when you hang around SPCR too long. I will try a discrete NIC later today.Das_Saunamies wrote:Does Trillian initiate sound? Don't know what else it would do to stress power coils or the like.
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I just disabled the onboard ethernet and installed a D-Link 10/100 NIC... problem persists.
What causes it:
-Trillian (even if it's just sitting idle in the background)
-downloading Usenet headers
-anything with Flash
-audio & video files (muted so it doesn't drown it out)
-even hovering over audio & video files sets it off
What doesn't:
-AIM
-BitTorrent traffic
It'd be funny if it wasn't annoying.
What causes it:
-Trillian (even if it's just sitting idle in the background)
-downloading Usenet headers
-anything with Flash
-audio & video files (muted so it doesn't drown it out)
-even hovering over audio & video files sets it off
What doesn't:
-AIM
-BitTorrent traffic
It'd be funny if it wasn't annoying.
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This kind of whining almost always comes from a power supply (either the main supply, or one of the VRMs on the motherboard or graphics card). It is typically load dependent, and most often happens at relatively low loads (but rarely at idle).
The root cause is that these supplies are switching power supplies, which means that they alternate between full voltage and zero voltage at a variable but usually high frequency, feeding through some inductors into a set of capacitors to smooth the output voltage. The noise you hear is when the on/off frequency chosen by the switcher corresponds to the physical resonance of one of the downstream parts (typically an inductor).
Sometimes you can get rid of the sound with some epoxy, but this is neither certain nor particularly easy.
The root cause is that these supplies are switching power supplies, which means that they alternate between full voltage and zero voltage at a variable but usually high frequency, feeding through some inductors into a set of capacitors to smooth the output voltage. The noise you hear is when the on/off frequency chosen by the switcher corresponds to the physical resonance of one of the downstream parts (typically an inductor).
Sometimes you can get rid of the sound with some epoxy, but this is neither certain nor particularly easy.
Getting a very similar noise from my 8800GT whenever I run any 3D-intensive game, but it's less of a whine. More of a high frequency whoosh. Very hard to describe ... it's far less annoying, however, than typical PSU coil whine.Wedge wrote:I just posted about this in another thread:
Every time I fire up the game Crysis Demo, my PC emits a high pitch. It happened after I installed a new 8800GT, so i believe it is the video card rather than some other component.
What's even weirder is that the fan controller on the card isn't involved: it's passively cooled with an AC Accelero S1.
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What he said.cmthomson wrote:This kind of whining almost always comes from a power supply (either the main supply, or one of the VRMs on the motherboard or graphics card). It is typically load dependent, and most often happens at relatively low loads (but rarely at idle).
The root cause is that these supplies are switching power supplies, which means that they alternate between full voltage and zero voltage at a variable but usually high frequency, feeding through some inductors into a set of capacitors to smooth the output voltage. The noise you hear is when the on/off frequency chosen by the switcher corresponds to the physical resonance of one of the downstream parts (typically an inductor).
Sometimes you can get rid of the sound with some epoxy, but this is neither certain nor particularly easy.
Oh, i have an interesting one too.
My screen, a Viewsonic VG712s has built in speakers. If i have those connected to the computer, whenever I move the mouse there's a sound, a bit like a slow rather quiet electrical shaver. If i use the same audio port with any other speakers, i get great audio. Feel free to speculate
I like the screen despite that though, as I don't care about the built-in speakers.
My screen, a Viewsonic VG712s has built in speakers. If i have those connected to the computer, whenever I move the mouse there's a sound, a bit like a slow rather quiet electrical shaver. If i use the same audio port with any other speakers, i get great audio. Feel free to speculate
I like the screen despite that though, as I don't care about the built-in speakers.