Latitude E6410 high-pitched sound: CPU whine

I'm extracting here post #485 (!) from the big fat stupid mega-thread "E6410 Owner's Thread" (why people keep shoving their posts there instead of starting specific threads on specific topics, I shall never understand; zobb's post below got lost in the sea of posts there and never got an answer). Anyway,

I have the same problem with my E6410, and because my place is relatively quiet, this high-pitch whining noise is annoying. I could also reproduce the OP's experience: if I load the CPU above 30% (I just click "Generate coins" in Bitcoin), the annoying CPU whine stops.

Is there another way to fix this annoying noise?

BTW, if anyone wants a recording of it, I can make one.

 

Some things whine. You can vary the loading but that's not a practical solution. I would call Dell and have them replace parts.

GK

 

It's something that plagues all Intel CPUs since the Core2s. I've seen, or heard, this problem in Core2s, Core2 Penryns, Core2Q, Core i5, and Core i7s so I don't think getting a replacement will make the noise go away. But if it's under warranty, I guess go for it? Either that or get a white noise generator .

 

I understand that the whine is caused by capacitors oscillating during CPU sleep states. They may be better fixed down on a replacement board. The whine seems to be less of a problem now than about 4 years ago.

John

 

Yeah, my ears are super sensitive and the whine used to drive me NUTS. The new laptops have it sometimes, I can hear it once and a while, but not nearly as much as the Core 2's.

I'd get the processor/system board swapped out...cant hurt.

If you have to ship the laptop it, I'd make a dot somewhere on the system board with a sharpie to make sure they swap it.

No way they'd hear it at a service center. They'd probably just ship it back 'No Problem Found.'

STRESS to the tech support guy to make a note stating that the system board/cpu MUST be replaced....

It amazes me that issues like this haven't been eliminated by now.

 

I have this issue, I contacted Dell (my computer is about a year old, decided to try to fix it now before school starts again), sent my computer away, wrote a really detailed note, had a recording of the whine, etc. Well, my computer is on its way back now, and the only fix they list is "KTPRC - Mechanical" which seems to be the heatsink. So I'm not optimistic.