New E6410 and CPU Whine

So I have been reading about all this CPU whine stuff and my new E6410 definitely has this problem. Whenever I am on battery I notice a whine coming from the top left of the keyboard. I've tried the device manager settings for bluetooth to not allow the computer to put the device to sleep but it didn't work.

Does anyone else have this issue? What can I do to get it fixed? It's bad enough that I am considering sending this back to Dell if it doesn't get fixed.

 

From what I can tell, there's nothing you can do to fix it. Luckily my E6410 with i7 doesn't do it, but I've seen Lenovo's do the same thing. It's just luck of the draw.

 

There is no real solution to this problem. The only stopgap measures are to turn off SpeedStep and/or to run the computer in performance mode. The whine tends to occur at lower multipliers, which the computer will seek to maintain while on battery to conserve power. You could also try ear plugs or listening to your headphones/earphones while using the computer on battery

 

That really sucks. I don't mind losing a bit of time on battery to make the whining stop but I don't want to get like an hour out of my 6-cell. I get close to 3.5-4 hours on battery now. Anyone know what kind of response I will get from Dell if I call them? The notebook is pretty much perfect other than this silly whine!

 

No such whine here, i5 520m with nVidia graphics. It's just luck of the draw, unfortunately. My old M1530 had slight CPU whine, but my friend's who bought his the same week I did didn't.

 

The CPU doesn't whine. Open up the case and listen closely and you will see (or rather hear) that it is from current at a certain running through the motherboard's capacitors and inductors at a certain frequency (typically around the CPU, hence why people believe it's from the CPU). You can always try adding superglue or some sort of coating over these parts to dampen the sound.

 

sgoget4 is on the money with this answer. Many desktop motherboards had this same issue a few years ago. Some of the older electolytic capacitors used in these boards even popped open rendering the motherboards essentially useless. Since most of the higher end mb manufacturers for desktops have moved to a solid capacitor design the problem has been eliminated.

 

You can try and contact Dell Support to see if they can sort out the whine problem. My friend had the whine problem with his Latitude XT. It was sent back twice but since they couldn't figure it out so they opted to give him a replacement in the end. Though problem was the Latitude XT wasn't in production at the time so they just gave him a brand new Latitude XT2 model instead. You may be lucky and get a newer E6410 without the whine as some people say.

 

Thanks a lot for the input guys. If I take off the bottom cover can I access the capacitors like that? Or is there more to it? Will putting superglue or maybe using a bit of hot glue damage the system at all or is it low risk?

I can still send this back but I like it and since my wife has an E6400 we can use the same accessories so I don't want to get rid of it.

 

I would use a dollop of the PVA wood glue. It should be solid enough to dampen noise / vibration.

John