brand new 4504LMi with high pitched whine

Here's a heads up for others who may be thinking of getting this model. I just got mine last week and right out of the box and when working in a quiet environment, I hear a high pitched whine that at times sounds like a clock beeping out the seconds.

I took it back to the store and after some investigation, including putting in another hard drive, it was determined that the "beep" is made when the hard drive is read. The whining noise comes from the hard drive as it spins and when the drive is read the noise is interupted and I hear it as a "beep". Very annoying.

I'd be interested in hearing from other 4500 owners if they have this problem, since Acer says it's a new one to them and if you are thinking of buying one, ask to test it in a very quiet room.

 

Does this sound come from the upper right corner of your notebook? If so, this seems to be a re-occuring issue with Pentium M based notebooks. I had this exact same issue with an HP NX7000 (which I returned because of this). It was diagnosed by HP engineers as a capacitor or resistor that was causing the whining/squeeling noise. Their solution was to put glue on top of the res/cap to deaden the noise. I don't know if it worked or not because I returned the unit after hearing their solution.

If this is a similar situation, there's a couple workarounds I've tried.

1. Change Power Management Settings to Notebook/Laptop (not Always On)
2. Connect any device to the USB port that's actually drawing power from the port (mouse, keyboard, USB drive). If you connect a USB printer, the printer must be on for the noise to go away

There's another possible workaround which another user mentioned, he said to goto Device Manager and disable Power Management for the USB ports. I don't know if this works or not since I already returned my notebook, but it's worth a try.

A few other Acer Pentium M notebook owners have this exact same issue, some started noticing the noise after reading the posts. Since this happens in multiple brands, it's most likely a design issue with all Pentium M based notebooks.

-Vb-

 

No, this noise is different

 

It's 3 weeks later and I'm without a computer and re-starting my search. Despite the dealer's claim that Acer would fix and return a unit within a couple of days, I still haven't received my computer.

The dealer ordered a new unit and right out of the box it too had the high pitched whine. I got my money back but I'm right back at the beginning of my search.

Depending upon your hearing, you might or might not hear the noise but if you are looking at this unit or any other Acer unit, take it into a quiet room and open a webpage that has flash display, such as Acer's own page. Listen and you may hear a noise that sounds like a clock beeping out the seconds, very annoying.

 

I experience exactly the high pitched sound with my new WMLi4502. It starts when I open a website that contains a flash. The solutions are to plugin any USB device or to switch the laptop into standby and start again then the high pitched sound is gone. I wasnt able to find any other fixes for that problem!

 

A usb device, that's a solution that I, the store and Acer did not try.
What I found is that the "flash" highlighted the problem so that I was able to persuade the store that I was not crazy and that there is a noise but I also heard it when I was not connected to the net. The best we could determine is the noise comes from the harddrive as it is being read.

Just as aside. Despite the claims by the store of Acer's ability to repair and return an unit within a couple of days, it's almost a month since I gave the unit to the store and as of yesterday, the unit has not been returned nor has the store heard from Acer as to it's findings. It's easy to talk the talk but harder to walk the walk.

I also found that when I reduced the brightness to about 80% the unit developed a very noticiable hum.

Glad that you found a solution and good luck with the unit.