z63a / w3v questions

Hey guys, just a few quick questions. I've owned my z63a for a month now and I love it, but just wondering:

1. It makes a high-pitched whirring/whizzing noise every few seconds and it indicates its "thinking" by the led, not very noticible unless its very quiet like if your trying to read and the laptop is on. Just curious as to what this is, and if it can be stopped?

2. Is there a way to disable the flashing blue light for the on button when the laptop is on, but the lid is closed?

3. Is there a way to re-program the short-cut buttons on the right side, say for example if I'm not using power4gear but want to make that button open up outlook instead.

Think thats everything, its mainly the whirring noise that's getting to me, not a big deal, just wondering if anyone else with a z63 or w3v has the same problem?

 

Does the high-pitched noise occur during normal use? Or when the notebook is suspended (when the lid is closed)? When I close lid of my Z63a, there's a faint high-pitched noise that starts and stops in sync with the blue LED going on and off. It was annoying me, so I listened more closely, and I realize that it's the power brick making the noise, not the notebook itself -- it goes away if I unplug the notebook when the lid is closed. I would also be very interested in disabling the flashing lights during suspend, as it seems to have something to do with the high-pitched noise.

Is this normal? It's not really noticable if there's some background noise, but when I'm in my office and trying to read it's extremely noticable to the point of being distracting. Any way to stop this, besides unplugging the notebook?

 

The hi pitch noise is common to pretty much most 915 chipsets and even others. It mainly occurs during scroll on websites transfering files ar anything user intensive but not everything. Now i dont hear the noise here but i belive thats what you are talking about. This is pretty common and is just normal voltage conversion. You can only hear this noise barely in a very quite room and its very low. A microwave in the next room would drown it out.

 

Eddie -- What about the noise that the power adapter makes when the notebook is plugged in and in standby? (see my post above) When I'm actually using the notebook, I don't notice any noises, but if I have the notebook plugged in and in standby on my desk, the noise that goes in and out as the LED blinks is really noticable.

 

I have seen power adaprers make noise but i am pretty sure that is abnormal. The z70va is pretty new so i havent seen this complaint yett. I know the original 65watt slim adapters are pretty much silent. If you have a 95 watt adapter i really have not paid much attention to it. I am guessing your still talking about the w3v/a series still so you should have a 65WATT adapter. Pard number adp-65 something like that. I would try a nw adapter. There is no noise on mine.

 

Thanks for the reply, but the problem is the noise occurs all the time, even if I've disconnected from the interent and am not doing anything with the laptop, not running any programs or anything.

 

I think it's coming from the hard drive.
This sort of "idle behaviour" is normal with some hard drive brands... there is/was a thread on it a while back, but I don't recall its name.

I wouldn't be totally worried... I think it's just the hard drive "maintenance"; I guess it COULD be annoying if you're always in a quiet room, but you shouldn't even hear it most of the time.

Hope this helps,
Sam

 

Well ofcourse the drive will have a mild audible noise resonating even louder in a completely silent room. I have not been in a silent room for years. My stereo system drowns out the drive noise when its off just from the noise comming from the capacitors. Different drives will produce different pitch but they all make noise. You can try a different brand maybee you just dont like the pitch,