How much coil whine is too much?

On power saver and balanced, the coil whine is low enough that I can't hear it unless I put my ear next to the keyboard. On high power, it's enough to hear from sitting position. Not super loud or anything, but noticeable.

Now, effectively this doesn't bother me too much. The only time it's on high power is when it's fully charged, which is usually just when I'm gaming, and in those cases I have headphones on anyway.

Do you think this is enough to ask for repairs? I'm just worried they'll make it worse at this point.

 

Depends on the manufacturer - what laptop is it?

 

The way I see it and often used as a baseline with customers was the following.

1. reproduce the problem
2. disregard the noise if it could be heard by the customer any closer than sitting position (as you have done)
3. can either of us hear it with the laptop and user sat in the working positions (just your lap isn't enough as Dell may argue) those being, lap, desk and stand if used by you as you have to live with it!
4. If you can hear it a little in a silent room it is acceptable as it is part of the high frequency leaking out as unlike desktop chips hidden under a big CPU cooler, with an integrated heat spreader that masks about 75% of it, in a steel case (or ally, plastic.) with a lot of other generated noise such as the PSU, fans & hard drives you are going to hear a bit through a silent ultrabook
5. If the noise is nearly silent with average ambient noise around then it is better imo to avoid a motherboard swap due to the near full teardown stage and live with it as you will not notice it normally
6. If it is really bad and a new laptop ask for a new replacement, even refund and buy again if needs be (tech can be tossers) otherwise have the board swapped but have yours put back if the replacement is also bad.

Hope that helps

 

I might just keep it, then. Realistically it won't bother me that much.

 

I thought my laptop had mad coil whine but it was actually the charger = returned.

I'd replace/ return my unit if it was bugging me with weird noises.


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Based on your description and tolerance level, I'd keep it, particularly if you're otherwise happy with it. If you return it, odds are the replacement will have the same coil whine plus some other problem(s) your current machine doesn't have.

 

What if coil whine is only heard when my xps is plugged in adapter and set power mode to balanced/ high performance? Should i change it?

 

Your decision not ours m8.