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    M1530 Speaker Noise

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by gotz, Sep 4, 2008.

  1. gotz

    gotz Notebook Guru

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    Am I hearing things? You know that high pitched, only audible to a dog, type of noise that comes from older TV speakers??? It's kind of like a really high pitched, faint whine or the sound of crickets...I don't know how to explain it. Anyways, I decided to watch a movie on my laptop today, first time I really used to speakers for anything and I can hear that noise coming out of them. It gets really irritating because it is audible, not loud enough to distort the sound of the movie, but it's always there. I really don't know how to describe this sound...

    I tried playing the movie on multiple computers/speakers including my cousins M1530 and I didn't hear that noise at all. What could be causing this and should I inquire anything with Dell?
     
    gotz, Sep 4, 2008
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  2. 7oby

    7oby Notebook Evangelist

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    I did some experiments with this high pitched sound and recognized they are caused by frequent C3/C4 <-> C0 power management state changes. I'm convinced almost every notebook is affected and it's particularly hard to design a notebook such that those noises don't appear.

    solution a) prevent low power C3/C4 states
    It will slightly raise your power consumption, but it will really stop the noise and for the time you watch your movie it should be fine. Option 2,3,4 in section "ii) CPU/Chipset Whining Stop - choices and side effects" of
    http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=276661
    disable those low power states and will stop the noise. However the tool RMClock is a difficult one. It has some side effects and is not easy to handle.

    solution b) use HDMI
    Buy a TV with HDMI in and use audio through HDMI

    solution c) use bluetooth A2DP profile
    Buy a bluetooth stereo A2DP receiver such as this one:
    http://www.anycom.com/products/bluetooth_audio_video/bar_10_audio_receiver/?id=102&partno=CC3319
    The above one should work. Some don't. Those that don't work either loose the connection from time to time and cause interrupted audio. Or they buffer too much and are no longer lip sync. The audio is not in sync with the video.

    solution d) buy an external USB audio card
     
    7oby, Sep 5, 2008
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