SXPS 16- Speaker Rattle

No, the technician only replaced parts, nothing else... I tell you the problem I'm talking about is 100% hardware - you can literally hear some metal plates hitting each other...now it's 90% solved, but I still notice it sometimes. Technician told me to look for this issue and let him know if it was resolved, since he is coming back tomorrow.

But I don't know whether I should tell him that it's allright, or that he shall try again.

Now it's about as annoying that I probably wouldn't even care if it was like that from the beginning, but after experiencing this problem I'm overly sensitive :-(

 

So guys...Since I had a speaker rattling issue, I called dell and they sent a technician to come and fix this laptop. They replaced the palm rest and it still rattles, they found out it was the subwoofer, and the technician called dell, and dell offered to replace this laptop with a new one....so I got a new laptop with the same specs coming on its way, meanwhile, I can still hold onto this one....

 

Actually yes, the subwoofer causes the issue, but itself its not a problem. I tried playing different sounds with palmrest lifted above the body of the laptop and it solved the problem totally...

 

Any easy way to permanently fix this?

 

yes there might indeed be a cheap and easy way to fix that! i thought about covering the whole subwoofer with sticky heat resisting rubber pads... they shud fully absorb the vibration and thus the motherboard and cd drive or sd slot cant cause that ty rattling anymore...
but im not gonna do that now since my sxps will be replaced as soon as the ati hd5000 series is avalaible ;P
so im gonna save that idea up for later ;D

 

i actually cant get any sound on skype, otherwise speakers work fine when playing music/movies. Nor could I get people to hear me on skype. I tried to go through the audio settings on skype and nothing has worked. The same thing applies to msn messenger video conversations. There's no sound. Any ideas?

 

Actually skype works fine when I use headphones, but can't get the sound through the speakers

 

sorry for reviving a rather old-ish thread, but I managed to cure my rattling issues about 90%. The problem was that the subwoofer cone wasn't properly fixed, or the edges were not completely glued (?) down. What I did was apply a very thin strip of transparent tape to the edges where it was not tight. And voila...rattling solved! At least unless i push it to 100% volume. Of course, this is also with the 192000 Hz fix and SRS off.

EDIT: Later discovered that the problem was NOT the subwoofer at all. The vibrations from the subwoofer caused the metal near the cone to rattle. By tightening ALL the screws in the front part of the laptop, I have solved near 100% of the rattling problem. I can now enable SRS without crackling, which was previously impossible.

 

Hmm, interesting. It does seem to be rattling from the front right, around the expresscard slot. You just tightened the screws on the front?

 

If possible, could you please provide some pictures or a video of how to do this? Im sure those who have never opened up there laptops before would appreciate this (including me). Thanks

 

okay i'll try get some pictures out later

 

Thanks
+ rep if you can get them up here

 

okay, opened this thing for pictures. But i will not be opening it any more @@ my damn screwdriver is screwing (pun intended) the screw heads, damaging them slightly. And sorry for my shaky hands.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3387/19042010857.jpg
http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/2277/19042010860.jpg
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8140/19042010859.jpg

First picture is the bottom of the laptop, with all the screws circled in red that i tightened. The part actually causing the rattle is the black piece between the cone and the hard disk. I merely tightened the other screws for err...reassurance? reinforcement?

The other 2 pictures are also quite blurry, but they do show the P labeled screws that are to be tightened. They seem to be the main chassis screws.

 

I had my palmrest replaced (by a Dell technician) and since the replacement my speakers were rattling all the time. I thought I got bad speakers....anyway, I followed the procedure for replacing the palmrest from Dell's service manual, I removed it and put it back making sure that ALL the screws (including the ones melthd said) were tight and rattling only happens rarely at high volume and/or very poor quality audio sources.

The funny thing is that the Dell technician applied all his force on the back cover screws (I had hard time unscrewing them) but not on the palm rest screws which were extremely easy to unscrew.

The Service manual:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/sxl1645/en/sm/palmrest.htm#wp1038494

 

Hi, here is my story. I noticed the rattling in my laptop from the very beginning, especially during skype call ring. But when I and my friend had to replace our motherboards (long story) we use the warranty and report the rattling to the Dell. Technician replaced friends components first (motherboard, palmrest and the subwoofer). And tried to tight the screws and many of them were loosen, even those on the chassis of the HDD. Problem solved from 90%.

When repairing mine (the same components) we noticed that there are those heat rubbers on the old palmrest. So we put them onto the new subwoofer, optical drive and I do not remember where else. But the problem was worse ! Few weeks ago, when I had to have my display replaced (oh, my poor lapie :-D) the technician removed the palmrest and the subwoofer was glued to this palmrest due to the rubbers. So it was clear... Subwoofer was shaking with whole laptop because it was glued to the palmrest.

So I removed all these rubbers, pushed subwoofer as much down as I can, technician tighted all screws and problem solved from 95% I can say! Better sound than my friend´s laptop does. Best way to compare is a piano song, as someone has mentioned (my favourite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dPS-EHl-FE)

But we also noticed on my friend´s laptop that the subwoofer looses with time and hitting the palmrest and the rattling is here again... maybe glue the subwoofer... but will not try untill next opening of my laptop

 

Big thanks to the posters especially Melthd for providing a solution for the problem!

Cheers I will be trying soon

 

Lots of good info and pictures here...

I too had rattling/scratchy distortion on the right side which was especially noticeable with music with bass. I had my DVD drive replaced last weekend (which meant the disassembly of most of the laptop), the tech tightened everything down and i think even had to add in one missing screw
I didn't realize how much the right side had been rattling until i started to play a bunch of bass heavy music...this made a world of difference, now the bass is tight and 90% of the rattle is gone There must have been something very loose in there...

BUT at higher volumes, certain tones and voices are still another story, they seem to make the right side go crazy, lots of vibration, this seems to be quite noticeable with talking on skype...almost acts like in part a resonance issue? The vibration can be heard around the card reader in particular.

If you have a popping noise while adjusting the volume up and down...install the latest IDT Drivers, this solved that issue for me.

 

Bro, this is the solution to the rattling sound?

 

Did this fix it? I'm going to try.

 

I believed I found a solution to the rattling and cracking. Now this is a fix for the speaker and not if you have screws loose already. Although this does fix how much it rattles because you don't have distorted sounds getting fed into your sub. Basically the main problem is caused by two things first the creative sound blaster files cause distortion when used with the IDT drivers (you would think dell would have known this). Second the sub needs to be crossed over to cut out low frequencies ( this is not that important but if you want to eliminate all distortion you need to do this with separate software)

OK first thing to do is uninstall all the following:

IDT Audio Drivers
Sound Blaster X-Fi
Creative Audio FX ( think thats what is called)

Secondly restart the computer and let it install the default drivers. Once complete download the following IDT package here and install http://ftp.us.dell.com/audio/R280657.exe

After this is done you can enable SRS and everything should be clear and no bad distortion coming from the sub to cause rattling.

This step is optional but I found it tightened up the base and gave much clearer sound. I installed Breakaway audio enhancer from here Breakaway Audio Enhancer - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

If you want to use the SRS included with the IDT package then when installing select safe mode and choose that as your source.

This program will cut most of the low frequencies of the sub out so you don't get sounds that the speakers cant even handly which cause the distortion and in turn rattles everything around it.

These are my settings on breakaway the last two are the most important:
Range 100
Power 50
Speed 75
Bass Cut -50 (important)
Bass Shape -50 Low (important)


This is simply what i did to stop the rattling problem on my 1645. I orginally only had very little rattling coming from the cardslot beside the sub but now that the sound is clear and loud i barley here it although I still think one of these days i am going to open it up tighten some screws and maybe put foam spacers.

Let me know if this worked for anyone else.

 

I don't have the Creative or Sound Blaster drivers installed, but I will indeed give that breakaway program a shot!

 

Well after some more testing and another replacement of my sub woofer from dell i decided to play with the IDT equalizer and to my surprise i found simply putting the 125 hz to -4db and almost eliminating the 250 hz at -8 db and finally the 500hz at -3db it seems to have eliminated all distortion and now i feel i have quite a bit better quality of sound. I still have the Creative uninstalled and I am running without breakaway as it does seem to mess with the volume controls as stated above. So just letting others know if they are still having problems.

 

Sorry guys can anyone post these photos again I wanna get rid of the rattling its gone worse...