Power Inverter Noise?

Ok, so a friend and myself both got Gateway FX Laptops this Sunday. Can't remember the model off hand, but it was the one BestBuy had the $100 off on.

Now both of our power inverters (The thing in the middle of the power cord) will make static noises as well as "squealing" that changes in frequency as the power draw of the laptop changes.

They don't always do it and will do it at different volumes at different times. I returned mine to best buy and got a new inverter. It does the same thing.


Checked my first one with a multi-meter and at least with no load on it, the voltage was very stable. But what I'm wondering is, is this something normal? Or are the inverters bad and Gateway just had a bad run of them? Since the voltage is stable I'm thinking it's the coils not being potted properly and vibrating. But it could be the caps are fine with no load.

Just makes me kind of worried and want to make sure it's not killing my laptop or anything like that. Thanks.

 

Mine squealed on the 6831 I had and also my 6860 adapter squeals as well so I guess its normal, as long as the voltage is stable I wouldn't worry about it.

 

my macbook pro power adapter does that... squealing, buzzing, noise... depends on how loud it is i guess... a couple of the MBP adapter that i received earlier is a bit loud.. and would not charge properly.

so... quiet noise is ok... relatively loud buzzing, squealing, beeping, noise is not ok.

 

is there any software that show in livetime the voltage that the power supply give ?

 

Damn... That worries me that that's normal. On a Desktop that would usually mean there was something not right.

Does it change sounds and all? Like right now mine kinda sounds like it's sizzling... At least it's not loud like the last one did right before I took it back. I could hear it clearly from like 5 feet away. This one I can barely hear at like 2.

Though I'm still thinking of thermal epoxying some aluminum finned ram heatsinks or other low profile finned aluminum sinks to the inverter as it can get pretty toasty...


And Waltz, software at least for desktops and voltage monitoring is horrible and is usually extremely inaccurate and I'd imagine it wouldn't be much different if there was software that did such for laptops.

 

Actually my adapter doesn't really squeal, its more of a hissing sound. But my laptop before these two (HP DV6000) actually squealed ITSELF

 

Yeah, ours are both more of a hissing noise than squealing as well. Not sure why I said squealing, guess it was the first thing that came to mind.