Does ANYBODY make a notebook with no cpu whine????

I've researched laptops until I'm blue in the face, then finally plumped for one. Got it home, cpu whine. Exchanged the next day, same model - cpu whine. Exchanged for a third time the following day, again the same model - cpu whine. Swapped manufacturers, cpu whine. Swapped manufacturers again - cpu whine. I'm completely and utterly flabbergasted!

3 Toshibas
1 Sony
1 HP

All with Intel Core 2 Duo processors - is this the culprit?
Can anyone recommend a nice laptop, available in the UK, fast, 2GB RAM and a half-decent graphics card... that doesn't emit a high-pitched whine?

Thanks in advance!

 

Any notebook with a Core 2 Duo processor (Intel 945 Chipset) will make the whining noise. It's caused by the CPU going into the C3 and C4 sleep states. You would think that they would have thought about releasing it with such an annoying whine but it all boils down to $$ and not the consumer.

There are software fixes available such as RMclock and my whining noise fix that willl make it quiet down http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=90335

 

Incredible...

 

You could check out the Low voltage line of core 2 duo chips. I forget what models they are currently in though.

 

wow...this makes me very glad I have not installed the C2D cpu I just bought. I had not read about this being a CPU related thing...who knew!!????? thanks!

 

That noise is, unfortunately, very common in notebooks. I'd bet more systems are affected by it than aren't. It's a matter of who notices and/or is bothered by it and who isn't.

 

Mine is almost entierly silent.

 

intel ftl....

 

The cpu whine is easily covered by the fan noise. It is ever present in all new Core Duo systems due to the new cpu states introduced by intel to save power. MOSFETs are most likely to be the culprit for CPU whine

 

I also suffered from the dreaded CPU whine with my new HP Core 2 Duo/Vista laptop and after 3 replacement machines in 9 days I also got mad and resorted to finding the solution for myself....

Guess what...the Laptop manufacturers are well aware of this problem....
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...c=us&objectID=c00854665&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Its a SCANDAL !

The RMClock workaround mentioned elsewhere worked for me but is unsupported...hopefully shame will prevail and we will start getting supported fix's from the Vendors in question soon.....

 

A little late here, but why does MOSFET's cause CPU whine? Lots of MOSFET audio amps around...

 

I set up my newly-arrived HP Pavilion dv6275us yesterday afternoon. I heard what I thought was the CPU whine, but it wasn't a big deal. I've been working on it all this afternoon, and if what I hear is what everyone's talking about, I'm not bothered by it. Maybe that's the benefit of having old ears.

Bill

 

CPU whine in the C2D :S Ive never heard such a whine from mine?

The only noise I can hear is the CPU fan and the HDD :S

 

I would mind my Whining CPU, if the sound has the same frequency. But it just goes up and down.. Really annoying.. RMClock works for me, but battery life is shorter for 1h.. I can even turn on Bluetooth, but it has the same effect..

 

Over many laptops, the only ones that whine are models with dedicated video cards. My T60 whines, but only under odd hits at something intensive graphics wise. The Toshiba C2D I reviewed had zero whine, but that was also GMA950. My C100 also doesnt whine, but GMA900.

 

It would be much rather the design of the power supply than the actual CPU. Most likely buck regulators 'running dry'. That would mean the noise emits from the coils much rather than the FETs.

 

Thats strange.. What about Sony Vaio? It has GMA nad nVidia cards.. Mine whines no matter which card i use.. But only when the laptop is running on batteries... Why in WinXP didn't whine at all? Is it problem only in Vista?

 

i get that annoying whine noise but only when im running on battery. My laptop is an asus a6 (see sig). Ive heard this coming from a MBP on battery aswell and its a really annoying sound.

 

I don't hear that whine, and I barely hear the fan. Its a Z96J though.

 

Found something. I unclick the Run HLT command in rmclock, and activated bluetooth (that removes the sound too).. But look what CPU monitor in rmclock show. When I am in idle mode w/o bluetooth, the cpu is about 40% in use (in Windows task manager only 2-3%) and ntb whines. When the bluetooth is active, rmclock show 3% usage too, no whining..

Screenshot: two red marks show time, when I turned on and then off bluetooth

 

A bulletin from HP business I got a few months ago indicated the whine was a side-effect of processors changing their frequencies rapidly. You might want to lock the processor down to the lowest or highest frequency (via a power scheme or RMClock or NHC) and keep it there. It might help...

 

If that noise bothers you then you should hear my desktop go..sounds like a plane taking off

 

Nah i keep the cpu locked at the lowest multiplier and @ 25% but to no avail.

 

The only noises I hear are from my cpu fan and optical drive, when i'm using it. My laptop might be slow but at least it doesn't drive me insane!

 

the cpu whine occurs with gma950 notebooks as well. check out my review for the p1 ux...

the cpu whine is due to the cpu entering the c3 sleep state. that is why putting your notebook on high load or enabling hlt on rmclock gets rid of the whine. also, it explains what it is more audible when you are on battery power.

my fujitsu n3530 doesn't have any whine at all.

 

Whinig is gone.. Downgraded BIOS to R0096N0 on my Vaio SZ320, now it makes only one constant sound, which is acceptable and I wont hear it after 5min sitting at my laptop.. Only one thing remaining - LCD buzzing..

 

I never even knew there was such a thing.
Then again, you'll get used to it. Or, used to it enough to ignore it. My old desktop had a harddrive that sounded like a jackhammer and I still got used to it. I'm sure it's not a terribly loud noise, the more you try to listen for it the louder it'll seem and the more you'll get annoyed by it.

 

a small whining noise! come on stop complaining will ya?

 

Does anyone know if this occurs in laptops using a Santa Rosa processor yet?

 

well, i don't think everyone has a hold of one....but they also have a c3 sleep state, and the cpu architecture is really updated....so unless they actively tried to prevent this from happening, it is a good possibility that it will have it. i have even heard of pentium ms having this problem.

 

Is this an Intel only problem I have never heard any noise from my aspire 5102 turion X2 and as moon angel said the only noises I hear are from my optical drive when in use, other than that my notebook is silent I can't even hear the hard drive (unless I put my ear right next to the keyboard). I have no LCD buzzing or any of those weird noises some of you are reporting. When my processor switches between frequencies it is always completely silent...

 

I don't hear anything from my W3J with the C2D 1.66. Maybe my ears arn't that sensitive, but I could hear that high pitched ring tone that kids use which adults can't hear.

 

Odd. My laptop is quite silent. The only noise I can hear is the fan and for me to hear it, the whole place has to be quiet and I have to put my ear beside my laptop. Mine has a Pentium M BTW.

 

i don't think that if the problem was just "small" or lets say if you only had one or two poeple complaining about this "so called whine" from who knows where i don't think there would be a few whole forums topics on it. instead those one or two poeple could just get their comps. replaced and whalla problem fixed..this does not seem to be a "small" problem. some people to get lucky and don't get it though..i just hope that when it comes time to order my lappy i won't have that in whatever processor i choose. sorry just tryin to make my point..b/c i don't want to order one and have this problem that a lot of people seem to have. go watch some movie clips on this on youtube..some of those get really loud!

 

Yes, this is only Intel, and only Core2Duo at that. And it does affect Santa Rosa - I have it on my Dell (add another manufacturer to the growing list). If the rest of the laptop weren't so silent, I probably wouldn't notice it. It isn't constant, either - for some reason it stopped when I was reading this thread. Must've finished entering C3 sleep.

 

how about on Sager's or Compals' or alienware's haven't heard about any problem with them...yet..

 

My CPU doesn't make a noise. But then again it's a desktop CPU. The fan's on maxiumum are noticeable though.

 

Ok...lets clear some myths....

First my background...if you want to tread through this...

http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...rd.id=xps_port_genhdw&message.id=10341#M10341

I am one of the few Dell customers granted a new system and upgraded system after we (Dell and I) tried to tackle this in detail.

I went through 3 motherboards, 3 hard drives, 3 CPUs, 2 batteries and 2 DVDs and yes the RAM was changed. I worked with Dell on the phone for tons of hours and well, the tech had taken up residence at my home.

First, the problem has been around since the early 90's and is not restricted to C2D processors, although it is centered in that area. There are many complaints from all laptop makes, CPU sizes and types of processors(AMD/Intel).

Noone one has found a cure yet. Some are trying to say its ok though, Dell and HP specifically. They have both come out with Info papers saying the noise is within industry standards.

Noone knows what causes it. The only truth is its a bad mixture of a bunch of working parts. In my system, all the removed parts were tested elsewhere and worked fine.

The part the industry doesnt want to acknowledge is, within different systems, this sound becomes very loud. In mine that Im using right now, anyone can here the extreme high pitch 3 rooms away.

For anyone who doesnt know the sound, listen to it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErkhU2qK-fM&NR=1

For anyone interested in ideas, solutions and discussion, we have an active thread here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=153436

If anyone can ever find out the real solution, you would be a millionaire with all the PC manufacturers after you so they can claim ownership to the first guaranteed silent system.

Hate to hear this but like my effort??? Rep me!

 

I have a D630 arriving I HOPE today. I can guarantee if it has an obnoxious noise, it will be going right back, and I will be sorry I sold my HP nc6230 Pentium M as it had no problem being super quiet. What is next, NOISE FROM RAM??????

Dave

 

flamenko- so when you tested the parts did you put them all together on one computer.or did you use each part seperately one at a time? okay..for ex. did you take the RAM you bought and just replace it with the RAM currently in that computer to test it and do that with each part..one by one?

 

After listening to flamenko's youtube example, I do get the whining but it is very quiet. If you are 1.5 feet way, you won't hear it.

 

The parts removed from my system were sent to a different address where there guys were tryng them in another machine, as Im told. These guys, i spoke with at length on the phone on several occasions.

I was in a unique position during this process, in that, I was involved in trying to find the cause.

 

i have a theory...how about a fan being loose and just not being totally tightened or something else that is loose or not set properly when they put them together. that is what it sounded like when i watched that youtube video clip. Because it was a grinding, and whining which is the same thing that happened with one of our fans. i mean think of it..some people get batteries that are "wobbly" or whatever else that aren't totally tightened that some manufacturers may not care about or just don't notice. anyways it was just an idea.. may or may not be a good one..but just thought i would try to help

 

my vostro 1500 has zero whine

 

Use RMClock, goto management and check off "Run HLT Command when OS is idle". Works for me but task manager show 100% cpu all the time but its fake. Just use the cpu graph from RMClock

 

Wow... that CPU whine does seem like it would be incredibley annoying. Thankfully I've never heard anything like that on my notebook. I have read some places that always keeping it in high performance mode eliminates the whine because the CPU won't sleep. I hope you guys with the CPU whine can get rid of it.

 

This is my experience with Laptops with Core2Duo cpu's :

1 Toshiba -> whines
1 Packard Bell -> whines

So, accept this crap or what ? i think i could get uses to it....

 

no CPU whines from vostro 1400

 

I just experienced this horrible "whine" today at my university after checking out one of their gateway tablet PC's. The wine is HORRIBLE! 30 minutes after use it was driving me nuts. I had to check in the laptop and resorted to use one of their desktop pc's because i could not stand it. My laptop (in sig) does not make such an annoying whine, too bad i left it at home though.

Edit: I noticed that the wine occured when it was idle but whenever I would scroll the IE page for that one second it would stop. Though when I ran any type of program it would still whine

 

Thinkpad T61. The thing is whisper quiet even under load and Lenvovo is almost always running a discount special.