T61 Santa Rosa: Fixed CPU whine issue in T60?

Does anyone know if the Intel Core Duo/Core 2 Duo whine is still present in the T61 Santa Rosa Notebooks.

I notice it all the time with a T60 when on battery.

Jeff

 

I don't hear anything.

 

I'm going to add a poll to the thread to get more datapoints. For those who have heard the T60's or other Core 2 Duo laptops this sounds is a pretty annoying issue. I'd rather not have to use RMclock to muck with the CPU sleep states.

Jeff

 

Playmaker, Have you heard this sound before on other Core/Core 2 notebooks? Once you hear it its easy to reproduce. If you have an your T61 is not making the sound, thats the best news I've heard all day.

Jeff

 

My Core 2 Duo T60 doesn't make any wierd sounds.

 

Are you saying all T60 make this kinda sound?

 

Yes I've heard it on every T60 i've used. I've also heard it on every Dell Inspiron 1405, 1505, Dell 630, HP DV600, HP DV9000.

They all have this Intel issue.

Maybe it's because I'm young and have supersonic ears but it drives me crazy. I don't hear it on my new 15" Santa Rosa Macbook Pro

Jeff

 

Well, I don't hear anything strange.

 

Perhaps you have some canine blood.

:laugh: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^jeffsiler^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^:laugh:

 

OHH! THAT NOISE! I just really noticed that "whining" sound today when I had my notebook on battery(I very seldom do this), and I barely even noticed it. Only when the room got really quiet I could hear the sound, it is quite faint and really high pitched and its fairly quiet, and yes I do have awesome hearing as well. Guys, I bet more of you have this issue than you think. I surely didn't believe I had this issue until TODAY, and I have heard about this dilemma for awhile now. So open up your ears guys.

EDIT: I forgot to mention this, but when I heard this sound today, I thought it was the fan spinning really fast. Maybe its just the fan when on battery?

 

How can it be an issue if we can't hear it under the "normal" everyday condtions? :wub:

 

I do still get that noise, but ever since I got the new power manager driver and utility updates on the lenovo website, it's not as loud and less frequent. I have the t61

 

i have the same issue in the x61
only with the battery. it's not really a whine. it sounds like something is more like a low rumble. i am trying various rmclock settings to make it stop.

 

Yes I got the noise when I opened it while still under factory settings. It is fairly common among Intel Core 2 Duo laptops. However, I was able to find a "fix" for it. It stopped whining after I disabled CPU power state control in the BIOS. Apparently it sacrifices battery life but I have not experienced this as my battery still provides the same running time.

Maybe if you start a poll in the official T61 thread on thinkpad forums you might get some more people who experience the same thing.

 

Some people may not be able to hear it because of its pitch. By some people I mean older folks. As you get older you can't hear many pitches. An example of this is the infamous ring tone that students use at school, or my old high school at least. Everyone in the class could hear the high pitch ring but the teacher couldn't.

The laptop whine is very noticeable to me however, if you have this you will be able to notice it if you're not too old.

 

i've heard it twice now
both times on battery

it happens rarely

 

My t 61 didn't whine, but then again neither does my t 60.

But I don't use it on battery too much. They go directly from desk A to desk B.

 

What model thinkpad do you have? Is it a T61?

Jeff

 

Really depends on your hearing. Every laptop I have which has the Intel setup has this whine. This includes my T60, T61, T61p, X61, and N200. The only one that doesnt have it is the C100... but it might just be its rubbermaid plastic blocking any sound coming from within.

 

Have you much experience with RMclock? According to certain reports checking the "Run HLT command when OS is idle" checkbox will eliminate the whine at the sacrifice of battery life.

I ordered a T61 15.4" with a 9-cell battery. I'm pretty sure i'll be running with rmclock and i'm hoping to get 3 hours of battery life.

Jeff

 

It is a T60. Change the poll plz so that I can vote, and so that you can get better feedback.

Also, if you can hear the extremely high-pitched noise of a TV with no signal(static) and the volume all the way down(mute) , or if you can hear the high tone of your TV in "TV Video" mode, you will definitely be able to hear the whine, even though it may not be all that noticeable.

 

I don't have the whine but I noticed notebook is running at 65C when I awaken it from sleep mode. I thought that was high.

 

There is an easier way to do this. Using RMClock, uncheck "Enable PopUp mode" and check "Enable PopDown mode". It has to deal with the CPU's behavior to change power states. This has a much less impact on battery life and completely eliminates the noise

 

Right on, I will try this when my T61 arrives in a couple weeks. On a side note I was in Best Buy tonight and saw the T60 Widescreen for $999 on clearance. They had 5 sealed sitting in the cage. I almost considered cancelling my T61 order and just buying that one.

Jeff

 

Did they have a display model?
I've seen one at my local store - it was clearly the dimmest screen on the display shelf!

 

I think it's common in any laptops out there

 

I don't have that whine either and my hearing's pretty good.

 

Well its really up to you if you want to... lol you know what you *could* do is that if you can possibly get the serial #s off the boxes (I dont have my box so I dont remember if you can get the serial #s off the boxes without opening it) and find out which one has the "good parts" and then specifically request that one, haha.

 

What do you mean good parts?

Jeff

 

What window are these settings in? I just took a quick look and couldn't find them.

 

No obvious CPU whine on either T60 (T7200) or T61 (T7300).

BTW, for those who don't know what it is, go to youtube.com and search for "cpu whine" maybe?
There is a couple of very good clips with the sound emitting from the Dell machines.
I can't access the site from work.

 

My T7300 T61 has quite the pronounced whine on battery. Eliminating it was easy though.

In the BIOS: Config->Power->CPU Power Management : Disable

I haven't tested the impact on battery life yet, but it will obviously cost some. I may try RMClock later to eek out as much as possible.

 

I hear it in a very quiet room, but otherwise, with my fan or A/C or music or anything on, I can't hear it.

 

I have a T61 / T7500 and can clearly hear the "buzz" - first time I fired it up I found myself subconsciously irritated and finally said "what the hell is that?!" -- there you go.

Question: Disabling power save mode (Bios or RMClock)

1) anyone have a measure of how battery life is affected?

2) does this increase the heat generated?

thanks.

 

what is rmclock and how do you find it?.. i've been looking for that function using the search box but couldn't find it.

 

Yes, but only when I am running on battery and the CPU can throttle. On full performance (read max clocks), there is no whining.

 

I, too, have witnessed the noise in many Dell Inspiron laptops. Man, this whole thing is frustrating, though. I know that no laptop is perfect and they all have quirks, but for every 3-4 good things I hear about the Thinkpad T61, I hear 1 or 2 bad things about it. This is the first I've heard of this "whiny" noise, but its a bit disconcerting.

 

I hear a faint screeching sound. Don't know if it's from the CPU or Harddrive.

 

You guys hear the whine when your CPU is not being used much? My whine goes away in Vista's "Power Save" mode. In "Balance" or "Max Performance" I hear the whine. I know most people hear their whines when unplugged. I'm worried now kind of.

 

The problem would seem to affect all core 2 duo laptops. Mine makes a high pitched whine that is not that loud but of a frequency where it can be heard even with background noise. Putting the fan to full speed will not prevent me hearing it.

RM clock, enable HLT mode when OS idle, fixes the problem, as does, disable C4 state. Even with all these options enabled the computer still makes the noise, just quieter and put your ear to it and its definitely present!

Compared to some though mines quiet. If you check some forums people have uploaded Utube video's and there's sounds absolutely deafening!

 

My new T61 14.1" I got yesterday does this as well. It didn't do it yesterday but started today. I hope it goes away as I use my laptop almost all the time on battery. Like others have said using the AC adapter makes it go away. Odd because my toshiba does the exact opposite, whines while charging...

Has anyone contacted Lenovo about this issue? What do they say? Also on a side note my buzz/whine comes from the right speaker area. Does most of them come from the left site for everyone else?