HEL80 - annoying noise under Linux

Hello!

I have a very annoying problem when booting up Linux. I am running Gentoo with an 2.6.16-gentoo-r6 Kernel and the system bios is 105b.

Very often I get a high pitched noise when the system is idle that won't go away until the computer has something to do. At first I thought it might be an issue concerning speedstepping, but enabling speedstepping and other acpi functions yesterday didn't change anything.

Until now I didn't experience this issue on Windows XP.

Has anybody an idea how to solve this problem?

 

Have you tried a livedisk of another flavour of linux? Might be worth investigating so you can be sure if it is a hardware or software problem.

Also, where is the noise coming from?

 

Well I must admit - I haven't thought of that... I think I will try Ubuntu when I am home again...

It is quite hard to point out where the noise is coming from. When I hold my ear onto the keyboard I get the loudest impression about the area where "d" or "f" are located.

It is best described as a high tone like a humming mosquito or a constantly charging flashlight of a camera.

 

To be honest I'd hazard a guess and say it's your hardware and coincidental that it didn't happen in WinXP but happens in Linux.

High pitched sounds coming from electronic components are never a good thing. You might want to give your reseller a call and ask their advice.

 

Well I just checked Ubuntu 6.10 and had the Probem as well. But I also tried WinXP again and was able to enjoy silence there. There definitely was no annoying tone.

Afterward I booted Gentoo several times and had the impression that the problem always kicked in at the same point - somewhere between initialising acpi, pcmcia und usb...

perhaps this is could be a hint.

At the moment I am trying to create a bootable CD in order to upgrade the system Bios.

 

A day of reading user forums brought me closer to a solution - It indeed semms to be an Linux or bios issue...

Adding idle=poll as a kernel argument swept away the noise.

At the moment I do not really know what exactly this option does, but I have heared that it is not the best one conerning power saving...
But for now am am happy to be able to enjoy the silence

 

That just keeps the processor from reaching it's deepest available halt states... you honestly shouldn't see much difference in power saving..

What that should basically be telling you is that there is borderline activity on your system that keeps raising and lowering the sleep states, and it's doing it very quickly all the time. This can cause EM noise through the circuitry from the processor and the chipset which sometimes gets filtered into your audio on onboard systems.

 

Thanks for the explanation! Now I have a brief idea of what is going on - I think I will leave the option activated until I come across a better solution...

Speaking of the borderline activity, I cannot really rate this issue - is this something that happens once in a while or should that worry me? Or asked directly - should I be happy with the solution and just use the computer like this or is this a reasonable malfunction and I should contact my reseller?

 

Are you on battery power when you hear this noise? That sounds a lot like one of the two sounds discussed in the long thread about HEL80 noise. Undervolting the CPU when on battery eliminates the noise--and there shouldn't be any noise when on AC power (if we're talking about the same thing here).

 

Well, basically the lowest power state isn't really "entered" for a home user on a windows PC because they are so bloated with A/V software and all sorts of very active processes...
Linux is a different critter and actually handles putting threads to sleep when not needed so it's got a better chance at reaching these lower states.

I'd say be happy with the choice... Windows users can use things like RMclock (which disables those lower power states by default) for this type of tweaking..

Let me help you out by explaining lower power states because they can be confusing.. Scaling processors have the ability to go faster and slower by adjusting the voltage and FSB or multiplier (amd/Intel).
= Power saving advantages here.... Lowering voltage lowers the max watts available, and your power bill is based on watt usage (your battery also uses the watts)

This is NOT the same as the lowered power states we are talking about.. These lowered power states literally shut of sections of registers on the cpu's that aren't in use.. to give yourself a simple example.. the first lowered power state might put MMX or SSE to sleep, the final state might disable low level math operations.. (kinda like a math-co processor for older folk ) It's not literally this simple.. but that should give you an idea of what is going on..
= less draw at the current voltage (meaning fractionally less watts, but same potential / not much change at all for a battery)... not much savings.. but better then nothing.. mainly a "its there if you need it, but it's not mainstream / grandfathered technology"

 

@chrisyano

I must admit that I just read the first and last few pages of the long thread and it semmed to me that the matter discussed there was as different one...

At least during my last testruns I was on battery. The noise didn't stop when pluggin in the ac-adapter wihle running - I am not quite sure what happens when I start with the adapter applied... so it may be the same issue

@pyro9219

thanks again! I was really puzzled with the power saving and scaling functions of my cpu and didn't really see the differences between states and stepping. Your post gave me a good impression of what is going on

 

Yes, pyro is very good at explaining these things . We are very lucky to have him here in our Compal forum!

 

Glad to see my explanation helped you understand your technology better