CF-30 strange noise

Hi everyone,

Today I finally installed a SSD in my toughbook. I booted from a live Linux usb to partition and
make my drive ready for Linux installation. I noticed I can hear some faint beep like noise at times.
If I'm correct SSD's don't make any noise, CF-30's don't have a fan or anything either. I can't
think of anything else being able of making noise in a CF-30. Can anyone please give me some hint
as to what it might be?

Thanks,

 

Only beeps I ever heard out of a CF-30 was a keyboard error....

 

:laugh: OK, thanks. I think I can bring the hard drive caddy out and boot from the usb drive again to see
If it's from the SSD. Sometimes circuits can make weird hight pitch noises

 

Like I said... I've been dealing with fully rugged Toughbooks since 2006... I never heard a peep out of them until I got a CF-31 with a fan.

 

Thanks, so it's not normal. I checked that it's not from SSD. So it might be the noise from LCD, like a bad inverter. It's
not easy to locate the source of noise though

 

Either on the inverter or the heating element of the LCD. Try to unplug the heater of the LCD and then observe. It is also a sign of your CCFL tube solder on the wires are almost near to give up or maybe your tube is on retirement stage. Does your lcd is dim, yellowish or redish in color. Overtime those solder spot burned up and brittle due to heat created by the tube. An instant movement or surge of power, it will flicker and it affect the inverter that's why it vibrate and create noise.


ohlip

 

Thanks ohlip, Yes my screen makes some noise, but it's not dim and the colors seem fine. Actually increasing the brightness makes the screen
less noisy. As you mentioned when at low brightness I can see some flickering as well.
I thought of opening up the screen, but as I watched a video on youtube doing that, it looked a bit complicated. I hope despite
the noise it goes strong, so that I don't have to open it soon.

 

Old mechanic trick......use a stick or dowel and hold it against the noise maker and tight against (not in :laugh your ear. Short piece of broom handle works good. :hi2:

 

broom.....broom. Isn't that Mazda's theme?

I've used the broom trick many times. Not saying I'm old, or a mechanic for that matter..
Loud radio also fixes strange unknown noises.

 

Thanks! Nice trick! I'll give it a shot

 

Shawn,
I had the part about the radio on there and deleted it. Brilliant minds think alike. LOL

 

So do our minds..

 

Thanks Shawn, made my night.

 

I have a new clue about the noise. Today I finally installed Arch Linux on my CF-30 and I notice that as I push keys on keyboard there is a very faint
high pitch noise coming out of my machine, the same kind of noise which can also be heard once in a while when I'm not touching the laptop. Any
thoughts on that?

 

Just an update: I disabled gps, wwan, bluetooth, modem and the ports that I don't usually use in bios mainly to reduce
unwanted power consumption, and apparently the faint beep noise is gone now. There is still the monitor noise but
I guess I have to live with that.
I'm kind of impressed with the battery life, given the fact that my cf-30 is a used unit, after 3-4 hours of use i still have 30-40% battery.
I'm using a minimal Arch Linux mostly without graphical desktop environment but still that's awesome, My Dell when new had only ~2 hours of battery life.
And I'm definitely happy I put an SSD in it, It'd do writes and reads in a flash

 

This is from a CF-19MK3 Reference Manual, but might be the same for your CF-30.

If high-frequency sound occurs around keyboard while using the computer, check the settings for the USB power saving function.
A standard user needs to enter an administrator password and click [OK].
. Set [USB selective suspend setting] to [Enabled].
A Click (Start) - [Control Panel] - [System and Security] - [Power Options].
B Click [Change plan settings] of the current power plan.
C In [Change settings for the plan], click [Change advanced power settings].
D In [Advanced settings], double-click [USB settings].
E Double-click the displayed [USB selective suspend setting].
F Change settings of [On battery] and [Plugged in] to [Enabled].
G Click [OK] and exit the [Advanced settings] screen.

Give it a shot, might work.

 

Thanks mklym! That's interesting a sounds similar to what I got. The problem is I don't have a windows installed and
I don't know if I can do anything similar under Linux or change settings in BIOS if applicable?

 

Check to power settings in the Linux flavor you are running and see if there is anything similar. Sadlmkr might be able to help you out with power settings in Linux.

 

Thanks, I'm using laptop-mode-tools in Linux which has a usb auto-suspend feature and it's enabled in my case. The faint beeps are
gone now, although I'm not quite sure if that was because of the usb auto-suspend or because I disabled some devices in BIOS (GPS,
WWAN, modem, bluetooth).
It's good to know that having this kind of high-frequency noise coming out of the laptop doesn't necessarily mean faulty hardware.
I wish fixing the LCD noise was as easy