P150SM - High-Pitched Whine in Headphones

Hey all. I recently purchased a P150SM from Mythlogic (Pollux 1613-Black). The experience has been great, and I intend to followup with a review sometime when my schedule smooths out a bit. Scrounging through these boards pointed me in the direction of picking up a Clevo, and so far I couldn't be happier.

Anywho, onto the reason for my post. I just found out today that my headphones were giving me some crazy feedback/whining noise when they were plugged in. It was a high pitched whine that plateaued at a frequency that would only change if I unplugged the laptop. It doesn't happen when I use the speakers, just when I plug something into the headphone jack. I've encountered this on my desktop before, so I did the normal fiddling with various Realtek and Windows inputs/microphone levels, trying different headphones, etc, and nothing worked.

I eventually stumbled upon the only solution I can find right now: turning my screen brightness all the way up. If I'm plugged in and have max brightness, my headphones work fine without any whine. If I turn the brightness down at all, the whine comes back (and will vary frequency based on the brightness level of the screen). It'll also come back if I unplug the laptop (because presumably it goes into power saving mode?).

I found another person having this problem as well, however no one had replied with any other fixes/suggestions.

Is there any fix that anyone knows of? I've not updated drivers yet, I'm using what's been installed by Mythlogic. I'm running Windows 8, Realtek 6.0.1.6870 and can provide full specs if need be. Do you guys think it's something driver/settings related, or would this be a full blown hardware issue? Is there perhaps a screw that got knocked loose? I'm leaning towards it being a software thing, since it's based on the screen brightness.

Thoughts or suggestions? Anything would be appreciated. I don't want to have to RMA it if I don't have to, and it's more fun if you fix problems yourself! Learning!

Dust

 

Looks like EM interference from the screen or even the psu. Try to shield the cables or anything linked with the screen. I don't rate your chances of success highly so would also contact myth prior to any shielding of cables etc.
Good luck.

 

Yeah, too many possible variables causing that in my opinion. More than welcome to give it a shot, but if it were I'd be contacting Myth to see if they can help sort it out.

 

Thanks for the replies. I've sent an email off to Myth to see what they say.

What I was using were a fairly cheap headset that came with some game, and some $20 Skullcandy ear buds. Weirdly, it was more noticeable in the ear buds, but maybe they have less shielding. Would USB headphones possibly work better without interference? I'm in the market to get a good pair of headphones. I've just not really looked around. Perhaps a bluetooth pair would work without interference, too? I'd imagine, since it seems the culprit is the audio out jack..

 

Bluetooth and USB should both work, basically anything that gets you away from using the audio jacks. If you're in the market anyway, probably not a bad thing to look into.

 

More sensitive headphones are likely to pick up the noise even more than a cheap headset.

 

With my P150EM I get the same thing, its a shame Clevo hasnt fixed that issue. It gets super bad with my GPU Turns on. But I can only hear it when there is no music playing.

You're going to have to live with it. Paying for a "Lower Priced" Gaming Laptop does sometimes show its faults but the positives help cover that up.


Its most likely interference nothing you can do about it.

 

Thanks for the replies, guys. Do you think a USB headset/headphones would help? Or will the whine come through on them, too?

 

USB should fix it. I use a potable headphone amp (Fiio E17) with my p150em and that completely solves the problem for me :thumbup:

 

Yes any discrete device that does not rely on the onboard sound will work.