sony vaio E serie high pitch noise (whine)

Hello everyone,

5 days ago i received a new sony vaio vpceb3s1e with an intel core i5 460m. The problem is that whenever it runs on battery it produces this high pitch noise (whine) much like this.

YouTube - Sony Vaio High Pitched Sound / Whine

I also hear the whine (on a lower scale, but it's there) when im in a quiet environment and the laptop is on AC with a usb connection active
I searched the internet about the problem and found a few temporary fixes and information.

the sound gets worse if there is USB connected. If there is not, the sound is gone or barely hearable. I use my usb mouse alot tho, so this isn't really an option.

Use rm clock to get the cpu out of it's idle status (the whine, most of time occurs when the cpu is idle) with the cost of battery life.

I also read that disabling the C3/C6 support in the BIOS solves the problem, i don't know what the consequences are when i disable this so i haven't tried this yet.

As there is, to my knowledge, no fix available. What would be my (best) options?

 

I disabled the C3/C6 option. Ive had it disabled since the first days I got it, which was like a month ago.

 

Did u notice anything different? What exactly does C3/C6 option do?

 

I don't know the technical explanation for what it does.
Only thing I noticed different is the noise that was gone.

 

Disabling C3/C6 disables the CPU's power saving states. Doing this will make the CPU run at full throttle all the time, increasing power usage and heat.

 

Would U suggest disabling the c3/c6, or choose for an other option (e.g. returning the laptop to sony)

Thanks for the quick replies.

 

I'd suggest just putting up with the noise, to be honest. Returning the laptop probably won't help as it's not directly Sony's problem, it's an Intel issue. Can happen in any laptop from any manufacturer with an Intel CPU. Maybe get a bluetooth mouse so you don't have to have anything plugged into a USB port.

 

Thanks!
One more question, is it realistic to say there will be a fix for this problem in the near future? Or is it something Intel can't do anything about it.

 

It's been an issue for years, since the Core 2 Duo days, so I wouldn't expect a fix. It's not something that can just be magically fixed either, as the issue is capacitors/resistors that physically resonate - ie it's hardware.

 

Hey, could you tell me how to turn that C3/C6 off? When I go to the BIOS, I cannot find that option.

Thank you

 

You need the updated BIOS from Sony

 

Hi there
I just bought a EB3A as well and have encountered the same problem. Being an engineering technologist I could resist but to investigate

The best solution for this problem is to disable the C3/C6 support in the (severely limited) BIOS configurer. I believe you push F2 upon start up then scroll to the "advanced" window and disable C3/C6 support...

I spoke to sony support and they said it will not damage the system in any way.

What it does is limit the processore speed while in an idle, unplugged, or similar state. Somebody previously posted and said that disabling this function causes the CPU to run at full speed all the time when you do this. This is UNTRUE. I have tested this myself while running CPU-Z

After disabling C3/C6 support, this sound was reduced to something I would consider acceptable and the processor clock freq varied from it's "idle" speed of around 1.3GHz to it's full bore speed of 2.7GHz