all PB owners with Panther installed try this!

[andyjamesnelson]

ok i have noticed this since i installed panther on my 1.25gig PB.

open finder in colunm view and highlight (not open) a sound file / video file / toast audio image file etc.

make sure that the "preview" tab is in its on postion.

now i have to be in a very quiet room to hear this but every time i do the above i hear a high pitched noise come from the PB.

as soon as i deselect the file and move to highlight a no audio / video file etc, the sound stops. if i go back to highlight an audio file the sound starts again and remains untill the audio / video file is deselected.

note this sound still comes from the PB even with the speakers muted.

the sound does not occur when using apps like itunes etc or over the speakers when playing audio or video.

the sound is only present when a such a file is highlighted in the finder / in colunm view / with preview on.

please try this and see if yours does the same, this as only been the case since i install panther, and i stress you have to be in a quiet room to hear this. andy.

[andyjamesnelson]

come on 50 + people have looked at this. surely one off you must have tried it? does the same happen to you?

[chibianh]

it's normal.. happens when ur doing other things too

[andyjamesnelson]

what do u mean its normal? its annoying thats for sure. well its annoying if your in a really quiet room anyway. i havent noticed it at other times, when else does it happen with your PB?

[andyjamesnelson]

and it didnt happen with jaguar installed! i check by rebooting the whole system and nope it dont happen in jaguar 10.2.8! so how is it normal?

[oldschool]

happens to me too...just deselect then.

[stoid]

I know that it makes that sound when accessing SSL secured websites as well, but I have never heard it while in the finder, even when performing the task you detailed.

It's just the hamster wheel squeaking a little bit, poor guy really is working hard in there.

[andyjamesnelson]

no i dont think its the same sound when going to secure sites in safari. thats a much louder squeek.

this sound is a high pitch sound that continues until the file is deselected.

i cannot think of a good reason for this to happen, panther seems to have brought alot of down-grades as well as up-grades.

[Powerbook G5]

I don't hear any noise while doing what you described.

[andyjamesnelson]

well you should try it a really quiet enviroment. i bet it happens. some of my freinds didnt notice at first but then realized. its a well annoying sound.

[Powerbook G5]

I did it in a silent room with my ear about 2 centimeters from my PowerBook. If there is a noise then either I am going deaf or there is something wrong with your PowerBook and not with them in general.

[Stelliform]

My TiBook does it. (Nov 2002 Edition)

It is a really high pitched noise. Similar to the pitch that a monitor makes when it doesn't have signal. I also noticed a slight pop when I clicked on the file.

But I don't find it particularly annoying. I am sure Apple will address it in a later update.

[Rower_CPU]

Mine does it too (15" Ti 1GHz), but it's not really that noticeable.

The Safari thing was much worse, IMO.

[MacDaddie0]

I've read some where that this screeeeech noise has to do with ATI's video chip.

I notice it on my Al 15", 17" and thinkpad A30p. (all have ATI's Radeon Mobility series)

Has quality of ATI gone sour yet?

[andyjamesnelson]

what i dont understand is that this niose is only present after installing panther! why would that be the case?

[Caspa]

Originally posted by MacDaddie0
I've read some where that this screeeeech noise has to do with ATI's video chip.

I notice it on my Al 15", 17" and thinkpad A30p. (all have ATI's Radeon Mobility series)

Has quality of ATI gone sour yet?

My 12" Rev A makes the sound too, which has a geforce in it... so its not just the ATI ones..

Very strange :confused:

[andyjamesnelson]

all you guys who are hearing this sound. did you hear it with jaguar installed? i didnt, as i said above i only noticed after installing jaguar, if some of you are running jaguar and panther please could your try it out on jag and see what if the sound is still present. andy.

[Marlon_JBT]

My 12" makes the sound too, but it's not bothering me. I have Jaguar 10.2.8 installed, too cheap to upgrade to Panther right now. :)

But is something this quiet really bothering you this much? I have to have my ear 1 cm away from my PowerBook to hear it! By the way, with my 12", it seems to come from the right palm rest.

Use Windows, that's much more annoying.

[amin]

doesn't bother me.

[GigaWire]

Some Mac owners... I mean really.:rolleyes:

[7on]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure PC laptops do the same thing... if you could hear the pitches over their fans.

[Powerbook G5]

You should go into my suitemates' room. They have a Gateway, Dell, and Toshiba laptop respectively and the collective heat along with the sound of all of those fans going on is insane. I walk in there and start sweating almost instantly and the Toshiba is the loudest, it sounds like a hair dryer on the highest setting almost all the time.

[Counterfit]

I just started hearing that sound this weekend when I set up my beige for hosting VNC. When I connect from the PB I get a loud squeek that only appears when my VNC client is idling (or beachballing, happens all too often on this ****ty network) and not updating the window.

yeah yeah, I know I brought the thread back to life :rolleyes:

[Edot]

The PowerMac dual G5 makes some weird high pitched squeaking noises too. Only happens when you start to do something a little intensive. The thing reminds me of being at the dentist every once in a while:D.

[RiseAgainst]

Maybee it's the speakers initializing for the preview of the sound in column view. I'm not sure if the preview function is avlible in Jaguar cause I really never used column view.

[illumin8]

Originally posted by MacDaddie0
I've read some where that this screeeeech noise has to do with ATI's video chip.

I notice it on my Al 15", 17" and thinkpad A30p. (all have ATI's Radeon Mobility series)

Has quality of ATI gone sour yet?
I have a 1.25 15" PowerBook too, and I can attest that you do hear high-pitched squeaks when performing certain actions. This is caused by EMI (electro magnetic interference).

It's not necessarily ATI's fault, or any single component manufacturer's fault. It's basically due to the fact that so many components are crammed in such a small space with close proximity to each other. If the video card is close to the audio circuitry for example electrical signals can "bleed" between components in the form of EMI. This is very common in the computer world. Try listening to the headphone jack on a cheap soundblaster card and you'll hear the hum from your power supply through it, even with no audio playing.

The thing is, this PowerBook is the first computer I've had that's quiet enough that I actually notice it. It's really not that big of a deal; I think I can live with it, but some people are perfectionists. I mean really, would you prefer that Apple kept the fans running all the time so it was drowned out?

I think the high-pitched SSL noise might be a dedicated crypto ASIC that is sitting particularly close to the audio chip. This probably increases the strength of the encryption by generating truly random numbers, it just has the side effect of creating a lot of EMI.

Any EE majors that want to agree/disagree or nitpick anything I just said?

[zelen0]

If your reply is going to say that to you it's not a problem, that the poster is too picky, or that one shouldn't care about it, then please don't bother replying, your post is not actually helping anyone.

That aside, my 17" PB, brand new, is making this noise as well in Panther. I've narrowed it down. if I type, the sound is interrupted, if the hard drive has activity the sound is interrupted. If I scroll through the dock, it's interrupted. It sounds like those hollywood sounds when the computer is working. The pitch changes frequencies from time to time by a whole note. It's producing at least 10 db of noise, i can hear it quite well in my office, which has about 30 people in it. I am a musician so for me, it is frustrating.

And considering it's like a beeping noise, where it goes and comes back every 1.5 seconds, it's even more annoying.

Does anyone have an actual solution?

[oldschool]

Originally posted by zelen0
If your reply is going to say that to you it's not a problem, that the poster is too picky, or that one shouldn't care about it, then please don't bother replying, your post is not actually helping anyone.

That aside, my 17" PB, brand new, is making this noise as well in Panther. I've narrowed it down. if I type, the sound is interrupted, if the hard drive has activity the sound is interrupted. If I scroll through the dock, it's interrupted. It sounds like those hollywood sounds when the computer is working. The pitch changes frequencies from time to time by a whole note. It's producing at least 10 db of noise, i can hear it quite well in my office, which has about 30 people in it. I am a musician so for me, it is frustrating.

And considering it's like a beeping noise, where it goes and comes back every 1.5 seconds, it's even more annoying.

Does anyone have an actual solution?

You described the problem perfectly. Sadly that's all i wanted to say...i have no solution or nothing intelligent to add....sorry

[zelen0]

I rebooted, it doesn't happen anymore, NOT YET. But I find after many sleep cycles it starts to occur again.

And after many sleep cycles, what also happens is when trying to reboot, the logout process is delayed due to some process called "mirror agent", which I have to force quit.

So maybe they're related. Check out your system and see what you find, do a top and see if it's running, try to reboot. etc.

[zroll1]

I completely disagree. This forum is here to help fellow mac users out. Whether it be by offering advice, providing some new info, or telling them there is nothing to worry about it is all helpful. It doesn't matter that some people agree or disagree. All that matters is that the poster gets all info possible to see if they have something to worry about or not.

As far as the problem at hand I have not experienced it even after trying the steps posted at the beginning. I heard no noises. Even if I did, it doesn't sound like a big problem if you have to be in a completely silent room to hear it. Not many people are going to be in that situation normally

[JonRaven]

I bought a Pboook G4 1.25 this past monday and i have this exact same problem happening. Only I have it worse then what you are describing. Are you all using the 3 or 2 pronged adapter cord? When I have the 2 pronged one attached it is much louder and even has cause my system to crash...if I use the three pronged plug on the box adapter it quiets it down a lot but is still there.... now guess what...I want you all to try unpluging your power altogether and run off your battery (laptop users only..sorry)

See what happens? Mine doesnt do it if it is on battery only. wierd huh.. I am thinking about taking my system back for a replacement. It may be livable...but heello..why should it have to be.

[zelen0]

If a human being states something bothers them, and they're looking for a solution, you telling them it shouldn't bother them is not helpful in anyway at all. If you can't see that, I really don't know what else to tell you.

It is an especially annoying problem when that "high pitched noise" starts beeping, every 1.5 seconds. It's like trying to read next to a beeping watching.

It is annoying to me, and to the poster. Thus we are looking for a solution.

If it's not annoying to you, fine, find another forum and help someone else.

[zroll1]

Well what can i say? I agree that this may be problem to some and not others. But I also think people can blow things out proportion. And for people to say that it doesn't sound bad or to just forget it can be helpful to people that are too picky. Now the problem the poster described in having to be in a silent room to hear the noise sounds a little picky. But the problem you have sounds like something different. Something that is probably a valid complaint.

[zelen0]

Most people who wish to focus on something are in a very quiet room.

Such as us musicians. Most musicians I know use Powerbooks.

and most are annoyed as heck at this problem. Let's not argue over how big of a problem this is? It's silly.. it's obviously a problem, telling someone they're too picky is not a good thing ... ever.

[MacRumorSkeptic]

I too have noticed this sound with my 17"PB. It only happens to me while it is charging. Once unplugged from my power cable it goes away.

[JonRaven]

I am a musician as well and ordered this quite expensive custom 1.25 pbok so I would have the pro tools powr I need and hearing these clicks and buzzing while i am charging sucks cause I like to have it plugged while I am recording so I dont need to worry about power but the buzzing happens when it is plugged in so I have to work off battery power in order to have silence... why the heck should we have to put up with that sort of issue....especially if I just bought it this week. I wonder whether I should send it back or is it an issue with all of them.

[Ionray]

I too have the noisy powerbook problem. One thing you can do, or at least it's worked for me, is that you can set your processor performance to "Reduced" I know this isn't ideal, but if your only surfing the web it's worth the lack of annoyance...
I'm going to call apple and see what they say.. since this only really started for me with the last update.

[UnclePaulie]

I get the same high-pitched noise on my Rev A 17" PowerBook. It's running 10.3.5 and it has an nvidia card in it, so it looks like it's not an ATI only issue. I'm not sure if I've seen this in older versions of OS X because I never tried it before.

[Grokgod]

oh yea, i hear it and its there , its not your imagination.

Its there and it wasnt before in Jaguar.

Its also there sometimes in Final cut.

There are a few other areas where it shows up, I am sure.

what can we do about it.

at this point nothing,

Getting Apple to do anything about really bad issues like bad LCD's etc,
is very difficult.

Its the old story about the guy that goes to see the doctor.

Guy: Doctor it hurts when i do this!
Doc: Don't do it!

All that said: I love quiet so this issue does bother me but,
I get over it with a bit of reality references.

A: There are no quieter computers than the Powerbooks
The Powermacs are airplanes or wind tunnels.
The past Ti PB's were constantly pushing air with loud fans.

I had tried making music with Powermacs in the past and it doesnt work unless they are in a closet.
* The best method.

[TIMEKILLER]

Happens in Dreamweaver and a bunch of other places. I agree that it's annoying. I play music when working in Dreamweaver 'cause it's so annoying...



check this out:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@67.WkEGa7ZvBe6.1@.689b8a67
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@67.WkEGa7ZvBe6.0@.68969726/13

Be nice if there were a real fix, nothing I've tried seems to help much.

[kaylee]

I don't have a powerbook, but a 12in 1Ghz G4 iBook - I tried what you said, and when i put my ear in close and really listened, I did notice a quiet high pitched sound (only while the file was selected). I have never noticed this before now, but it's not like I really ever have a quiet room - music is almost always playing, and there is always other environmental noises (people, cars, birds, dogs, etc).

[MacBandit]

My B/W G3 400 use to do this back with an early version of OS 9. It was a well enough known issue that Apple fixed it somehow in software with the later updates.

[AmigoMac]

It should be the graphics chip... I don't care, but why do you insist in bringing OLD threads back... Hey! It's a year old.

[hob]

Ok, I have a 12" 1GHz PB, and the only thing like this I noticed was when I first had the computer, using dock magnification when I ran my mouse along the dock there's be a little clicking sound... in time with the movement of the mouse, but it seems to have gone away recently...

And I always had 10.3.2+ on this so I can't comment on 10.2 issues...

Hob

[superbovine]

get over it

ok i have noticed this since i installed panther on my 1.25gig PB.

open finder in colunm view and highlight (not open) a sound file / video file / toast audio image file etc.

make sure that the "preview" tab is in its on postion.

now i have to be in a very quiet room to hear this but every time i do the above i hear a high pitched noise come from the PB.

as soon as i deselect the file and move to highlight a no audio / video file etc, the sound stops. if i go back to highlight an audio file the sound starts again and remains untill the audio / video file is deselected.

note this sound still comes from the PB even with the speakers muted.

the sound does not occur when using apps like itunes etc or over the speakers when playing audio or video.

the sound is only present when a such a file is highlighted in the finder / in colunm view / with preview on.

please try this and see if yours does the same, this as only been the case since i install panther, and i stress you have to be in a quiet room to hear this. andy.

[abc123]

is it the same sound that is made when i hide/unhide my dock?
it worried me when i first heard it but then i noticed that i only ever hear it when it is really late at night and very quiet.

[TIMEKILLER]

Superbovine: the noise is really irritating. Perhaps you don't work in Dreamweaver or do anything that triggers this noise, but for those of us who do it's a real pain in the ear, it's not just hard drive background noise. Apple should fix it. Along with a bunch of other problems that don't need to be gone into just now. If this were a Dell I'd sell it and buy a Toshiba, but you can't really do that with a Powerbook now can you? So Apple needs to fix it. I am hopeful that the next iteration of the Powerbook will have a lot of issues fixed, currently it's a great machine with some issues.

[whenpaulsparks]

its 99% likely that its because of noisy capacitors or other components on your motherboard. ALL laptops have problems with noisy components or caps. actually, someone i saw a while back recorded those noises and could break encryption from them. thats what the SSL noises are. the media noises are probably similar to that. my motherboard of my 2002 Ti 1 GHz makes noises all the time, the weirdest of which (which might be my superdrive) is that whenever a CD is in the drive, even after it has spun down and isn't using it, it makes a high pitched noise. once i remove the cd, no noise. but yeah, just deal with it. all laptops have problems like this.

[TIMEKILLER]

No, all laptops don't have problems like this. I have owned at least ten of them, and NONE had this problem or anything remotely as annoying. We're not talking little hard drive noises here, but a noise with a tone like screeching fingernails. It's bad. Agreed that laptops and all computers make noise, this noise is not anywhere near "normal." Open Dreamweaver in a low-noise room, start working. I think you'll find it annoying if your machine does it.

[atreju]

Every macintosh I had made this high pitch sound when using graphics card. Just every one since my first LC630 running Mac OS 7.1.2. I noticed it when using menus or clicking and holding the mouse button anywhere.
When I bought my Power Book 1400cs I always heard the sound when rendering with Bryce 2.
The more noticeable one came from the new G5. Yeah I notices it very much while hiding the dock. I think it's normal. Simply macs are so quiet that you can hear the buzzing from the graphics card. And the G5 is very quet.

[hob]

Every macintosh I had made this high pitch sound when using graphics card. Just every one since my first LC630 running Mac OS 7.1.2. I noticed it when using menus or clicking and holding the mouse button anywhere.
When I bought my Power Book 1400cs I always heard the sound when rendering with Bryce 2.
The more noticeable one came from the new G5. Yeah I notices it very much while hiding the dock. I think it's normal. Simply macs are so quiet that you can hear the buzzing from the graphics card. And the G5 is very quet.

At the bottom of this thread is a Google AdSense bar.

On it are adverts for Noise Cancellation devices...

Maybe Apple should read this thread...?

Just a thought

Hob

[Rod Rod]

Every macintosh I had made this high pitch sound when using graphics card. Just every one since my first LC630 running Mac OS 7.1.2. I noticed it when using menus or clicking and holding the mouse button anywhere.
When I bought my Power Book 1400cs I always heard the sound when rendering with Bryce 2.
The more noticeable one came from the new G5. Yeah I notices it very much while hiding the dock. I think it's normal. Simply macs are so quiet that you can hear the buzzing from the graphics card. And the G5 is very quet.

it's not just the graphics card. that same column view in Finder / preview screechy noise happens when you select an audio file.

I don't care, but why do you insist in bringing OLD threads back... Hey! It's a year old.

the thread is old, the problem is old, but the reason the thread is still alive is that the problem has not yet been solved.

btw I get this noise on my MDD 1.25GHz Power Mac G4, and I can hear it above the sound of the fans.

[SpookTheHamster]

I don't get a noise doing what you described, but whenever I use exposé to show all windows or the desktop I hear quite a noticeable noise.

[wwooden]

mine does it as well. I would never have noticed it if you hadn't said anything. It doesn't bother me because I usually have music or tv on so it gets drowned out.

[BrianKonarsMac]

apple has the most pathetically forgiving user-base around. apple could **** on you and you'd ask for seconds.

[maya]

The issue could well be with the following or in combination of:

1. Poor quality speakers.
2. Poor placement of speakers in the notebook placement.
3. Issues with Panther or its update.


The above issues might not affect all.

Since some have stated that they have not heard it with Jaguar since Jaguar might or might not have column preview option(s), it could well be a n audio bug in panther nothing more.

I use head phones so the problem have some have stated is of no concern to me.

[Quobobo]

There's quite a few users on the Apple discussion forums who say that this only happens when processor performance is set to Maximum. Same here, I don't get the sounds on automatic or normal, but it's really annoying nonetheless. I wish Apple would at least acknowledge it.