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theonlyrealj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
15
0
Running on XP I don't hear the whinning noise coming out of the MBP anymore. Anyone else?
 

4God

macrumors 68020
Apr 5, 2005
2,132
267
My Mac
Firmware update may have fixed this. How 'bout running under OSX? Does it
get noisey again?
 

oSIRus

macrumors newbie
Apr 6, 2006
2
0
4God said:
Firmware update may have fixed this. How 'bout running under OSX? Does it
get noisey again?

yep, same noise under OS X as it was before.
 

ekenny

macrumors regular
May 28, 2005
178
0
New York
I still have the whine after the firmware update as well. I heard on slasdot a few days ago that Apple was replacing the motherboards. Do you think they would still do it. Mine is the rev A mobo (W8608...)
 

MacBookJoePro

macrumors regular
Mar 10, 2006
197
0
Same here. After the update i do not hear the processor whine while in XP. When i do return to OSX, i heard it and its damn annoying. Didn't really realize it until i booted up XP. WEAK!!

-JOE
 

ITASOR

macrumors 601
Mar 20, 2005
4,398
3
Windows is running better on Macs than OS X is. This is awesome. :D


...kidding...
 

theonlyrealj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
15
0
ITASOR said:
Windows is running better on Macs than OS X is. This is awesome. :D


...kidding...

Funny comment! Here's my opinion of why the noise goes away...

In windows you can change the refresh rate of the screen, however, as far as I know Mac OS doesn't have this option. So, maybe the noise is related to a refresh rate issue, perhaps windows utilizes a different refresh rate (mine uses 60Hz) and this causes the noise to go away. Afterall, the noise is evidently coming from something like a resistor or converter in the upper left corner of the computer near the power plug, and also close to where all the wires that connect to the screen. Oh also, higher frequencies use more energy, so perhaps at a lower refresh rate a converter stops working so hard and the noise goes away.
 

neocell

macrumors 65816
May 23, 2005
1,073
2
Great White North
Could be completely wrong here, and please let me know if I am, but could it be because windows only uses one of the cores where OS X uses both :confused:
 

harveypooka

macrumors 65816
Feb 24, 2004
1,291
0
ITASOR said:
Windows is running better on Macs than OS X is. This is awesome.

I know you said you were kidding but there seems to be some interesting characteristics man! Whine disappears (who knows what this is, but something in MacOSX) and things (to me) seem...snappier.

As I said before: "[Apple] must be pretty pleased/confident with OSX at the mo as it's going to take some beating - what with BareFeats reporting that OpenGL rendering is faster and all."

Hmmmmm....
 

theonlyrealj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
15
0
mad jew said:
But they're LCDs. :confused:


Hmm, I didn't realize that refresh rate doesn't apply to LCD's. Good point. Nevertheless, it does beg the question: Is the noise related to the LCD? I think so.
 

mad jew

Moderator emeritus
Apr 3, 2004
32,191
9
Adelaide, Australia
neocell said:
Could be completely wrong here, and please let me know if I am, but could it be because windows only uses one of the cores where OS X uses both :confused:


Yeah good thinking. I wonder if people who have manually turned off a core in OSX get the whine. :)
 

theonlyrealj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
15
0
neocell said:
Could be completely wrong here, and please let me know if I am, but could it be because windows only uses one of the cores where OS X uses both :confused:

I just posted a thread that confirms that XP does indeed use both cores so that hypothesis must not be what's causing the noise.
 

joseph2166

macrumors 6502
Jan 11, 2006
258
5
surely it's just that windows is using more processor at when its just sitting there than Mac OSX does?
 

gekko513

macrumors 603
Oct 16, 2003
6,301
1
I thought the whine was a result of the processor going into power saving mode. My guess it that the power saving mode isn't supported in the default Win XP install.
 

theonlyrealj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Apr 5, 2006
15
0
Relationship between screen flicker and annoying whine

Hey everyone, I was looking on apple.com's discussion forums and found out that there may be a relationship between the screen flicking issue (read the link below) and the whine that we all loathe. Check it out for yourself (its near the bottom of the thread):

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=376277&tstart=0

Perhaps, this does suggest that there is a relationship between the screen and the whine as I posted before in this thread, rather than chiefly a processor issue.

Also, photo booth solves both the flicker and whine issue.
 

Morn

macrumors 6502
Oct 26, 2005
398
0
Just that windows power management isn't as efficient as OSX. So the CPU uses more power and the voltage regulator is under a different load so doesn't make the noise.
You'll notice that battery life is also far worse under XP.
 
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