all PB owners with Panther installed try this!

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?
Click to expand...
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?
 
high pitched noise a real issue

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?
 
Re: high pitched noise a real issue

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?
Click to expand...

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

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
 
I have this exact same thing

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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
EXACTLY

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.
 
A solution... sort of.

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.
 
Same thing here

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.
 
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.
 
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).
 
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.
 
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.
 
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
 
get over it

andyjamesnelson said:
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.
Click to expand...
 
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.
 
Don't get over it, FIX it

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.
 
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.
 
Noise

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.
 
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.
 
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