I’m curious, how many people aware of these sounds. I have designed, etched, and built my own switching power supplies along with winding my own transformers. I am aware of the source of the noise. So, does anyone else hear these high frequency sounds regularly?
Even past 30 and with (mild) tinnitus, yeah my hearing is still great so I’m going to hear it. Light bulbs, chargers, the router etc.
Recently my computer’s PSU has started randomly buzzing a not-quite-high frequency. It could be age (it’s from 2019) though I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of interference because sometimes it won’t make any noise at all for days and I’m pretty sure my light bulb (an LED filament bulb which doesn’t have much in the way of components) seems to also make different pitches of buzzing that coordinates with how much my computer PSU will buzz.
Anyways it bothers me, so as soon as I post this I’m going to power-down and unplug my computer and switch to a different device for the next day or so.
The switching frequency is usually set by a small capacitor that is on the mains auxiliary power circuit. This may degrade depending on what kind of capacitor was used. There is also a small electrolytic capacitor that smooths the auxiliary power for the chip itself. If this capacitor degrades too much, it can cause some switching frequency stability issues too.
My current laptop supply sounds about like R2D2 when my GPU is running full tilt and I’m maxed out on 18 of 20 cores with AI.
My current laptop supply sounds about like R2D2 when my GPU is running full tilt and I’m maxed out on 18 of 20 cores with AI.
But that’s the thing it happens at idle, and I’ve tried fixing it by unplugging+discharging and letting it sit unpowered in my colder-than-average room for 5 hours or so and it was still happening when I booted back up. So time or some other random thing seems to be a bigger difference.
When I had it not happen for days, doing anything that made the fans ramp up didn’t cause it to happen (even full tilt as you said). In fact most of the time it’d start with nothing open other than the browser.
I thought it might’ve been dust (despite my PSU being the least dusty component) but after dusting it doesn’t seem to have been the issue.
Where can I get what you are having?
Good ears? the question is when, not where, and the answer is half a lifetime ago.
How do you consume those ears and what do I have to look out for if I want some product that you could consider good
Seriously, stop being an asshole. Coil whine is a well-documented behaviour that creates a loud, high pitched noise.
As coil whine is at the very limit of what human hearing can accomplish, it doesn’t take much until you’re unable to hear it. So you’re likely too old or went to too many concerts to be able to hear it.
How many concerts to I need to visit to fix this issue?
Even half an hour next to the PA without special ear plugs is enough to permanently harm your hearing.
That’s easy - so this is the solution OP is looking for
Cool whine ? Yup. They told me it would go away as I got older and lost range of hearing. Still waiting for that.
the moment I could bearly hear an old CRT when a younger friend winced in pain, I knew I was old
😎 Cool whine bro 😎
I used to hear all these sounds, but I’m 40 now so I don’t hear them anymore.
43 years old here. I can still hear it. I think I put about 10-15 chargers in the bin because of the noise. I also really hate those anti-mosquito ultrasone emittors people put in their yards. I can hear them whenever I walk around the neighborhood.
Do you remember when you could hear text messages over your speakers before getting the on-phone alert?
Yup, I remember that 😄
Freaking Nokias man… haha
And it was these speakers
They may not look very nice, but at least they didn’t sound very good.
47 here. Battery chargers for tools in the shop drive me insane. I used to work at a city run arena that had those hi pitched squeaky things to keep young people from gathering. I had to get transferred it was like torture.
I can’t hear it but I can often tell when it clicks over because it causes a spike in my tinnitus.
I have tennis and can still hear the noise. It’s weird. I have that background noise but I can still separate it from the other sounds around me. I actually went to do an audio test recently and had perfect hearing except I that I also hear extra things. Annoying as hell.
Yes. On a side note: do not buy hp printers they are really bad for their power supplies.
I will add this to the list of avoiding HP.
I used to hear this…back when I was in my 20s 😭
Same I used to be able to tell when my boss shorted his board by the sound of the power supply going into overregulation. Now it’s just eeeeee all the time.
My monitor has a power led that blinks when in stand by (and not receiving a signal.
And the coil whine between the onn/off-switching is audible.I used to hear tv tubes, power supplies and all sorts of high frequency noise. These days I mostly just hear tinnitus. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I did as a kid, but my tinnitus covers it up now.
Same. As a kid my hearing was sharp enough to hear the high pitched sound my neighbor’s tube TV made.
Now? 24/7 of this: https://youtu.be/lRxTBo7qxg8?si=32Vsxmux3p-y2Vow
I have tinnitus AND can hear my lightbulbs buzzing. Follow me for more tips!
It’s probably the type that’s brain side like mine. It’s not an ear thing but your brain has some reason for thinking you hear the ringing. But even so, I can still hear the slightest sounds. It’s bizarre because the ringing will be louder but I hear things that are quieter. It’s like having two sets of ears at once in those moments and is always unsettling.
^^eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I’m 56, wear earplugs at night, and still hear an intermittent electrical noise. It’s not a high-pitched whine, more like a low hum. I live in an apartment complex so it’s likely the wiring. I have hyperacusis.
I remember sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and start noticing/hearing a loud as fuck deep humming sound that seems to have some kind of hearthbeat if I just stand laying on bed doing nothing, I have lived in totally different places and I remember hearing the exactly same sound sometimes at night I just seem to notice that happens the same day I would go hiking to certain place, everytime I notice the sound at night it feels like the sound is leaking itself through the walls and reverbs like being inside something like a water pipe
Could you be hearing the Hum?
Edit. This article implies that people can’t hear it, but many people can, and, while it causes a mild annoyance with most of those that can hear it, it has caused severe disturbances in others.
Two of the best investments I’ve ever made were good quality PC fans and SSDs instead of HDDs. Now, the loudest noises I hear come from my tinnitus.
I play electric guitar a foot from my computer. I hear all kind of noises through my amplifier. Scolling with my wired mouse makes a noise through it. I also know my phone is goimg to ring before it does because the cell,signal makes a noise through mu computer speakers.
Curious. I thought that buzzing from cellphones was TDMA induced, which isn’t really a thing since… LTE, I think? I’m wondering why you still get this. Older phone, older network/infra…?
You’re correct that it’s not the high pitch sound from the old days. Now it’s more like a,low pitch hum. But it’s still there.
Cell phone incoming signals: dit dit dit…dit dit dit…dit dit dit…buzzzzzzzzzz…dit dit dit…buzzzzzz…ringtone.
Exactly what I was thinking hahahahhaha
I can hear coil whine from my PC’s graphics card, but that’s it.
Edit: Also our home stereo system (not the speakers) when it’s turned on.
I used the have a PC that ran Windows XP, and when I moved the mouse, sound was heard from the speakers. It probably had a cheap sound controller on the motherboard.
My PC fucked with me with the coil whines.
Playing Metro Exodus with raytracing and shit? No noise.
Playing Grid 2, released over a decade ago? “Let me play you the song of my people”
