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Andy Hall

On 2006-07-25 09:15:24 +0100, said:

Alex Threlfall wrote:
In article .com,
says...
My PC (Dell Precision 370, about 14 months old) is emitting a high
pitched tone; I'd say between 8 and 12 KHz but that is a guess; that
guess based on recall of acoustic-coupler modems. Loud enough to be
annoying; hardly loud enough do much about.

[...]
A transformer or other power supply part?

There may be a momentary slight modulation of the sound when the screen
changes, hence the initial suspicion of the screen.

[...]

Probably the PSU, i've had similar things happen to mine and it drove me
potty(er) too

When I change to another window or change significantly what is in the
currently displayed window, there is a noticable increase in volume
aabout a second or two afte the changer. I guess a graphics card
(Radion 128-MB something) does draw significant current. So could point
at power supply.

I'll report back as soon as I get hold of a stethoscope and do a peoper
investigation.

Thanks all,

Jon C.

Fans on graphics cards as supplied by the manufacturer are notoriously crap.
Typically they have sleeve bearings and squeaking is often the
precursor to complete failure. When that happens, the card is
typically a write off because the chip will normally overheat.
Often nowadays graphics card fan speeds are wound up and down according
to the temperature and that is related to graphics activity.

Equally, the CPU fan can do the same thing. Some of these also go up and down.

What I always do when building a new PC is to replace the supplied fans
with good quality ball bearing ones like Zalman etc. These cost
about £20 a go. Considering the cost of replacing motherboard,
memory, CPU, graphics card,.... this is a good investment.

If it isn't these, then the other likely candidate is the power supply.
Again the power load can cause squeaky sounds from the electronics of
the supply as the load varies.

So I would change the fans first, as a matter of course, and if that
doesn't address the problem, the PSU.