(Possibly an exaggeration.) However I have never had a laptop make sounds I didn't understand. And, if the harddrive began making extra noises, I knew to devote all remaining session time to updating backups.
But my Inspiron 1721 makes weird noises. 1. Mystery Beep Although this one worries me, I have become accustomed to it. It does not repeat. It only occurs about once in three sessions. It has never occurred a second time in a session. It often occurs about an hour into a session but it has occurred after 12 hours. It first occurred about 2 years ago on a laptop about 3.5 years old. I have not noticed any associations. It occurs more often when I am typing away, but it has occurred when the laptop has been idle for long periods. It is definitely not on my media speakers. But I don't think there is an internal speaker? It is a high pitched beep. It is very consistent in pitch and duration--maybe 300 milliseconds in duration. As if from an internal speaker on some hardware like the old modem speakers. The frequency is pretty close to this. http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=114497 2. Burglar on Creaky Stairs. I assume this is my radiator and thermal tube to my sink/fan assembly. It is a jumble of casually spaced creaks and snap-ish noises. The first time I heard it, I spent a good while looking for broken plastic. It doesn't always happen. As a matter of fact, I haven't noticed much for a few months, winter. So, cooling system most likely. 3. Tiny Turbine A mild, small whir noise, rising in pitch like a tiny turbine powering up. " -r -ir -ir-ir -ir-ir-ir -ir-ir-ir-ir -ir-ir-ir-ir-ir "wh-ir It is a very faint sound. Impossible to hear in a cafe, for example. Duration is about 2 seconds. But repetition can be crazy, like 3 or 4 times per minute. Or not so crazy, but it always repeats. It may not happen with ever session. I haven't paid close enough attention. But I does not happen throughout the entirety of long sessions. It can come and go. I may not have noticed it until now because I just moved into a quiet place. But I can't be sure. I may have noticed it at first and dismissed it as a harddrive spinning up for some reason, then simply not noticed the repetition. It doesn't correlate with the CPU fan speed or the main fan speed. Actually, I thought it was a harddrive continually spinning up, which concerned me, and I tried to verify that for this post. (They are quiet, and insulated.) I started with the back of this large-ish laptop held to my ear for 5 minutes. Of course, it promptly ended a cycle of repetitions for that period. Things were complicated by the fact that this laptop has two harddrives. SAMSUNG HM250JI WDC WD5000BEVT-8 I got the back plate off and the main fan had stopped so I was only listening to the drives and, presumably, the CPU fan. One drive was noticeably quieter and cooler than the other but I think it, the WD with Debian on it, just runs that way. I have noticed it running cooler on thermal monitors. (They are both still obscured by their caddies.) In conclusion. I hope this computer is going to last me a long time because I am going to miss its characterisms when it is gone. At least, it has caused me to contemplate it all the more. -- Regards, Freeman _______________________________________________ D-community-offtopic mailing list [email protected] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic
