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eggman · Sep 24, 2003, 12:38 PM

No, I'm not whining about my Dual G5... far from it... but now that other folks are getting theirs, I want to compare notes.

Everyone has noted that the G5s are quiet... myself included. What I haven't said is that there is some low level noise coming from my G5 which is very annoying - and seems to be coming from my 9600 video card.

It's low volume, but it's a very high pitched whine/chatter/hissing and seems related to some kinds of graphics activity. I generally have Dock Hiding on, and whenever I hide or show the dock, for example, I can hear this sound! It doesn't seem like any of the disk noises, and I wouldn't think that hiding the dock would hit the disk in any case. Marine Aquarium generates a *lot* of this noise.

So, am I the only one hearing this? I should note that the ATI 9600 does not have a GPU cooling fan, so this is not a graphics-board fan noise. In fact, I can't even begin to understand what could be making this sound!

denim · Sep 24, 2003, 01:45 PM

I get some of that from my G3 with Radeon card. I don't know what can be done about it. I know the fan on my Radeon card makes some noise, but I've not tried to do anything about it.

osxisfun · Sep 24, 2003, 02:20 PM

i hear something similar when i owned a 667 powerbook g4.

try this test:

open a web page that is really "long" like cnn.com

then open the window to the max height of your monitor

then "scroll' the page up and down

do you here the sound?

Spliffdaddy · Sep 24, 2003, 02:33 PM

I had a similar experience with a peecee I built. Scrolling pages or moving stuff around would create a high-pitched whine that exactly mimicked the mouse movement. I finally decided that the source was related to harmonics generated by power supply components on the motherboard.

Disable any power-saving or CPU-throttling functions and see if the noise goes away. Also try putting the CPU under 100% load to see if the noise goes away. I have a hunch about something...

dli537 · Sep 24, 2003, 04:07 PM

Originally posted by eggman:
No, I'm not whining about my Dual G5... far from it... but now that other folks are getting theirs, I want to compare notes.

Everyone has noted that the G5s are quiet... myself included. What I haven't said is that there is some low level noise coming from my G5 which is very annoying - and seems to be coming from my 9600 video card.

It's low volume, but it's a very high pitched whine/chatter/hissing and seems related to some kinds of graphics activity. I generally have Dock Hiding on, and whenever I hide or show the dock, for example, I can hear this sound! It doesn't seem like any of the disk noises, and I wouldn't think that hiding the dock would hit the disk in any case. Marine Aquarium generates a *lot* of this noise.

So, am I the only one hearing this? I should note that the ATI 9600 does not have a GPU cooling fan, so this is not a graphics-board fan noise. In fact, I can't even begin to understand what could be making this sound!

Just got the dual G5. I have the same problem. Whenever I scroll through the icons in the dock, I would hear the sound. But, I don't think it's the graphic card though. I tried to find the source of this high pitch sound and it seemed to come from the hard drive. Anyway, it's still a beautiful machine.

Hydra · 04:15 PM

I have a Radeon 9800 in a dual G5 and I can hear an icrease in fan noise whenever I do graphics intensive things but I don't really hear what you are hearing. I think the fans in the middle section of the computer increase as well to cool the PCI section as opposed to the fans for just the cpu's themselves (all these fans get confusing - I think if the G5 wasn't so heavy it could fly). The 9800 has a fan, the 9600 doesn't then? I would think the 9800 should be louder then.

The one thing I wonder about it this: I have headphones hooked up all the time but only have them on part of the time. Is the noise possibly the speaker and or your external speakers hissing from some sort of electrical interference akin to having a bad ground on a car stereo. Could you disable the sound and see?

-Jerry C.

Link · Sep 24, 2003, 04:19 PM

Could possibly be the card.. boy that thing must run quiet if you can hear that sort of sound...

On the same sense of annoyance my monitor makes this audible *ZAP* sound everytime the screen goes black.

no1allowed · Sep 24, 2003, 09:55 PM

Most of the time its a fan. The electric motor sometimes gives off high pitch squeal, unless it's the fan bearings. You can go down to Radio Shack and pick up one or two of those ferrite snap-ons that go over power cords. Put one on the monitor power cort and one on the external amplifier's power supply (for your speakers). HTH

jamaica · Sep 24, 2003, 10:47 PM

I definitely can confirm the whine when you have with dock hiding on and move the mouse over it to unhide/hide it. 100% consistent.

All in all, if thats all we find wrong with a brand new machine/architecture, we should be thankful.

------

Dual 2 Ghz
ATI Radeon 9600
1.5G RAM
2-160GB Drives

sith33 · Sep 24, 2003, 11:05 PM

My flat panel imac makes that sound too. Especially noticable with progress bars and such.

*shrug*

It started with Jagwire / QE

osxisfun · Sep 25, 2003, 01:09 AM

its the video card. evidently windows machines with the same card do the same...

blueshift · Sep 25, 2003, 02:50 AM

I have the same sound...but i think it's the hard drive.

-Andrew

Magic Genie · Sep 25, 2003, 03:02 AM

When my TV made that noise I had to relieve some pressure that was on some of the elctronics by shifting the case around.

CLick to see 150 pics of me opening my new G5 and maxing out the ram to make you laugh or cry.

cambro · Sep 25, 2003, 08:24 AM

This is commonly noticed in Powerbooks, and the PB forum is full of comments on this.

Scrolling in Safari, and many other movements on the screen (including the little smily actions in MacNN!!) are accompanied by screetching, whining, whatever. I notice it on my Ghz Ti. The consensus seems to be that it is QE and the graphics card.

eggman · Sep 25, 2003, 06:21 PM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
i hear something similar when i owned a 667 powerbook g4.

try this test:

open a web page that is really "long" like cnn.com

then open the window to the max height of your monitor

then "scroll' the page up and down

do you here the sound?

Yep.

eggman · Sep 25, 2003, 06:25 PM

Originally posted by blueshift:
I have the same sound...but i think it's the hard drive.

I think I pretty much eliminated the hard drive as the source of the sound by specifying that it happens when I just show and hide the dock. Every time.

I'd expect that even if it needed to hit the disk the first time to do that (which I'd doubt) that info would be cached on subsequent accesses... but it happens every single time.

eggman · Sep 25, 2003, 06:26 PM

Originally posted by osxisfun:
its the video card. evidently windows machines with the same card do the same...

Do you have any links to back that up? I've looked for 'em!

eggman · Sep 25, 2003, 06:27 PM

Originally posted by jamaica:
I definitely can confirm the whine when you have with dock hiding on and move the mouse over it to unhide/hide it. 100% consistent.

All in all, if thats all we find wrong with a brand new machine/architecture, we should be thankful.

Agreed!

So much for "don't ever get Rev A machines from Apple..."

eggman · Sep 25, 2003, 06:28 PM

Originally posted by Link:
Could possibly be the card.. boy that thing must run quiet if you can hear that sort of sound...

Yes, it does run quiet...

And also, I expect that on a standard PC enclosure, a sound like this would be muffled. But when you've got a system as ventilated as this one, it's pretty acoustically transparent!

Ruthless · Sep 25, 2003, 09:29 PM

This might be a dumb question, but has anyone verified if this sound is coming from the speakers?

Try unplugging your speakers and see if it still happens. Turning them down may not be enough if this is RF (or some type of signal) from the video card.

If it's determined this is the cause, a simple filter from Radio Shack may help. Just an idea.

CorneredBeast · Sep 25, 2003, 11:44 PM

I have the noise on my dual as well. It's definitely not emanating from the speakers, and I've noticed the same sound when there's a lot of traffic crossing the ethernet interface (but no noise when using AE).

Other than that, I've been completely happy with the G5 - and this is just a very minor annoyance.

saru boy · Sep 26, 2003, 12:26 AM

Originally posted by Magic Genie:
When my TV made that noise I had to relieve some pressure that was on some of the elctronics by shifting the case around.

CLick to see 150 pics of me opening my new G5 and maxing out the ram to make you laugh or cry.

That was awesome...btw, what kind of RAM was that?

pdovinh · Sep 26, 2003, 01:13 AM

I believe that the high pitch sounds and hissings that you are hearing come from the electrolytic capacitors.

These sounds may vary 1) as the electrolytic capacitors accumulate and discharge electrons, 2) increase or decrease in temperature, 3) aging, 4) variation or fluctuation of current, 5) quality of built. There may be many other reasons. High quality electrolytic capacitors make less noise or no noise at all when compared to those of lower quality. But there are lower quality capacitors that do not make any noise whatsoever!

Hear is the test (pun intended): Take a small round rod, say a chopstick, put the larger end directly to your ear opening as using a Q-Tip (careful not to rupture the eardrum), and put the other end directly against each component on the PCB or the video board. You will be able to hear clearly which component may be making the sound. Try it against the fan housings or the hard drive.

Of course, I may be wrong, but try it anyway...and then post....what fun...

eggman · Sep 26, 2003, 01:26 AM

Originally posted by pdovinh:
I believe that the high pitch sounds and hissings that you are hearing come from the electrolytic capacitors.

I haven't done this test (I never put anything in my ear smaller than my elbow), but an EE friend of mine looked at the system and suggested that the noise was characteristic of inductors - comprising an on-board transformer.

pdovinh · Sep 26, 2003, 02:31 AM

huhmmm...

I think inductors generate low frequency hummings. But old age makes me forget and I may be wrong again.

Anyway, I used to service Mac computers in the 80's and replaced a bunch of flyback transformers and capacitors on the power supply boards of Mac+'s. Apple required that the power supply boards be pulled, sent back to them, and only Apple-refurbished boards re-installed. Often not so and 3rd party kits of flyback transformers and capacitors were bought and performed component repair and replacement. I made a lot of money for the computer store owners... That was when I learned to listen for high pitch hisssing sounds from the electrolytic capacitors to determine potential replacement. I don't remember having heard high pitch sounds from the flyback transformers at all.

Interesting heh?