FOAK: High-pitched whining from laptop

It's not loud as such, but in a quiet room I can hear it quite well enough,
and it's pissing me right off. Sounds like a very high-pitched intermittent
scratchy noise. Laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad R61, before I phone the on-site
maintenance line, anybody know what the problem is likely to be? Otherwise,
they'll just turn up and waste time replacing random parts.

Or I could listen to more loud rock music until I can't hear anything
high-pitched.

 

Only thing it can be is anything thats moving, so thats the internal
CPU fan, thats going to be on a heat pipe, or the HDD is on its way out.

Id make sure of a known good backup right now, as both could cause data
loss in the event of a failure.
--
Gavin.

GSXR600K1
Twitter: http://twitter.com/gavin_wilby
Blog: http://www.stoof.co.uk

 

Could be the backlight inverter if it has one.
--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

it could just be some crap in a fan, or a badly routed cable fouling a fan

 

I like this. A lot. The noise sounds more "electrical" than "fan-ny"[1].
Any specific tests I can do to test this hypothesis further (without
disassembling the laptop)?

[1] It's not a moist, squelchy, warm noise.

--
TD
2000 GSX1300RX (red and black)
1991 VFR400R NC30 (black and red)
1993 Eunos Roadster (supercharged)
Missing: SOB, Unreliable Italian exotica

 

If it's fan then it is *likely* to change with CPU load, getting higher
pitched / louder under load

Disc would be dependent on disc access (durrr)

Inverter is a bit trickier. You could try turning the backlight right
down to zero. That might turn off the light, which should do the
inverter. Also try sleeping the screen. Normally inverter noise is
pretty constant as well, so it could be a complete red herring.

--
Catman MIB#14 SKoGA#6 TEAR#4 BOTAFOF#38 Apostle#21 COSOC#3
Tyger, Tyger Burning Bright (Remove rust to reply)
116 Giulietta 3.0l Sprint 1.7 GTV TS GT 3.2 V6
Triumph Sprint ST 1050: It's blue, see.
www.cuore-sportivo.co.uk

 

Seconded - assuming you haven't trapped a woman inside the laptop.

 

Sounds likely to me as well.

Plug in a monitor and switch to external display only.

 

make that old woman, then