CPU noise (not fan or hard drive)

[bliebman93]

I have a Dell i7559 laptop. There is a kind of scratchy "computer thinking" type noise that is constantly coming from it as soon as its turned on. The noise comes from the center-back area, where there are no moving parts. Its not the speakers, it's not the fans (located elsewhere- when not moving, the sound still is there), and its not the hard drive(s), which are both solid state and located elsewhere. The only things I can see in the area are the heat sink and the CPU beneath it. Took it to geek squad- all they could say was "huh. yep, no moving parts there, so i dont know". What might be the cause? Source for concern?

 

[Ecky]

Sometimes capacitors whine or squeal. It wouldn't be the CPU, but the motherboard, and this isn't particularly rare. It commonly happens on discrete video cards and sometimes people go through several before finding one without coil whine.

 

[greens]

Capacitors do not whine! They do not move or switch....

Coils emit magnetic frequencies and create and audible vibrations when doing so at certain frequencies.
Usually this is most apparent when the unit is not in full operating mode. Lots of power bricks, GPUs, printers, TVS, all kinds of things make this noise.

It is called Coil Whine.

if your laptop is new - it may go away over time. If your laptop is old - it may be due to old dampening material coming loose.

 

[bliebman93]

Sometimes capacitors whine or squeal. It wouldn't be the CPU, but the motherboard, and this isn't particularly rare. It commonly happens on discrete video cards and sometimes people go through several before finding one without coil whine.

My only concern is that the computer was dead silent up until a few days ago when I installed the second SSD. I took all the normal precautions (laptop was turned off, discharged any static electricity before opening the back, etc). The installation worked perfectly but I started noticing the sound immediately afterwords. Just wanted to make sure i'm not in for trouble down the road

 

[greens]

It had a HDD before? A change in the power requirement would change the frequency and could have caused it to become audible. Transistors can make noise too but is pretty uncommon. I don't think you have anything to worry about - it will probably settle out in a few days. Try messing with your power settings, you may find one that eliminates the noise.

 

[bliebman93]

It had a HDD before? A change in the power requirement would change the frequency and could have caused it to become audible. Transistors can make noise too but is pretty uncommon. I don't think you have anything to worry about - it will probably settle out in a few days. Try messing with your power settings, you may find one that eliminates the noise.

Not quite. It came with a 256 GB SSD, which itself wasn't enough, but there was a second empty port so I added an additional 500 GB SSD. I'll tinker around and see if there are any changes- I was just scared that somehow during the installation I damaged something

 

[Ecky]

My apologies, not sure why I wrote capacitors. Upon consideration I'm not entirely sure which solid state electronics are capable of producing coil whine, but it seems to be what OP is experiencing.

 

[atljsf]

the psu fanif old can do all kind of noises, also other fans, be sure to check if the noise doesn't come from those before starting to blame any other part

 

[dudeman509]

My Dell laptop (Studio 1569) does it too. I think it's fairly normal for Dells.