WRT1900AC Router Making Noise

revolultrablue

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Dec 18, 2010
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I recently purchased a WRT1900ac router. It was working extremely well as far as speed and range. One day I was walking by it and I heard a clicking and ticking noise coming from it. The fan wasn't on so I thought maybe I received a unit that was defective.

I returned it for another device and noticed that it makes the same noise. I actually went to a different store and swapped it with no avail.

Finally I decided to go with an asus RT-AC68U. My WRT1900ac speeds were about 2x faster so I really want to switch back...

Long story short, are these noises normal? Is it something I could just live with because I really liked the performance. Thank you for your advice.
 
Try to disable the wireless entirely, this might be the source. Just for test, of course.

The sound is like a coil sound buzzing, right? It happens on many electronic devices that has a power converter based on frequency changing: charging adapters in idle, my old Asus/Nehalem laptop (when doing speed step). Even my GPS/PDA and my Microsoft Laser 7000 mouse has it if I listen very careful. Not everybody hears it, some ears are more sensitive on those frequencies. My wife can hear it also, but she doesn't mind.

I also hate that noise, I hear it in the morning, when it is more silence, on my old WRT54GL. I try to concentrate and for this I need to disable the wireless entirely to not disturb me. I tried various wireless settings but it does not help. It is not really a solution, just an workaround. I put Tomato firmware to it and I programmed the wireless button to disable/enable wireless.

Otherwise I was very pleased with the old WRT54GL. Two days ago it died with some smoke, after many years of service. I want to buy another Linksys, just want to be sure it does not emit that noise. That brought me to this forum where I see that the new model seems to have the same issue... 🙁