Dell Vostro 1500 high-pitched headphone noise?

Hi, my Dell Vostro has always had a really annoying (but faint) squeak, when I plug in headphones the squeaking noise literally comes out of them, its worse than white noise but I've lived with it ever since I've had my laptop (about 2 years).

Its hard to describe but you know that interference noise you get when you are about to recieve a text or phone call? It's like that but really high pitched.

Anyway I've just invested in quite a nice 2.1 setup and guess what? The squeaking comes out of my speakers, I've tried to ignore it but its so high-pitched it has actually given me a headache!

Has anyone else had this issue? Anyone know how to solve it? It means I can't use any external audio equipment that uses the headphone jack which is really annoying because the speakers built into the laptop are useless.

If I can't make the squeaking stop then I'll have to sell it and buy a new laptop.

Cheers for your time.

 

Does the squeaking also happen on battery power, or only on the power adaptor? The power brick could be filtered poorly, introducing noise into the speakers.

 

Yeah it happens all the time whether I'm on battery or plugged in.

I know what you mean about the brick though, I had it squeaking awhile back and then it died, I got a new one on ebay... when I put my ear upto my laptop the squeaking is coming from inside right near the headphone jack, I have no idea what is causing it or why it travels upto my headphones and speakers.

All I know is that it makes watching and listening to things on anything other than my built in speakers unbearable.

 

High frequency noise caused by switching transistors is entering the soundcard. Reason: Insufficient shielding. But show this to anyone else and they may or may not hear it.

Human hearing degrades with age, and high frequency perception dies first. So it's very likely that whoever checked the unit on the assembly line simply could not hear the whine. There are ways to remove it though, are you experienced with electronics any, or know anyone who is? You can put a lowpass filter on the signal cable to the speaker system, therefore killing the whine. It will affect treble a little, but if done right it won't degrade the sound much, and you can always use EQ to boost it back up.

 

Oh right, I have absolutely no idea how I would fix that then without paying someone, I'm 20 so maybe that is why I can hear it and others can't? It's driving me insane lol

I have recorded it (held my headphones upto my microphone)... problem is my microphone is built into my laptop so I have no idea where I should be holding the headphones so I moved them around a bit, you can just about make it out over the noise of the fans... in real life its much more intense.

http://www.zshare.net/download/683384691efb2bc6/

Cheers for your help anyway!

 

Yup, i've heard it. I'm 18 btw. That noise is at about 10kHz so a lowpass filter would severely degrade the treble, it would sound dull. You'd need a notch for that one... Not too hard to build, but complicated enough if you haven't got a clue on how to do it.

I'd just try to sell the laptop to someone older than you.

 

Just been fiddling about with the power settings (as you mentioned the brick) and having it on "power saver" has reduced the noise quite a lot, weird... I've always noticed that when the computer "thinks" and does different things (e.g. open up documents) the noise stops, but as soon as its back to not doing much the noise starts up again, I'd have thought it would of been the opposite.

The noise is still bad though, seems I'm kinda screwed unless I suddenly become a computer genious, cheers for all your help man!

 

This is a well-known issue with the Vostro 1500. Google Vostro 1500 headphone noise.

See http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=197809