Sound issues with m4700

Hi everyone.. i just got a reburb'ed m4700 and am having a small issue with it... every time i start up the computer i get a horrible 'buzz' sound while win 7 is playing the 'loading windows 7' theme... like it plays plays plays regularly and at the end it goes BUZZZZZZZ.... really annoying and maybe a sign of some deeper issue.

anyways i've let the guy i bought it off of know, and he says i can return it... but its a nice laptop and i'd like to keep it IF i can fix this issue..... does anyone out there know what i should do or have had a similar problem? i've tried uninstalling the sound driver and the buzz didn't come back for awhile but.... after 9 restarts it came back... very frustrating.

can anyone help?

 

I found this very same problem on several M6700s. It really bugged me and some others, but most people really did not care or consider it a matter of concern. As crazy as it may sound, here is how I eliminated the problem on every M6700 that had it:
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One part of solution: you must do a fresh install of windows. Dell installs a ton of things that most/many people do not need. After a fresh install of windows, only install the drivers that you need. There is some evidence to suggest that the sound distortion is caused by the large number of things the OS is trying to load while it plays the windows start up sound.<o></o>
<o> </o>
Second part of solution: do not install any optional windows updates. I could never pinpoint which windows update seemed to cause/contribute to the problem. However, if you do a fresh install of windows without unnecessary/unneeded drivers AND you do NOT install any optional windows updates (only install the important/critical windows updates), the sound distortion will disappear.<o></o>
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Not very scientific and perhaps crazy sounding I know, but this worked for me every time on several M6700s.<o></o>
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Peace.<o></o>

 

hi Academic, i was hoping you'd reply because i saw you had the same issue.

let me ask you, did you only ever hear the buzz with the windows start-up sound? or did you hear it in other places as well?

 

Like you, my concern was that some more serious unknown problem might be the cause of this sound distortion and might cause more serious problems in the future. I never setup my system (transferred data files, A/V/media projects, installed industry software, etc.) until I did a clean install as described in my previous comment. I have not experienced any sound related problems since.

By the way, if your hard drive light flickers 1-5 times every one or two seconds, Dell techs and many regulars on this forum will tell you that this is normal OS/system activity. Digging and logging deeply/carefully into the OS and system, I monitored the light flickering very closely on several different freshly shipped (as well as clean installed) M6700s (and I think but no longer recall also M6600s - do not know whether anything I say here applies to post Windows 8 shipped Mx6/700s). The amount of hard drive light flickering is NOT due to any actual OS or system activity (apart from much less occasional flickering - such as 1-3 flickers every 3-6 seconds depending on the OS and other program settings). Some part of the hardware/firmware is coded to check for a disk in the optical drive 1 or 2 times per second. (And this is indeed a bug - there is no good reason to check to see whether there is a disc in the optical drive 1 or 2 times per second.) Disabling the optical drive (in device manager, for instance) will slow down the hard drive light flickering so that it accords perfectly with logs of actual OS/system activity. I tried pointing this out a while back (it might have been for Mx600s) and many forum members mocked and insulted me in a more sarcastic way than my most troubled college students. Some forum members sent me polite private messages for correctly identifying the matter. People sometimes ask me about both the sound distortion and the rate of hard drive light flickering so I risked being made fun of again on this forum in case you or others are wondering. If you have different info, please do share. Peace.

 

academic... my HD light does seem to flicker alot... maybe 2 to 3 times every 2 seconds.... how did you fix this problem?

 

I believe the answer is in (and explained in) the second paragraph of my previous comment in this thread. My apologies for any lack of clarity in exposition. In short, go into device manager and disable your optical drive. If you do this, your hard drive light will only flicker exactly when there is any actual activity corresponding to it. If you do this and you need to use your optical drive, just go back into device manager and enable the optical drive.

I just got used to this bug and leave it flicker inappropriately - most/many others at Dell and on this forum also get used to it but fail to recognize the bug/inappropriateness of the flickering as described in my previous comments.

Peace.