Extremely annoying whine in T61p

Although i love almost every part of my T61p, there is a high pitched whine on any CPU management plan, whenever i move the trackpoint or touchpad. Without movement the whine disappears, considering how much apointing device is used on a computer, i'd like to solve it.

 

Anybody know how to solve this or is this "tolerable" noise, or as Intel dubs it, "errata".

 

it might be CPU whine. You might have to use RMclock to disable some power state of the CPU.

 

I have the same issue, but it comes and goes. I actually think it is related to the video card. It only occurs occasionally (1x per week?), but when it does, it's accompanied by some rendering going on in the background (eg skype, VLC video window) while I'm slowly/steadily moving just the cursor. But it *only* happens during movement of the cursor (input from external mouse, trackpoint, or touchpad). It wouldn't make sense that the CPU itself would be making that noise, but maybe GPU?

It gets to me once in a while, but it's really not often enough for me to bring it up with Lenovo (once a week, but disappears after ~20 minutes of activity).

 

that has to do with the GPU overheating and the fan not able to cool it down....

I would suggest using external cooling; backing up the T61p tri-weekly, and if you are adept; applying AS5 to the GPU....so you don't end up with a brick.

 

LOL, i use tpfancontrol, and it is not overheating, it stays 40-45 at idle unless temp readings are wrong, in that case i still know it is not that because the fan does not blow out "hot" air at idle. This noise occurs even at the Windows 7 login screen.

 

I have that same very crappy problem (under Linux). What I was able to figure out is that it must be related to GPU memory transfers. Because underclocking the memory clock from 700 to say 300 or less reduces the noise immediately. That would also explain that under normal conditions, you sometimes have it, and sometimes not, as the GPU+MEM clocks are dynamic (NVIDIA "powermizer" crap). This is independent of temperatures.

This is defective hardware, is it not? At least I'm glad to hear that it's not limited to Linux but you have it on Win, too.

Here too, it sometimes gets to me and I'm wondering whether I should replace it with a W500 (but an ATI R6xx class GPU is probably worse, especially under Linux).

 

Well, the noise is not as prevalent as before, still is a faint noise whenever a pointing device is used though, if i listen really closely. Could this be the LCD panel inverter?

 

I am no hardware wizard, but it must be something like that. But even if we find out, it probably can't be fixed anyway?!
Could you check what clocks the GPU runs at when you hear it? Or whether it gets louder when you force it to highest powerlevels (running glxgears or some OpenGL stuff)?

What really frustrates me about this is that a T61p (even though it's two years old) is still very competitive hardware and just too good to throw out to be replace with something equally expensive but not significantly better.

 

Try changing the LCD brightness, if the pitch of the noise changes then you know it's the inverter.

 

That is exactly why i bought it, it seemed like the best balance between older ThinkPad quality and performance, i bought it used but this doesn't make a difference since it was hardly ever used and no scratches at all, very clean. I just wasn't convinced with the T4xx build quality, with what i saw in videos, and the paper thin palmrest plastic. The 8600M GT is still fairly capable, it has equal or better performance than the HD 3650M that is in the T400 if you buy it dedicated GPU.

Edit:lol oops, it's a 570M stock.. but might as well be an 8600M GT, besides, people always think that you somehow can't game on a "business power user" card like a Quadro.
Also, the new 195.55 drivers fixed the whine .

 

If you know anything about electronics, a white indicates a loose capacitor someowhere. Maybe a weak solder. Should send it in. My guess is you need a new mainboard.

 

Meh, warranty till 2011... if it doesn't fail by then i'll just start extreme gaming on it till it does, hopefully before the warranty expires, that would work out good. Drivers did solve it though, also it could have been GPU RAM...

 

That's my guess, too. But I don't think I have warranty any more.

Changing LCD brightness has no effect. And so far this has been independent of driver/kernel versions, too. (of course with Linux I'm still stuck with 190.xx, so we'll see about 195.xx).

Btw, the hissing is coming (very approximately) from underneath the left upper side of the touchpad. Does anybody know what's located there?

 

I thought that is where the GPU is located. Also heatsink and fan in that area. Maybe you got a piece of debris moving around?

 

No, it's definitely nothing mechanical.

In case it's a capacitor, do you think it's going to get worse and eventually break? Or does it have no impact on longevity?

[I just found that I'm actually still under warranty, so maybe I'll try and get it fixed...]

 

Yes, really my question now becomes; is GPU whine an early or late symptom of GPU failure.