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Power Supply makes strange sound/ticking noise when scrolling windows
I have a strange issue and I've seen some threads where people have
the same problem. Unfortunately those threads are really old so I didn't want to append to them. I'm just going to start fresh. Basically if I have a large window up (i.e. this IE window that needs to be scrolled), and I actually start scrolling, my power supply makes this weird TICKING sound. Basically I can "hear" the scrolling, as if I had a tick event being fired when my mouse wheel is active!. BTW it happens in scrolling with the keyboard too. I thought it was my power supply, so I replaced it. Same exact problem. I know the sound is eminating from the PSU. I can pinpoint it there. I know for a fact it isn't coming from the PC speaker or my external speakers. I place my ear up to the PSU and I hear it there behind the fan. (this kills the idea that the sound card and graphics card fighting for dma or whatever someone suggested) My question now is, if it is happening to multiple PSUs, then it is not the power supply, so what on earth could it be?!?!?!?! What can I do to fix this? I've seen suggestions that the graphics card is requiring so much power to redraw the screen that it's changing the pulse size of the current or whatever and it's causing the switching PSU to do this. If that's the case, what do I do about it? I have a Brand new home built system (aside from the graphics card) and a couple hard drives. Specs: P4 3.2 GHz 800Mhz FSB | Asus p4c800e-deluxe mainboard | 1 gig DDR400-ECC Ram | 2 SATA 120 Gig HD's (RAID1 - MIRROR)| 2 ATA133 80 Gig HD's (STANDALONE) | 2 cd-rom drives (one dvd one burner) | PNY GeForceFX 5900 Ultra 256 MB graphics card | Soundblaster Live! Value soundcard | Modem The power supply that I bought brand new is an Aerocool AeroPower II+ 550W pre-modded PSU. That's being returned for multiple reasons. It has a high pitched squeal that can be prevented by squeezing the sides together. Loose part inside I assume. The current power supply is an unknown Wattage. I ripped it from a Celeron 2.2 HP D220 Microtower/proprietary machine. Maybe 350W. Still has the ticking issue. I hope to god someone can answer this question as I have no manufacturer that I can pinpoint to get technical support from. BTW I am a Tech Support specialist, so feel free to speak geek. I appreciate any assistance you can provide!!! -Matthew |
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"MCDONAMW" said in om:
I have a strange issue and I've seen some threads where people have the same problem. Unfortunately those threads are really old so I didn't want to append to them. I'm just going to start fresh. Basically if I have a large window up (i.e. this IE window that needs to be scrolled), and I actually start scrolling, my power supply makes this weird TICKING sound. Basically I can "hear" the scrolling, as if I had a tick event being fired when my mouse wheel is active!. BTW it happens in scrolling with the keyboard too. I thought it was my power supply, so I replaced it. Same exact problem. I know the sound is eminating from the PSU. I can pinpoint it there. I know for a fact it isn't coming from the PC speaker or my external speakers. I place my ear up to the PSU and I hear it there behind the fan. (this kills the idea that the sound card and graphics card fighting for dma or whatever someone suggested) My question now is, if it is happening to multiple PSUs, then it is not the power supply, so what on earth could it be?!?!?!?! What can I do to fix this? I've seen suggestions that the graphics card is requiring so much power to redraw the screen that it's changing the pulse size of the current or whatever and it's causing the switching PSU to do this. If that's the case, what do I do about it? I have a Brand new home built system (aside from the graphics card) and a couple hard drives. Specs: P4 3.2 GHz 800Mhz FSB | Asus p4c800e-deluxe mainboard | 1 gig DDR400-ECC Ram | 2 SATA 120 Gig HD's (RAID1 - MIRROR)| 2 ATA133 80 Gig HD's (STANDALONE) | 2 cd-rom drives (one dvd one burner) | PNY GeForceFX 5900 Ultra 256 MB graphics card | Soundblaster Live! Value soundcard | Modem The power supply that I bought brand new is an Aerocool AeroPower II+ 550W pre-modded PSU. That's being returned for multiple reasons. It has a high pitched squeal that can be prevented by squeezing the sides together. Loose part inside I assume. The current power supply is an unknown Wattage. I ripped it from a Celeron 2.2 HP D220 Microtower/proprietary machine. Maybe 350W. Still has the ticking issue. I hope to god someone can answer this question as I have no manufacturer that I can pinpoint to get technical support from. BTW I am a Tech Support specialist, so feel free to speak geek. I appreciate any assistance you can provide!!! -Matthew So did you actually yank the internal speaker's wires off the motherboard and pull the speaker cable from the sound card to make sure the noise isn't getting echoed around and you just think that the noise is coming from the PSU? What happens when you boot into Recovery Console mode or real DOS mode (you never mentioned what version of Windows) and sitting at a command line prompt, do you still hear the noise when rolling the scroll wheel? If you still hear the noise while at the command prompt, power down, disconnect the hard drives, and reboot using a floppy (see www.bootdisk.com for bootable floppy images) or let the system stall with a message about no boot device. Still hear the noise when rolling the scroll wheel? If you don't get the noise at a DOS prompt, try booting without the 2 hard drives powered that are in the RAID setup on the SATA ports. That will reduce the load on the PSU. Boot into Windows and do whatever was making the clicking noise before when rolling the scroll wheels. Still happen with 2 of the drives no longer sucking up juice from the PSU? If so, and will the gear you list inside the box, might be that 350W is too light, especially if using crappy or overrated PSUs. Many quote a wattage that they really cannot support and cannot even provide 75% of their claimed wattage rating, plus you have to be careful that many will combine the wattage on the rails rather than account for a max current draw shared across a couple of the rails. What happens when you boot into Safe mode (for NT-based Windows) and scroll while NOT within any window (i.e., just when the desktop is shown alone)? Does it occur only when scrolling within IE or even if you open Explorer and scroll the leftside folder pane or rightside file list pane? -- __________________________________________________ __________ *** Post replies to newsgroup. E-mail is not accepted. *** __________________________________________________ __________ |
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---Trimmed to respond only to replies---
The power supply that I bought brand new is an Aerocool AeroPower II+ 550W pre-modded PSU. That's being returned for multiple reasons. It has a high pitched squeal that can be prevented by squeezing the sides together. Loose part inside I assume. The Aerocool is very pretty, but not worth anywhere near 550W. Unfortuately they started spending money on modding before having the interior worthy of the mod. LOL you said pretty. Hehe. For real though, thanks for the reply. I must admit, I know people sell products that don't explicitly live up to the hype, but seriously, how could they legally sell this thing if it isn't anywhere near 500 W. You suggest a good = 400W for decent performance. This thing HAS to be at least at that level. Also, before buying it, I've read reviews where this thing was awesome. It got great reviews, especially when dealing with stability and power output. No dips in the voltage lines. At any rate, another one is coming because I cannot return it for money. (damn internet shopping). We'll see how that one acts. If it squeals like the last one, I will get my money back one way or another. When you're scrolling and hearing the ticking, note the voltage levels, preferribly with a meter but a motherboard monitor utility is a good start. The motherboard monitor utility might need be set for a lower interval than possible to register the changes, requiring a decent multimeter. I'm using my ASUS probe with the HP power supply as the other one is boxed up, and when scrolling and what not, there's no changes. Nothing out of the norm. None of the lines go below their respective voltage except the 12v line. It's consistantly around 11.855 - 11.916. I know there are +/- values associated with anything like this, but this is an acceptible level of play? I don't know for sure. All I know is the PSU that I ripped out due to the squealing had the best performance I've seen thus far. All Voltage lines were nearly perfect with never dropping below it's supposed value. I checked that with my MB probe as soon as I put it in, due to the reviews I read. I wanted to confirm. It did well. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter. Even if I did, honestly I don't know what I'm looking for. I'm not an electrician . ---In reference to other responses--- I'm sure the sound is the PSU and not the speaker. There is no echoing of sound, especially when I have the side of the case off. And my speakers are turned off. Also the PC speaker is in the front of the case and no matter where I put my ear, it eminates from the back, through the fan of the PSU. Thanks for the suggestion, but believe me, I know how to pinpoint a noise. Also I'm using XP pro. Did not do anything with recovery console, or dos, or or safemode, etc. It only happens when I'm scrolling in internet explorer. At least that's the only time I can really notice it. It doesn't happen when I just "scroll" for no reason. It only happens when stuff on the screen is actually being scrolled. Keyboard or mouse. If I move the mouse cursor to the desktop, and scroll.. nothing happens, ergo no noise generated. All I know is it's a hardware issue of some sort and nothing to do with windows. There's no way the OS could make electrical components make noise on the mainboard. |
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kony wrote in message . ..
On 4 Mar 2004 15:37:21 -0800, (MCDONAMW) wrote: LOL you said pretty. Hehe. For real though, thanks for the reply. I must admit, I know people sell products that don't explicitly live up to the hype, but seriously, how could they legally sell this thing if it isn't anywhere near 500 W. That's just it, they do, either the law or the enforcement isn't sufficent to keep power supply labels honest. Damn them all!! You suggest a good = 400W for decent performance. This thing HAS to be at least at that level. Absolutely not. The sad truth is that when a power supply is overrated, it's usually worth about 320W at most and more often even less. That PSU isn't one of the "most" cheap/nasty out there, but inferior to a good 400W unit. Damn them again! Also, before buying it, I've read reviews where this thing was awesome. It got great reviews, especially when dealing with stability and power output. No dips in the voltage lines. At any rate, another one is coming because I cannot return it for money. (damn internet shopping). We'll see how that one acts. If it squeals like the last one, I will get my money back one way or another. Was it tested with your equipment though? Many power supplies can run at peak output for a while, long enough to withstand a review. That doesn't mean that power supply would continue working properly a couple years (or even a few weeks) later. Two systems might consume 300W, but one is varying the load by only 20%, another by quite a bit more. Processors and video cards will vary the load more than just a few hard drives, that once spun up, are a relatively stable load. I guess that does make sense. I just don't want to believe that I've been duped!!! DENIAL I SAY! I'm using my ASUS probe with the HP power supply as the other one is boxed up, and when scrolling and what not, there's no changes. Nothing out of the norm. None of the lines go below their respective voltage except the 12v line. It's consistantly around 11.855 - 11.916. I know there are +/- values associated with anything like this, but this is an acceptible level of play? I don't know for sure. All I know is the PSU that I ripped out due to the squealing had the best performance I've seen thus far. All Voltage lines were nearly perfect with never dropping below it's supposed value. I checked that with my MB probe as soon as I put it in, due to the reviews I read. I wanted to confirm. It did well. Unfortunately I don't have a multimeter. Even if I did, honestly I don't know what I'm looking for. I'm not an electrician . 11.85 can't be considered excessively low on a system with a 3.2GHz P4, but the voltage reading interval, the response time of the power supply and lack of sufficient output filtration may be making it work pretty hard to supply power. When the power supply filtration isn't sufficient the motherboard starts picking up the slack, as much as it can, wearing both components more rapidly than if a better power supply were installed. Makes sense yet again. I don't know. I will see how it acts when the replacement comes back in. If it still has issues I guess I'll have to deal with them accordingly.. i.e. shooting the *******s that make the damn POS! I shoulda just got a good one and modded it myself! Thanks for the help. |
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