Crackling/whirring noise from SSD?

mao58

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My HP Pavilion laptop has a Intel 660p 512 GB SSD disk. I can ear a light crackling/whirring noise from the case when I'm scrolling down repeatedly a page or cells (e.g. Excel) when the laptop is running on AC. The noise become no more audible when the laptop is running on battery power. It's a mystery!
 
Along Master shake's line of thinking - Are you sure it isn't the laptop's cooling fan ramping up slightly under the extra load of scrolling through a lot of data quickly?
 
if the noise has a pattern that seems to match up with on-screen content in an odd way, it's probably coil whine from the internal voltage regulators. If the noise is continuous and ramping, it's probably the fan.
 
if the noise has a pattern that seems to match up with on-screen content in an odd way, it's probably coil whine from the internal voltage regulators. If the noise is continuous and ramping, it's probably the fan.
i have numerous dell desktops at work that do this. with the side panel off you can hear it change with practically everything you do; browsing, youtube, clicking through explorer etc etc. totally possible that a laptop could do it.
 
i have numerous dell desktops at work that do this. with the side panel off you can hear it change with practically everything you do; browsing, youtube, clicking through explorer etc etc. totally possible that a laptop could do it.
Yeah it's bizarre when it happens. Seen it on desktops and laptops but more noticeable on desktops, especially with a powerful dGPU and/or shitty VRMs/PSU.
 
It's actually a common problem and can get really annoying when you take your laptop to show off some presentation and hook it up to a projector/sound system via VGA+analog audio.

It's not the SSD's fault per se, the laptop should be considered as a whole. A component in the voltage regulation section or LCD brightness circuitry can start singing along with some other inductive/capacitive load in the chain.

Sometimes getting another laptop charger helps and making sure all your stuff is plugged into one socket and that socket is wired correctly.
 
coil whine

if it's from speakers if your using a cheap PSU that hasn't isolated the AC from the DC can do this (run your finger across anything metal you feel a buzz from it)
 
coil whine

if it's from speakers if your using a cheap PSU that hasn't isolated the AC from the DC can do this (run your finger across anything metal you feel a buzz from it)
sounds like it but he is on a laptop, so not his choice on a "cheap psu(a/c adapter)" but HP's, probably 2 prong too.
 
coil whine

if it's from speakers if your using a cheap PSU that hasn't isolated the AC from the DC can do this (run your finger across anything metal you feel a buzz from it)
Interesting. I wonder: perhaps M.2 drives on desktop motherboards are better isolated and, therefore, do not suffer from coil whine.
 
Interesting. I wonder: perhaps M.2 drives on desktop motherboards are better isolated and, therefore, do not suffer from coil whine.
could be and or it could be the board makes more coil whine so it drowns out the m.2 like the dells at my work...
 
sounds like it but he is on a laptop, so not his choice on a "cheap psu(a/c adapter)" but HP's, probably 2 prong too.
i had cheap PSUs that make the trackpad go bonkers because the touchpad is referenced to ground due to the cheap ass laptop PSU isn't isolated correctly (real PSU was working fine just had to wait 2-3 days for a real one)

you can actually feel the buzzing on the trackpad sometimes or if you brush the tip of the 19v outer barrel DC plug you feel a buzz as well (make sure your not grounded when you do that as the cheap china PSU the AC isn't isolated so that's reference AC 120/240 your feeling sometimes)
 
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Perhaps I’m deaf to it but I hear nothing from my desktop builds. I like them silent.
good quality parts have less of a chance but dells mobos power systems are basically bare minimum and are noisy as fuck!

i had cheap PSUs that make the trackpad go bonkers because the touchpad is referenced to ground due to the cheap ass laptop PSU isn't isolated correctly (real PSU was working fine just had to wait 2-3 days for a real one)

you can actually feel the buzzing on the trackpad sometimes or if you brush the tip of the 19v outer barrel DC plug you feel a buzz as well (make sure your not grounded when you do that as the cheap china PSU the AC isn't isolated so that's reference AC 120/240 your feeling sometimes)
ah. i was thinking desktop = psu, laptop = a/c adapter, technically both are the same thing...
 
good quality parts have less of a chance but dells mobos power systems are basically bare minimum and are noisy as fuck!
That makes sense. i tend to build rigs with quality parts. I can't remember the last time I used a Dell pre-fab.
 
(business ones anyway)
thats the key, and im only talking about the mobos being noisy, they work fine. only issue we have had with dell stuff in the last year has been a dock that shipped with the wrong a/c adapter and one laptop this week had its board swapped twice, on monday and then today. oh and now long wait times for new units. now ill stop with the dell stuff dragin the thread ot...
 
coil whine

if it's from speakers if your using a cheap PSU that hasn't isolated the AC from the DC can do this (run your finger across anything metal you feel a buzz from it)
grounding/isolation issues are fun. A place I used live had a wiring problem (measured 16v from circuit earth to concrete floor, 55v from live to circuit earth, and 55v from neutral to circuit earth, in case anyone feels like deducing wtf was going on, I still have only a vague idea) and when I'd run my hand across laptops with mag or al chassis I could feel strong 60hz coupling. Mains is weird.
 
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I never would have thought an SSD would make noise. Read this and give it a try if your HP has this option:
https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/...y-laptop-makes-a-strange-squeal-buzzing-noise
The laptop doesn't emit an audible squeal when the system is idle or under light use, when I'm scrolling down repeatedly a page or cells (e.g. Excel) or when I run a disk scan (like Intel SSD Optimizer). The strangest thing is that the noise becomes almost no more audible when the laptop is running on battery power.
 
The laptop doesn't emit an audible squeal when the system is idle or under light use, when I'm scrolling down repeatedly a page or cells (e.g. Excel) or when I run a disk scan (like Intel SSD Optimizer). The strangest thing is that the noise becomes almost no more audible when the laptop is running on battery power.
the change when it's running on battery could be a clue that its either something in the DC-DC converters on the DC-in side that are singing, or the harmonics in the ripple from the external supply are causing transients in other DC-DC converters to be amplified.
 
I have the same problem. A brand new Samsung 860 Pro just installed it. It makes a grinding/buzzing sound every time I copy and past a document. It's only intermittent when work is being done. The rest of the time it's silent. But the sound is much louder than in that video.

Any ideas what causes this?
 
I have the same problem. A brand new Samsung 860 Pro just installed it. It makes a grinding/buzzing sound every time I copy and past a document. It's only intermittent when work is being done. The rest of the time it's silent. But the sound is much louder than in that video.

Any ideas what causes this?

Coil whine from your motherboard sata controller.
 
I have an ASUS laptop that gets really bad coil whine when playing games, and occasionally while watching full screen youtube videos.
 
grounding/isolation issues are fun. A place I used live had a wiring problem (measured 16v from circuit earth to concrete floor, 55v from live to circuit earth, and 55v from neutral to circuit earth, in case anyone feels like deducing wtf was going on, I still have only a vague idea) and when I'd run my hand across laptops with mag or al chassis I could feel strong 60hz coupling. Mains is weird.
Check for missing neutral to ground bonding screw/strap at main service entrance panel.
 
Mr Carlson made a really cool episode on interference recently, it's on youtube.
In (very) short: there is a lot of power regulation in everything that happens via rapid pulses and that results in multiple interacting electromagnetic fields.
 
Check for missing neutral to ground bonding screw/strap at main service entrance panel.
I haven't lived there in years so that won't happen, but improperly bonded Neutral combined with questionable earthing does sound like a reasonable explanation.
 
Why is it called a "whine" if it's actually a grinding buzz sound?
Coil whine / inductor sing is quite common and can very from an annoying squeal when your video card is pushing 1000fps at a game menu to intermittent beeps or braps depending on what the circuit is doing under load. Like a gapper/snipper/chopper plugin/pedal sound effect, a normal sound can sound like a plethora of different things. Fundamentally, the source is the same.
 
Coil whine / inductor sing is quite common and can very from an annoying squeal when your video card is pushing 1000fps at a game menu to intermittent beeps or braps depending on what the circuit is doing under load. Like a gapper/snipper/chopper plugin/pedal sound effect, a normal sound can sound like a plethora of different things. Fundamentally, the source is the same.
Is it from the PSU?
 
Not always. Any component that uses high frequency switching/conversion can generate this noise.
So I opened up my case to hear it, and the noise is definitely coming from the SSD. When I do something like open a document, it makes a grinding/buzzing sound. When I touch the SSD while it's buzzing for that second, I can physically feel it vibrate.
 
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