Router makes hissing noise like speakers

A

Antonius

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 9, 2004
Messages
301
My linksys router has started hissing constantly recently. It sounds like speaker white noise. Any reasons/ideas?
 
Some PWM (pulse width modulation) circuitry oscillates within audible frequencies, usually making the signature hissing or buzzing sound. Can you isolate the sound to the router itself or perhaps the power brick?
 
kencheeto said:
Some PWM (pulse width modulation) circuitry oscillates within audible frequencies, usually making the signature hissing or buzzing sound. Can you isolate the sound to the router itself or perhaps the power brick?
Click to expand...

While I don't disagree that some PWM circuitry can oscillate within audible frequencies, I can't think of any oscillator that would be inside a network device, that would be oscillating anywhere below the megahertz range. Now harmonics, on another hand, are a possibility.

It sounds to me like the power supply is going out. Either that, or the line voltage feeding it is sagging for some reason. Are you running this device on a power strip that is otherwise heavily burdened?
 
My phone transformer makes some rather loud high pitched noise... I'd make the bet its the power supply for your router causing the problem. Maybe it isnt your router ?
 
Well, I unplugged it for the night and plugged it back in and thus far, no issues. It is clean and is not covered or burdened in any way that should be generating a high amount of heat, so I do not know. We will see if it starts up again.
 
You can get oscillations like that from buck converter circuits when capacitors are going bad.
 
My $200 ish Linksys VPN-N-Gigabit router does the same thing. Started at first, would go away after a restart, come back in the middle of the night. It slowly died a painful death. So RMA it if its under warranty.
 
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