Desktop cpu whine???

beissemj · 2008-05-17 22:49:01

I have an AMD dual-core and I just did a clean install of Arch, and I notice that when I'm running X I get notorious CPU whine. Its not quite as bad as on my old laptop, but the high-pitched sound is still noticeable enough to make you go crazy. Now I thought that cpu whine was only a problem for laptops and Intel CPUs, but apparently this isn't the case?

Do I just need to install a deamon for cpu scaling? Because I tried just setting the processor.max_cstate=2 as a grub parameter and that didn't work...

beissemj · 2008-05-18 00:54:34

Update: Well I just installed cpufrequtils and set that up, but even if both my processors are running at max I still get the high pitch sound. My current solution is running glxgears. Could this noise be coming from my gfx card?? I'm using whatever nvidia driver pacman currently has.

beissemj · 2008-05-18 01:16:45

After some more googling it turns out it might be my GPU... I have an MSI NX8800GT, which apparently will emit a high pitched sound if it is not getting enough current. Most people have the opposite problem as myself though. The card emits a high pitch sound under load. Since mine is fine under load, I'm going to assume it's not my power supply. Does anyone else have similiar problems and how to fix?

nLEyETn · 2009-02-07 21:44:14

I just came across the same problem myself and found this thread when looking for a solution. If an application uses audio, then I get a high pitched sound coming from somewhere inside my computer. If no applications that use audio are running, then it's fine and I don't have the noise. Like your problem, if I have glxgears running, the high pitched noise stops. I'm not sure if it's the extra load on the cpu or if it's the load on the gpu that causes the noise to stop. I've noticed if I do other things like continuously scroll a page in firefox, then the noise stops also. Have you or anybody else come across a solution to this problem.

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+
GPU: EVGA Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS

skottish · 2009-02-07 21:54:41

I've experienced this with video with different cards for years, and have been experiencing it with audio since the 2.6.28 kernel upgrade. If my speakers are off, and with pcskpr disabled, any audio application does this. I never found a solution.

nLEyETn · 2009-02-07 22:35:54

Thanks for the reply. In my setup I have two sound cards, one is an X-Fi and an the other is an onboard audio. I've been using my onboard audio in Linux because of the lack of driver support for the X-Fi. I started doing it this way before they ever released the first betas for the X-Fi and continued to use it this way until now since it worked fine for my needs. With my current high pitched noise problem I decided to try and use my X-Fi in Linux now to see if that would help. So I disabled the onboard audio, and installed the X-Fi drivers from AUR, and it seems to be running great now without the noise problem I'm still curious as to what caused the problem in the first case, but I'm just glad I don't have to hear that stupid noise now while working in Linux.

Last edited by nLEyETn (2009-02-07 22:36:40)

mikesd · 2009-02-07 23:34:16

beissemj:

I'm using a GeForce 8600GT and after an upgrade of the nvidia drivers my system started making a high pitched whining sound. I knew it was the graphics card as I was booting into the console and it was only when I did startx that the whining started. This happened about 6 - 12 months ago. The noise was so bad that I bought a replacement card so I could work in peace. A while back I decided to try to get my old card working as it was a great card apart from the noise. It had dual DVI output that I wanted to use. I put a multimeter across the power lead to the GPU fan and when the nvidia kernel module loaded and X started up the voltage dropped. At sme point nvidia introduced code in their driver that throttled the fan depending on the temp of the GPU. Once I had confirmed this I unplugged the GPU fan from the card and made up an adapter and plugged it straight into 12V from the powersupply. The fan is now nice and quiet.

To control the speed of a fan, or any dc motor, some controllers don't simply drop the voltage from say 12V down to 6V as you loose startup torque and it's not very efficient. Many use what is called Pulse Width Modulation. They maintain the 12V but turn it on and off very quickly. The fan speed is governed by the percentage of time the output is on. This high speed switching can cause a buzzing / whining in the motor coils. If you are comfortable working on the inside of a computer try powering the GPU fan straight from the 12V from the PSU.

fwojciec · 2009-02-07 23:41:27

On my Pentium M laptop CPU whine seems to be related to kernel timer setting -- recompiling the kernel with 100Hz seems to fix it.

R00KIE · 2009-02-08 02:00:45

fwojciec wrote:

On my Pentium M laptop CPU whine seems to be related to kernel timer setting -- recompiling the kernel with 100Hz seems to fix it.

Yes I've heard about this .... I don't remember which components are the culprit of that (I think it is some capacitors though). The thing is (and it's what I remember) that the hardware is tested to work well with .... windows >_> which uses a 100Hz timer, if you use a different timer frequency you can run into this problem.

It can also be the gfx card .... the x600xt on my desktop wines a bit under load, even on windoze.

Last edited by R00KIE (2009-02-08 02:02:33)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-17 22:49:01

Desktop cpu whine???

#2 2008-05-18 00:54:34

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#3 2008-05-18 01:16:45

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#4 2009-02-07 21:44:14

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#5 2009-02-07 21:54:41

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#6 2009-02-07 22:35:54

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#7 2009-02-07 23:34:16

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#8 2009-02-07 23:41:27

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

#9 2009-02-08 02:00:45

Re: Desktop cpu whine???

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