Very High Pitched Annoying Noise comming out of my Lappy

[T41mbi]

I got a T41 and as you all know a week ago I spilt some water on it... everything is working fine EXCEPT when I load a game for example it occassionaly but VERY ANNOYING high pitch sound (hurts your ears) and is very embarassing especially when your sitting in class and playing some UT you try to keep that kind of thing on the low low but it gets way to much attention... its very hard to track the source of the sound... around the middle of the laptop and the fan area... any ideas? Will IBM fix this kinda thing?(I wont tell them water spilt on it though :p)

[bootleg2go]

Hi T41mbi,
It'll be even more embarassing when your professor/teacher catches you playing games on your notebook during class and boots you out

On your notebook, it sounds like it could be the fan is going out, if the notebook got pretty soaked and water got to the fan the bearings will quickly rust and go out. IBM can and will fix it no doubt, but they will charge you. There is no hiding water damage to a notebook and once they open it up and take a close look it will be obvious to them as they work on thousands of notebooks every year and water damage is probably one of the most common problems. It is also possible that the bearings in the hard drive were also effected.

good luck
Jack

[K. Eng]

I think that is very unlikely. HDDs are tightly sealed against the outside environment because dust contamination could cause serious malfunction. If water got into T41mbi's HDD, I think his computer would have much more serious problems. Since a HDD is a ferro-magnetic device, exposure to water and air would probably cause the platters to rust, with the result that his machine fail to boot into Windows, not just make noise while playing some game.

Hi T41mbi,
It is also possible that the bearings in the hard drive were also effected.

[bootleg2go]

Hi K. Eng,
It is very possible to get water damage on the HDD.
I've worked 15 years in the disk drive industry, last 10 @ Maxtor and can tell you they are not air/water tight, in fact there is an air hole that has a fine filter inside; this is to equalize outside air pressure with the inside, besides this most drives also have a screw through the top cover that goes right in the spindle motor, if water were to pool in the depression that this screw is in water will then get into the pindle and affect the bearings. The disks themselves would never get a chance to rust because one they are coated with a very thin layer of lube to protect the disk during spinup/spindown and two if event he smallest speck of dust or moisture only a few microns in diameter were to land on the disk and then have the head come over that spot, then head would crash and destory itself and the debris form that crash would then crash the other heads in a matter of a few hundred microseconds, this would cause a god awful screaching sound and your right, the drive will never boot again.

However, in this case T41mbi's drive is probably ok since it did boot after the spill; it is probably the fan is going out.

Jack

[K. Eng]

they are not air/water tight, in fact there is an air hole that has a fine filter inside; this is to equalize outside air pressure with the inside,

I had no idea... I always assumed they were completely sealed because of the threat of dust.