Thinkpads Forum

I just received my Thinkpad T60 1953-CTO last week and it has been great with one exception. I had not really used it on the battery for an extended period of time until this evening. It was then that I noticed the computer gives of a very audible high-pitched sound from near the ESC key under the keyboard.

The sound is only present when on battery power and goes away immediatly when plugged in. I tried changing power schemes as that seemed to be suggested for T4x series computers with this problem. Unfortunately, that fix did not work in my case

Does anyone know what this sound could be and if I would be in a position to get a replacement from Lenovo/IBM given the laptop is less than a week old. The sound is very distracting and probably not something I can deal with so I have to do something. Thanks in advance for the help all.

It sounds like you're experiencing an issue with the fan noise.

Here's a good thread on the same topic:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... cfbe7fdc2b

I get a similar sound from a similar area but under completely different conditions. It's when the graphics card is doing something actively (ie. running some animations).

cxls wrote:I get a similar sound from a similar area but under completely different conditions. It's when the graphics card is doing something actively (ie. running some animations).

That's quite normal because as you run a demanding animation software or a big game, the integrated circuits cpu and gpu process alot of instructions and use onboard transistors to process 3D graphics respectively. As a result it withdraws more power and the fan has to work most of the time to cool things down while these applications run.

ryengineer wrote:It sounds like you're experiencing an issue with the fan noise.

I don't think it is a fan noise. The sound stops when I plug in the computer but the fan keeps running just like it does when on battery power. The nose is more of a high-pitched electronic buzzing than anything else.

ComJabbar wrote:http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w ... tch_noises

My problem is listed on this site readings as follows...

"On battery noise level varies from inaudible to clearly audible, screeching sound, or sometimes beeping (when wifi is on)."

Has there been a fix for this or should I just contact IBM?

I spoke with IBM technical support today and they are just going to have me send it in for repair. The technician agreed that it sounds like either an issue with the connection to the LCD (since it dims slightly when on battery power even when set to full brightness) or an issue with something on the motherboard. Maybe a mobo replacement will quiet this thing up for me... I guess we will see!

Chrispy wrote:The technician agreed that it sounds like either an issue with the connection to the LCD (since it dims slightly when on battery power even when set to full brightness) or an issue with something on the motherboard.

There's a setting in the BIOS on whether or not to dim the LCD when on battery. That may be why it does that.

acasto wrote:

Chrispy wrote:The technician agreed that it sounds like either an issue with the connection to the LCD (since it dims slightly when on battery power even when set to full brightness) or an issue with something on the motherboard.

There's a setting in the BIOS on whether or not to dim the LCD when on battery. That may be why it does that.

Yeah, I went into the BIOS and changed the setting for the LCD so it will stay at full brightness and that didn't help any. Last night the noise actually got louder so I got frustrated and called IBM to get a return. I'm thinking about going with an X60 instead now.

you can also change it in Control Panel > ThinkPad Configuration