Thinkpads Forum

Here is my situation. I am ready to pull the trigger on a new T60 from Lenovo's website but am concerned about the high frequency buzzing/beeping/screeching sound that plauges some laptops with the Core 2 Duo. I owned a new Dell D820 that I had to return because the high frequency noise was extrememly irritating. I don't want to order a T60 and have the same problem.

I would like to know if this noise is only noticiable on certain brands and if it is noticable on the T60. I have heard that HP notebooks suffer from this noise also. Right now I am considering both the 14.1 and 15.4 widescreen T60 so if anyone owns either of these with the Core 2 Duo I would greatly appreciate it if you could let me know if your laptop makes any kind of noise like the one I described.

Also, is it all Core 2 Duo processors that make this noise? I am considering getting the T7200 but if one of the other chips doesn't have this noise I would upgrade/downgrade.

I would love it if anyone with a 14.1 or 15.4 thinkpad could comment. Thanks!

I have one and my laptop is almost silent. I never hear anything under normal conditions.

This is a circuitry design problem on ALL CENTRINO based laptops (not just IBMs, not just Core 2s - goes all the way back to Pentium Ms).

It is worse on some laptops than others.

Please search, you will find A LOT of discussion on this topic.

There is NO HARD AND FAST solution either.

I have a T60 15.4'' widescreen, and it definitely has that "high pitched" buzz but it's very faint. You have to be looking for it in a very quiet room. It's definitely not a big deal. I haven't heard of anyone with a T60 that had it be so loud as to be a major problem.

On my WS T60 8744-5BU I don't hear any noise, fan stays quiet and calm, machine works very efficiently.

My Dell (Pentium M 1.7GHz) squealed/hissed under regular conditions, and loud enough to be disturbing.

My T60p has only made a similar sound on rare ocassion, but much quieter. It definitely seems to be related to graphics.

I have a T60 14" which I bought last December... I don't know if this is the same screeching sound you are getting on you laptop (probably not) BUT a couple of weeks ago I had an intermittent problem of loud screeching/scratching sounds coming from beneath the area of the middle right portion of the base. It was a random sound in which it suddenly screeches regardless whether the fan was turned on or off.. (although it especially started to screech when i turned the laptop on coming from a cold environment..) I called technical support and they asked to mail it in. But before I mailed it in I opened up the computer to try to localize the sound, drew a diagram and it seemed to come from the cpu area...

amazingly I sent it in and got it back 2 days later. So I figured the sound wasn't reproducible at their site. But when I opened up the computer, I found that they replaced the fan. The more interesting part is that the fan looks to be a more compact type than the one I previously had. Wish I had a camera to show you guys...

Don't want to side track this tread but I was wondering whether anyone knows whether Lenovo is changed the fan part to a different manufacturer... (I don't know if it is me but it seems that the fan is more quiet...)

All in all the random loud screeching sound seems to be gone however time will put that to the test....

Update: I called technical support and they told me that they did verify the intermitant screeching problem and changed the system board&fan. The lady told me that the fan is a newer part number (whatever that means) I asked for the part number but the lady couldn't give that to me... hmm.. I guess I am writing to say that there is indeed a different manufacturer for the system board/fan.

Yes, I have heard there is a "B" revision of the T60 fans that addresses some of the earlier sound issues.

brentpresley wrote:This is a circuitry design problem on ALL CENTRINO based laptops (not just IBMs, not just Core 2s - goes all the way back to Pentium Ms).

It is worse on some laptops than others.

Please search, you will find A LOT of discussion on this topic.

There is NO HARD AND FAST solution either.

I have a Sony SZ that has a Core Duo T2400 and don't hear the high pitched noise, the only noise I can hear is the fan. Once in a while I may hear something similar to the high pitched noise but it is faint doesn't last for long at all and goes away quickly. My brother also has an SZ with the T2400 and I don't hear a high pitched noise coming from it either.

I ordered 2 brand new Dell D820's not long ago with the Core 2 Duo and both brand new systems had a very noticable high pitch noise, especially irratating in a quiet room. The noise was there almost constantly. This is unacceptable for an $1800+ system as far as I'm concerned. I had to return them both. I also had a T60 WS with the C2D that had the noise but it wasn't as pronounced as in the Dell but still noticable when in a quiet room from a few feet away. This is what led me to believe that the problem is caused by or is at least more noticable with the Core 2 Duo rather than the Core Duo.