Thinkpads Forum

I've owned this laptop for about two weeks now, and I must say it's my very first laptop (I'm a noob when it comes to laptops).

Only recently I've noticed that whenever the laptop is running off the battery (not plugged in) I hear tiny, high pitched noise, almost like buzzing, where the hard drive is. I don't want to say it's loud, but it is noticeable. Also, you only hear the noise when the drive is idle and not fetching any files and such.

I would like to know if this is normal?

I don't know if its normal in a T61, but you might be interested in the following.

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

Which drive? 7200rpm or 5400rpm?

sounds normal, it depends on the power settings you are on.

all my Thinkpads do that whinning, high pitch noice when they run on battery, nothing to worry about. It's the power management that changes the speed of the CPU and RAM dynamically.

If it bothers you too much and you are willing to give up some battery time away, go into BIOS and disable the Power Management etc..

This issue was fixed in T4x units with BIOS updates about 5-6 months after they appeared. Ive done lots of research on this and indeed its a power stepping issue. However, after wearing the laptop in for some time (I got my T60 in Feb and it doesnt do it much now) the problem goes away.

It's 5400rpm.

And, like I said, you only hear it when it's running on battery.

To me the noise gets generated when the harddrive needs to be used (read/write), otherwise, it's dead silent.

BTW, I have the latest 1.09 bios.

It's very hard to notice it when there is background noise in the room, but I'll play with the Power Management option once I have some free time.

Thanks