Lenovo T530 Nasty screeching noise! (Not the fan)

[samvine57]

Hello Toms Hardware forum,

For approximately a year now my T530, which is roughly 3 and a bit years old has been emitting a faint electronic 'screeching' noise. It's coming from somewhere in the bottom right hand corner next to the trackpad.

I always presumed it was the fan, no issues with temps though, they're always hovering somewhere between 45 - 55 degrees celsius. Quite recently it's gotten a lot worse, and as a audio engineer and mixer it makes working on quieter, sparser material very frustrating!

I've attached a recording, which was recorded with a mic straight up to where it's coming from. So it's very pronounced, it's not actually quite this severe in reality. But it is certainly concerning and a pretty nasty sound. Possibly power management?

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The computer is all original parts and increased CPU activity does seem to make it worse:

INTEL Core i5-3380M @2.90 Ghz
8 Gig RAM
Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit )
NVIDA NVS 5400M
256GB SSD
Firewire 400 adapter always in PCI Express slot for my audio interface (sound persists when this is unplugged)

Anyway I've dug into solutions for similar problems (tried playing with Power management options and blowing dust out of the case) and nothing's helped so am rather desperate for some suggestions.

Many thanks,

Sam V

 

[penguintech]

Loud high-pitched screeching noises are usually emitted by some type of a transformer. In a laptop, that would be either the output transformer on the inverter board (if yours has the CCFL backlit display; i.e., non-LED) or an inductor on the motherboard. If you have a LED-backlit display, then I'd say that there's a strong chance that you have a noisy inductor. It might be possible to reduce the noise by changing some of the power management features and altering the power consumption of the CPU/GPU will affect the power supplies and therefor the inductor load. as you have already done this step then there isn't much to do but have the transformer replaced. But If your system does not have an LED display, then trying turning off the screen (typically Fn+F7) and/or reducing the brightness and see if that makes any difference. If it does, then perhaps a different inverter may help.

 

[samvine57]

Thanks for your advice penguintech!

I do have an LED backlit display so you seem to be on the money there.When I dramatically reduce the performance level in the included Lenovo power manager the sound disappears. I wasn't able to get the sound to go away by playing with Windows power management settings. Not entirely sure what I'm compromising on with the Lenovo power manager as it doesn't offer so much information.

What is the exact part that I need to have replaced to remedy this issue?