BUZZING/HUMMING WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT!

From what you describe, it certainly sounds like the fan. Maybe it is slightly loose and is vibrating. The fan can change pitch since its speed depends on how warm the processor is.

I suppose almost anything could be vibrating, including a loose card. Its just that most noise of this type is related to the fan (usually the CPU fan.) If you could only isolate from where exactly in the tower the noise is coming from.

Charles,
Tag # 6VMY111

Dimension 8200, Bios A03
1.8 ghz P4
256 mb Ram
80 gb HD
NVidia GEForce3 TI200
Dell M991 monitor
Samsung 308b DVD/CDRW combo
Telephony modem
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound (4159 beta driver)
Altec Lansing ADA995 (1BT)
Windows XP Home
Roxio Easy CDCreator 5.1.0.104 (platinum)
Office XP Pro (retail)
Power DVD 4 (retail upgrade)
Norton SystemWorks 2002 (retail)

Is this noise coming from the speakers or from the tower?

Charles,
Tag # 6VMY111

Dimension 8200, Bios A03
1.8 ghz P4
256 mb Ram
80 gb HD
NVidia GEForce3 TI200
Dell M991 monitor
Samsung 308b DVD/CDRW combo
Telephony modem
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz Sound (4159 beta driver)
Altec Lansing ADA995 (1BT)
Windows XP Home
Roxio Easy CDCreator 5.1.0.104 (platinum)
Office XP Pro (retail)
Power DVD 4 (retail upgrade)
Norton SystemWorks 2002 (retail)

Definitely from the tower. Goes away with you tip it gently to the right about < 10 degrees.

Same probelm here. the darn thing sounds like a buzz saw. If you squeeze the cases toghter that somtimes quiets it ,or as the other post said tip it from side to side. Or Also pushing down on the top.

I really do not want to getting to opening the thing up as this is the fisrt computer out of 4 from Dell that works perfectly except for the noise. When I asked Dell to send sombody out to fix it they told me that I would have to figure out the probelm myself first.

I would think they should send sombody out here with two or three fans and they figure it out. I would say the problem is either a bad fitting case,bad fan or both..

Since it seems like quite of people have the same problem I would like to hear from sombody who has had it fixed. I have Soundblaster Platinum gamer, Nivida64mb tv out. There are no fans on the cards that I can see. So Once again I believe its the case.
All I need to know now is where to add the gas and oil and which tree to cut down ;-)

This is excellent unit, but boy the noise...

Dimension 1.8

I've cracked my open, checked the power fan -- it's quiet. Checked the shroud that diverts the air from the fan to the processor. There was a small bit of noise from the cable that plugs into the board that powers the fan, but I secured it and that's not the noise I'm hearing.

I even got some insulation strips that you weather-proof your doors with and padded some of the areas in the case that I thought might be picking up the vibrations and magnifying it, but that lasted about 4 days before the hum started coming back and with each day, it got louder.

I've got it tilted slightly to the right right now inside my cabinet and that has dampened the noise a bit, but it is still quite loud.

I "got a Dell, dude" and now I wish I hadn't. Thanks a lot, Steve!

I've had the same problem with my 8200 2.0 GHz. Mostly the noise is noticeable when the CDRW drive or the DVD drives have been running. The noise from the tower sometimes sounded like it was going to fly away on me. I say "used to" because it seems to have settled down the last few months. When the whining was at it's worst I found that having my cat sit on the tower made the noise diminish greatly. Another thing that worked for awhile was to use a twisty on the back of the computer to hold the two metal butterfly pieces tighter together. That seems to dampen the vibration greatly. My third successful solution without opening the tower was to put 2 Encyclopedia Brittanica volumes on top of the tower. That quieted it down too. Go figure. $ 3800 plus $1000 for a Viewsonic 181VG and I have to listen to do this for peace and quiet. It IS a good thing the darn computer does run great otherwise.

Gentlemen,( or Ladies)

I can totally understand your frustration. I am on my second case fan. This one seems to be working. My tower is on my desk about a foot from me and I can not hear it running. I emailed Dell and told them I had a noisey case fan. They sent me a list of things to try, I tried them and emailed them back that it was the case fan making the noise. The second time I emailed them and told them the problem was back. They asked what I had done to troubleshoot the problem. I told them I unplugged the fan and the noise went away. I plugged the fan in and the noise was back. They made an appointment with a service rep., he was here the next day. It took about 10 minutes to fix it. You can email them here;

<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

Good Luck,

Marvin P

XPS B800r
512MBz Ram
Windows XP (2/1/02)
&
8200 1.8G
512MBz Ram
XP
&
Truck Vanity Plate "Dell4Me" (Maine)


Message Edited on 04/03/02 01:44AM by Marvin P

Message Edited on 04/03/02 01:45AM by Marvin P

Message Edited on 04/03/02 01:55AM by Marvin P

The buzzing noise sounds exactly like what I heard when I first received my 8100 about a year ago. Sounded like a plane taking off. When I pressed on the case or otherwise applied some sort of pressure to it, the noise stopped -- until I took my hand off the case.

After a couple of weeks I couldn't take it any longer so I ripped the case off and REALLY studied where this noise was coming from. The culprit turned out to be the slotted metal back panel of the computer. The very bottom slot was housing the modem card. That particular slot was not smooth all the way around. It had a tiny piece of extra metal turned inward which did not allow the modem card to lay flat no matter how hard I turned that screw! So the natural vibrations of the computer (which normally you don't really hear) caused the card to vibrate -- which caused the computer's back panel to vibrate -- which in turn forced the case to vibrate -- LOUDLY.

I took out the modem and -- no noise. So I simply moved the modem into another slot and it's been quiet ever since.

Rick





Message Edited on 04/03/02 07:19AM by rickyfc

Message Edited on 04/03/02 07:22AM by rickyfc

I also tried several things to quiet my fan down.  I pushed it against the side of the desk; that helped for a few seconds, but then the noise was just as loud.  I tried tipping it (carefully) and noticed a small difference in the noise level.  I even opened it up and used a can of compressed air to spray the dust out of the inside.

Finally, I put a heavy dictionary on top of the tower to dampen the vibration; it was heavy enough that the noise and vibration were almost unnoticeable.

After 2-3 weeks, I finally removed the dictionary and the fan has been at a reasonable level since.  If it gets noisy again, I'll try the heavy dictionary first before calling Dell.

--Slightly off the topic, I just had my Lite-On CD-Rom drive replaced (it wasn't reading CD-Roms any more).  Dell's service (after the phone "web" I had to go through to get to a tech) was quick, and the replacement was done 2-3 days after I called them. 

So I had a great experience with their service.