X300 squeaks?

You may want to backup your hard drive pronto, just in case.  My Latitude was making a wonderful symphony of clicks and squeeks, and then the blue screen of death appeared.  Soon after, my hard drive stopped working altogether.  

I called support, and they're going to replace my hard drive, but I still lost quite a bit of data. 

Where is the sound coming from?  Speakers?  One side of the laptop?

Astrophysics,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
If you have an option in your system bios for "Smart CPU" disable this option
for both battery and AC, and then reboot to see if you still have the noise.

Thanks for the suggestions. Based on my previous experience, I would guess that it's not a hard drive sound, and most of the "data" that is ther to be lost is operating system related at this point. But I will keep a second copy of my real data elsewhere, at least for a while.

WRT changing bios options... I will try it next time it starts to make the sound. However, I'm not sure that test would be very meaningful, at least by itself. The sound comes and goes pretty easily. So I'd also have to try simply rebooting wihtout changing any settings to see if that caused it to stop (at least temporarily).

I'll let you know.

Thanks,
astro

Ok, I have some results to report...

The noise sems to be coming from inside the case, just toward the front of battery release latch near the video port.

Once it starts, closing all the applications doesn't stop the noise...
But logging out does.
Logging in again (as either me or guest) starts the noise back up again, although not always right away.

If I use SpeedSwitchXP to chage the cpu speed, I find that the volume is higher when I set CPU max and the volume is lower when I set battery max. (So I doubt it's the hard drive.) The frequency of the noise is not affected. The noise persists in all states with and without running the program.

Ideas?

Thanks,
astro

Astrophysics,

Have you tried the smart cpu setting yet?

When I reboot it's normally quiet, at least for a little while. However, eventually it starts back up again.

My BIOS did not have a "smart cpu" option, but did have an enable or disable speedstep option. I've disabled it in bios and the noise still came back shortly after rebooting.

Thanks,
astro

I had the exact same problem with my D800, at first all is quiet then a little while later "morse code" sounds... When I exchanged it for a new D800 the noise is completely gone...

... BUT I have had TWO replacements sent for the x300 and ALL 3 have had the "morse code" sound.

The only time the noise went away was when I plugged in the D-bay or any other USB peripheral or when I had the ethernet plugged in.

Just for fun I tapped the USB port with a metal pin and the noise went away for the remainder of the time the x300 was on, only to come back once I rebooted the machine.

Message Edited by Matrix-2002 on 10-29-2003 01:32 PM

Hmm, thanks for the info, although I wish it had been more encouraging.

Did it matter which usb port you plugged it into? If so, which one quieted it down?

Thanks,
astro

tapping the contacts of either USB port wtih a metal pin quieted the machine down indefinately until you rebooted it... plugging into any USB port or ethernet jack quieted the sound, but when you unplug the cord or cables the sound came back.

Message Edited by Matrix-2002 on 10-29-2003 08:59 PM

The USB port got me thinking about the power settings of XP so I tried this: go into control panel and choose performance and system. A new window opens where you can change various system settings. Choose the tab hardware and device settings.

Scroll down to USB Controller. You will probably find four USB-Root-Hub.

Take the first one and right click -> Properties. In power options remove the option for XP to turn the device off.

Repeat for the other Root-Hubs as well. You will find that the sound is gone either instantly or after reboot.

Worked fine for me, I now don't have this sound anymore when no USB device is connected!!!!

Regards

RS66

I have the same issue with my D500. What I have found is that when no USB device is connected and my D500 is in the docking station (PR01X) the squeaking sound appears. As soon as I plug my scanner to the USB port the sound is gone straight away. There seems to be an issue with the docking station USB port, probably of physical nature (earthing?).

I have no setting in BIOS called SmartCPU. Again, I think it's a hardware issue.

RS66

 

D500, 256MB, 40GB, Docking station, BIOS A06, XP Pro SP1

Thx for your message/problem solution!

I think the problem is that the Bluetooth modul use the USB Root Hub as power source! In the Device Manger the bluetooth is listed by the USB Root Hub.

If u disable the Powersaving Option(thx to RS66 for this information) (or the Bluetooth device) the problem is gone (it works for me).

Have anyone a Latitude without a bluetooth device which makes terrible squeaks?

Undying

...übrigens, Grüße aus München ;-)

RS66

It seems the internal Bluetooth card is connected as USB device. Having the power settings as default for the USB hub (set to automaticaly shut down the device) might also explain why people are experiencing the breaking of a Bluetooth connection at irregular times. I've seen a few posts on it also, maybe this fixes that issue also. Hopefully....