Xps 12 High-Pitched sound

Hi dtwn83

I'm on a 9Q33 and experiencing the same problems.

TerryB from Dell (in this thread), will be very interested in this. It sounds like mine, but much worse. My one hardly ever makes noise these days as it's coming on Summer here in the Southern Hemi, so it's warm and happy...

You might want to personal message Terry to see if he wants to coordinate the return of your unit.

I'm on a 9Q33 and experiencing the same problems.

The sound seems to disappear when the laptop is unplugged. And appears to be more consistent when the battery is in a low power state. Will be making a Dell warranty claim while I still have my original laptops in case this has to be sent in.

My problem seems fully resolved.

I want to say a special thanks to Terry for helping me through the process. I have to say this has been one of the best fix/warrenty experiences i have ever had. 

My guess is that it is interfeaence with the solid state drive. I have done a fair amount of reaserch on the drive and it seems like other devices with the samsung SSD makes a high pitch noise. So since all the 9q23 series xps12's use this drive all of them will have this problem. Im pretty sure the cause of this was wireless card/ ssd interfearence. What i ended up doing was getting the 512 GB 9q33 which has a totally different harddrive than the 128GB or 256GB versions. This one does not run into the same interfearence problems as the samsung 258GB one that i had prior. You still get the processor noise, but i think this is normal among laptops its just more evident in the xps 12 because of its thin carbon fiber design which does not damp the noise at all compared to a metal bodied notebook. Seriously great service though, they overnighted the new laptop to me as soon as it was finished being manufactured.  

Sounds like they did an excellent job giving you a brand new laptop instead!

I'm actually using the exact same model you are, a 512GB 9Q33, but I continue to have the same high pitched noise. I'm using a PM841 Samsung SSD, I assume that would be the same one you have?

I'm going to try and see if a fan or motherboard replacement will work.

I had my fan assembly, motherboard, and heat sink removed. The whining noise has disappeared, but my fan is now louder than before.

In doing some troubleshooting I found the problem isn't the fan at all. The high pitched noise is coming from the adaptor plug in, unplug the XPS12 and the noise will stop.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction

Basically, the high pitched noise will occur when there is too much power draw, and the capacitor is full. Fix action would be to pull the plug for a bit and let the power drain. There are a couple fix actions dell could do, but that's for there engineers.

I honestly wonder how much testing Dell computers have. If this is such a common occurrence, how did this slip by?

Hey fellas.

It was driving me crazy too. I disabled Intel SpeedStep on the bios/efi menu, and it's now quiet as a whisper. I don't know what the power consumption change is, but to me, it's more than worth it.

I noticed similar to what you describe on my new precision m3800.

Did little analysis of this noise. It has two main bands at 8.9 and 17.9kHz. Its total intensity is about 30dB which is clearly audible. Its source is located around key "R' on m3800 A lttile to the left from the center of the keyboard. Incredibly frustrating thing. It dissappears for me when I disconnect AC adapter and when I run some app that loads one or more cores of the CPU. It also is becomes much quitere and the laptop goes to quiet mode dimming screen a bit due to inactivity. Sometime the noise is continious and sometime is periodic 5 seconds "on" 1 second "off". 

Dell !!!  what is going on how do you do QC? Or you sold me returned system. Very disappointed...

BTW. spectrum analyzer shows anothe source of noise not as significant though, but still audible around 13Kz. Multiple narrow bands about 1 kHz apart 

@CZLumen: thank you for your anwser, your describtion of the problem matches exactly my observations. the noise ocurs at the time just before the battery is fully charged about 97-99%. reached 100% the sound instantly stops, most likely for the laptop getting its power directly from the grid. disabling speedstep as suggested does not help. the sound is very annoying and the only way to avoid it is to use the battery when it is not necissery or to stop using the device until it has become fully charged.

I am very disappointed by dell. its now the second device and again it has unignorable problems. not to mention the LCD ghosting "feature".

Just got off the phone w dell.  I sent my computer to the dispatch.  about 10 days later the machine came back- with a new hard drive.  The problem was not fixed- the noise was still there as loud as ever.  They are now replacing my machine.  I'll let everyone know if the new one is any better.  (i previously had the motherboard on my machine replaced).

Just got a replacement (refurbished) machine. it is WORSE than the other one.  this is nuts.  on phone now.

 i had to call special number to remove a hold on my account.  then when i got back in and validated i was immediately sent to level 2 support.  hmm.

They are sending me a 3rd computer!