2405 High Pitched Squeal

I have the same problem too. I noticed the whine/squeal the second day I had the monitor too. Like you I also use the monitor in a quiet room.

I think the squeal may be heat related. I didn't notice the whine the first night and remarked to a friend that it seemed to run relatively cool; but the monitor had only been on for an hour or so. On the second night, after 3 or 4 hours I started to hear the whine; with time it progressively got louder. The top right area of the display was also much hotter than the night before. Then about an hour later when I went to make an adjustment using the OSD (on screen display) (4 to 5 hours of operation) I noticed that the OSD icons had a torn look.

This morning, after cooling all night, the monitor is operating fairly quietly at start up, just the slight buzz of the lamp ballast and the OSD icons are normal. After about 45 minutes of use I notice that the buzz is getting slight louder.

If the whine/squeal manifests itself again the monitor goes back for a refund. I'll pass on a replacement until Dell can work the bugs out. Too many people are complaining about the squeal for me to chance that the monitor doesn’t have a design problem or quality control issue.

stevejohnson1,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.

Go into the display properties in the control panel and click the settings tab. From there click advanced | adapter. You can then change the refresh rate for the adapter. You may need to try different settings to get the squeal to stop.

Thanks for the help!  I did change refresh from 60Hz to 70Hz.  I can't notice a discernable difference though. Anytime the monitor is powered up and in 19x12 mode, the squeal is there. If I go into standby, or if the montior cable is unplugged and it is just in the test screen, the noise is there, but much much quieter.  I think I'm going to have to return and wait for the new Samsung. Maybe their powersupplies are quieter. Refrencing the earlier post about a quiet display, I'm sure many are. Don't be discouraged because the display and features are absolutely awesome. I'm just "tuned" in to noises like this. For 1200 bucks, I want something as good or better on all fronts as my CRT.

Standby drains a total of .4 amps. Less than 3 or 4 watts. I think that's pretty much as off as you can get with electronics nowadays. I wouldn't think there would be any electrical advantage to the monitor if you shut it off since most parts of it are obviously powered down.

I measured this with an AC meter that I have and verified it on my line conditioner with digital current display. I'm always curious how much power my computers are draining. Call it a morbid curiosity.. :-)

I received mine 3 days ago. No squeal. Knock on wood because I am sensitive to it. I left it on (standby) when the pc is off. Should I turn it off as well at night?

Thanks for the info. I read in other trheads about the high pitch noise. So I put my ear real close to the front and back, not noise. But, when my ear is over the venting slots, I can hear a faint high pitch noise. Hope it stays this way and not getting any louder.

An update on the high pitch squeal…

It takes about three hours of operation before the squeal becomes loud enough to be annoying. When turning the monitor on after it has been sitting off for a while it’s perfectly quiet.

The squeal is also tied to the operation of the backlightlamps. As soon as the lamps shut down the squeal stops. If you wake the monitor up, without giving it time to cool down the sqeaul will start as soon as the lamps trun on.

I thought that I’d give the monitor a few days to settle in, but if the squeal doesn’t improve by this weekend I’ll return it for a refund and wait a few months to give Dell a chance to correct the problem.

Just to see if I was being overly sensitive, while at work I check a number of the new 19 inch Dell LCD’s we received a few weeks ago. Even with my ear to the back of these monitors I couldn’t detect any noise; buzz or squeal. If only my 2405FPW which cost nearly 3 times a much were as quiet 19 inch panels.

I have used 2 17" LCD monitors. Princeton 17" from Costco, and Sony 17" SDM HX73. None of these made any noise. So, I do not agree that all LCD makes noise.

I've had the monitor for 5 days now and the problem is repeatable. After 2-1/2 to 3 hours of operation the squeal starts.

One suggestion posted in this forum was to adjust the brightness until the squeal stopped. I found that on this unit turning the brightness all the way up makes the squeal louder and conversely turn the brightness all the down makes the squeal a slightly quieter. The only way to get rid of the squeal is to turn the monitor off and let it cool down. Either way the squeal is loud enough that it’s audible walking past the door to my home office.

I concerned that it could be an inherent design issues with the monitor or a supplier quality problem. At this point I’m somewhat torn as to what to do, take my chances and return the monitor for an exchange or return it for a refund and wait a few months to give Dell some time to resolve the issue. Right now I'm leaning towards a refund.

I never said all LCDs squeal, I said, "many." I also said that it changes based on brightness setting; it may get quieter going up or it may get quieter going down. Note the word, "may." Every display on the market is different.

Has anyone had the squeal and have it disappear over time?