I'll add my name to the list, I created a topic on it for my i500M, but there was no response.
It's a general buzzing noise that is only evident once WinXP starts up. When the CPU usage is 100%, the noise is not audible. It's just a tad annoying, I could live with it, but I certainly can't use it in a library.
Why do the newer models have the same problems if there have already been so many complaints about this?
I have same constant static buzz problem on my Inspiron 4000 and it is driving me nuts. However, its intensity increased last couple months or so. I have tried many things but there is nothing I can do about the noise. It is there as long as computer is ON (I think that only solution to this annoying problem is to turn the dam.. thing OFF). I also have I3700 with similar noise problem.
Hello!
Anyone in Dell have any solutions?
My next laptop will NOT be a DELL. However, I was not planning changing my laptop soon, so I guess I have to deal with the noise.
Inspiron 4000 W2K with SP3 20GB hard drive 320MB memory 8MB graphic card
Well it's now been a little over two months since Dell finally fixed my inspiron buzz and my computer is still silent. Read my last post on page 4 for more info. I just wanted to say that not all inspirons have the buzzing sound and it is NOT normal. So anyone still under the 30 day return period that has a buzzing notebook should return it now, or have years of frustration. It took me 1 1/2 years and 4 shippings to dell to get my Inspiron 4000 fixed. Anyone that has a laptop that buzzes and is still under warranty should keep sending their laptop into dell until they fix the buzz. Anyone who has the buzzing problem and is no longer under warranty but tried to get the problem fixed while under warranty should try to seek some kind of legal action. Dell can fix the problem...and my laptop is proof.
It's definitely the video card on mine, because the buzz only comes on when I'm surfing web pages with a lot of graphics. Bodes well for me now that I know, I only use Office applications in the library.
I hope Dell releases some new video drivers in the near future to rectify the problem :)
I am quite happy to have found this thread after having posted numerous requests in the community for some solution until someone posted a link here. Again I am just another name to the list, I have an Inspiron 4100 and the pleasure of listening to this histeric buzz which gives me a headache. Maybe if I get a chronic brain disease I can sue Dell and buy many Toshiba or Sony Laptops with the money they give me.
As many others of you I have been exchanging emails with wonderfully educated and customer-pampering Dell E-Support staff. Judging from the numerous replies I have had so far - despite my insignificant attempt to point out that I am quite convinced this is a video-card problem - they insisted in adjusting my computer settings. As I posted on another thread, these were the solutions they came up with:
1. Clear out the startup environment
2. Clear Devices from Device Manager while in Safe Mode
3. Disabling Smart CPU
4. System Restore
5. Repair Reinstall
Surely the first solution was a joke by the Dell guys, the third 'solution' was the closest to tackling the actual problem it got to.
The last suggestion they gave me (not in the list) was to strip my computer from all its parts and try to narrow down the source of the noise. I haven't had time to do such a thing but based on what I read in this thread it will be pointless since the video card is the source of all pain. Maybe if I rip it off and throw it out of the window it might solve it.
I am reluctant to send a reply saying "its the video card" because it will clearly start things from scratch. My first email to them explicitly stated "its the video card". But surely they know better even though they are not here to hear it for themselves. Obviously!
I am not quite sure if I can request for it to be changed. My '3 year on site repair' is still valid though, I am not sure if this is the same as the warranty? I have had it for about a year and a half now.
My best solution was to run Seti at Home or United Devices which for some strange reason stops the noise but on the other hand heats up my computer and gets the fan going non-stop. The strange thing is that by running Seti I would be increasing the processing levels and not doing anything related to the video card. So in a way my statement can be rather paradoxical. Having this in mind, the possibility of removing the Smart CPU was a potential solution considering such thing. However, it did not work....and as mentioned before, why should we have our CPUs running full speed all the time when it shouldn't be the case?
for those of you with 8500's that noise could be the AC adapter. If it's revision A00, it's almost guaranteed to make a noise. I also noticed a really faint buzzing while on batteries but I dismissed it as I've had enough problems with all these different noises.
I too have noticed the same old problem. I'm using an UK i4000 and have used dos, win98se, linux (redhat8, mandrake, floppydisk-linux,and others), WIN2k and WIN-XP
It would appear that as previously found out, it generally only appears on the newer types of system. Therefore my personal stab in the dark guess is that in these later OS's, Windows may use a piece of the Video hardware which it does not usually use in the older versions... ie a specific part of the video subsystem with that part number (102HA/6/1713Q).
It's just a complete guess, but I think it's something to do with the relationship between the OS and a specific part of the Video Sub-System... so anyone out there who knows the difference in the addressing of the video hardware by the different versions of windows, could they pretty please offer some advice.
On another sour point, my mouse button (top left of as you look at the keyboard from birds' eye view) snapped :-( and now I think it's either super glue, or a whole new Palm Rest Assembly which is a rather pricey £50 odd!
So if anyone knows about Video hardware addressing between different OS's (any Microsoft techies for eg) please please give Dell a kick up the back side :)
I want to add my name to the list also. I have had this buzz for over a year now. I have been going back and forth with Dell on this and I just discovered this thread today. While I sympatize with all the people that have this problem, I'm conforted by all the company.
I see a lot of people talking about video causing this problem, but my feeling was that it was audio related. Everyone says that they hear it when browsing web pages. That's when I noticed it. I "fixed" that problem by uninstalling Macromedia Flash Player (see their web site for instructions on how to do that). That stopped the buzzing during web browsing (but of course I'm annoyed by the constant pop ups to install Flash).
Even with Flash disabled I get the buzz occasionally when I recieve an e-mail that has an embedded sound (OE lets you set sounds as background objects).
I'm running Win 2K and Dell tried to get me to reinstall the OS. When I told them that was out of the question they said the problem was my hard drive and they sent me a new one. Well, I used that drive to run tests:
Win2K buzz is present
Win98SE no buzzing.
Someone else has reported similar findings. This leads me to believe that it's a software driver issue. I tried every Win2K audio driver on the Dell site, no luck. If you notice, the same driver file is used for Win98, WinMe, Win2K and XP. That's because all these OSs support the Windows Driver Model (WDM). So, manufacturers can write one driver and it can work across OSs. When using WDM on Win98 you usually have to have some code in there that is Win98 specific. If I were debugging this issue, that is where I would start. (Anyone listening at Dell?).
I hope someone can figure this out. It is a very annoying little sound and without Flash installed there are several websites that cannot even be displayed and hence, become useless.
One person on this thread, took apart the entire computer and actually physically removed the speaker assembly so it definately isn't sound.
The problem is an audio problem, particularly whilst loading large graphics, or those with colour.
As it isn't present on Win98 etc, but is on 2k + XP, my guess is that it's those OS's utilising part of the graphics sub-system not normally used or something, but that's just a guess.
Ok, suppose you are correct that by disabling the audio it works. I wanted to try it with mine but I am not sure if I am doing it correctly. I went to the control panel and looked up the device manager. There i went under the Sound, Video and Game Controllers. I only managed to disable one of them (Intel 82801 ...etc... Audio Controller). The other devices can only be updated or removed. Is there some other way of disabling them? Or did you remove them?
I would love to think you are correct but at the same time I would be worried because having my audio permanently disabled is not what I would like in exchange for stopping the buzz!
For my Inspiron 4100 it most certainly is a hardware issue unrelated to the audio. The reason I am so certain about this is because of the 'source' location of the noise. It is somewhere under my keyboard, similar to where others have mentioned in this thread.
If I have the noise I can be sure to stop it by closing:
- MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger (needs to be terminated in the task manager - how appropriate )
- Windows Media Player
- Flash animations
- Games
Any of the above which might be open, on its own or simultaneously (possibly other applications which I do not recall at the moment).
Having closed these the computer is silent. It is clearly not an option to uninstall Flash, MSN and so on. Why should we be limited to what kind of software we can use? Surely one or two years after Dell produced these models they should have come up with a wonderfully simple answer...... Afterall, thats what the technicians are paid for. Isn't it?
Since so many people think this is video related, I tried booting my computer with the standard VGA driver to see if that made a difference, it didn't. I get the buzzing when viewing an e-mail message that has only a sound embedded in the background. There is nothing video intensive about that. If I disable all the Audio Codecs and the Audio WDM Codec (the driver) the buzzing is gone. Re-enabling the WDM codec brings the buzzing back. So, if that's not sound related, then I don't know what is.
I'd like to get some Crystal 4205 reference drivers from any source other than Dell and try those.
loyukfai-new
114 Posts
0
May 17th, 2003 16:00
wonderstars
11 Posts
0
May 17th, 2003 20:00
I'll add my name to the list, I created a topic on it for my i500M, but there was no response.
It's a general buzzing noise that is only evident once WinXP starts up. When the CPU usage is 100%, the noise is not audible. It's just a tad annoying, I could live with it, but I certainly can't use it in a library.
Why do the newer models have the same problems if there have already been so many complaints about this?
gone4goldex
3 Posts
0
May 18th, 2003 08:00
I have same constant static buzz problem on my Inspiron 4000 and it is driving me nuts.
However, its intensity increased last couple months or so. I have tried many things but there is nothing I can do about the noise. It is there as long as computer is ON (I think that only solution to this annoying problem is to turn the dam.. thing OFF). I also have I3700 with similar noise problem.
Hello!
Anyone in Dell have any solutions?
My next laptop will NOT be a DELL. However, I was not planning changing my laptop soon, so I guess I have to deal with the noise.
Inspiron 4000
W2K with SP3
20GB hard drive
320MB memory
8MB graphic card
PureBlur
1 Rookie
•
36 Posts
0
May 21st, 2003 07:00
Jason
blackblackhamme
65 Posts
0
May 23rd, 2003 12:00
----------------------------------------------
I have:
A NOISY
Inspiron 8000, PIII 1 GHz, 2x 64Mb, UXGA, 20Gb Hd, 3Com 56k minipci modem,
fixed DVD/CDRW combo Toshiba, 32Mb M4 graphics.
wonderstars
11 Posts
0
May 25th, 2003 18:00
It's definitely the video card on mine, because the buzz only comes on when I'm surfing web pages with a lot of graphics. Bodes well for me now that I know, I only use Office applications in the library.
I hope Dell releases some new video drivers in the near future to rectify the problem :)
Dionysius
6 Posts
0
May 27th, 2003 20:00
I am quite happy to have found this thread after having posted numerous requests in the community for some solution until someone posted a link here. Again I am just another name to the list, I have an Inspiron 4100 and the pleasure of listening to this histeric buzz which gives me a headache. Maybe if I get a chronic brain disease I can sue Dell and buy many Toshiba or Sony Laptops with the money they give me.
As many others of you I have been exchanging emails with wonderfully educated and customer-pampering Dell E-Support staff. Judging from the numerous replies I have had so far - despite my insignificant attempt to point out that I am quite convinced this is a video-card problem - they insisted in adjusting my computer settings. As I posted on another thread, these were the solutions they came up with:
1. Clear out the startup environment
2. Clear Devices from Device Manager while in Safe Mode
3. Disabling Smart CPU
4. System Restore
5. Repair Reinstall
Surely the first solution was a joke by the Dell guys, the third 'solution' was the closest to tackling the actual problem it got to.
The last suggestion they gave me (not in the list) was to strip my computer from all its parts and try to narrow down the source of the noise. I haven't had time to do such a thing but based on what I read in this thread it will be pointless since the video card is the source of all pain. Maybe if I rip it off and throw it out of the window it might solve it.
I am reluctant to send a reply saying "its the video card" because it will clearly start things from scratch. My first email to them explicitly stated "its the video card". But surely they know better even though they are not here to hear it for themselves. Obviously!
I am not quite sure if I can request for it to be changed. My '3 year on site repair' is still valid though, I am not sure if this is the same as the warranty? I have had it for about a year and a half now.
My best solution was to run Seti at Home or United Devices which for some strange reason stops the noise but on the other hand heats up my computer and gets the fan going non-stop. The strange thing is that by running Seti I would be increasing the processing levels and not doing anything related to the video card. So in a way my statement can be rather paradoxical. Having this in mind, the possibility of removing the Smart CPU was a potential solution considering such thing. However, it did not work....and as mentioned before, why should we have our CPUs running full speed all the time when it shouldn't be the case?
Surely there is a way out of this!
Nerdtalker
276 Posts
0
May 28th, 2003 02:00
andrewnicols
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
May 28th, 2003 20:00
I too have noticed the same old problem. I'm using an UK i4000 and have used dos, win98se, linux (redhat8, mandrake, floppydisk-linux,and others), WIN2k and WIN-XP
It would appear that as previously found out, it generally only appears on the newer types of system. Therefore my personal stab in the dark guess is that in these later OS's, Windows may use a piece of the Video hardware which it does not usually use in the older versions... ie a specific part of the video subsystem with that part number (102HA/6/1713Q).
It's just a complete guess, but I think it's something to do with the relationship between the OS and a specific part of the Video Sub-System... so anyone out there who knows the difference in the addressing of the video hardware by the different versions of windows, could they pretty please offer some advice.
On another sour point, my mouse button (top left of as you look at the keyboard from birds' eye view) snapped :-( and now I think it's either super glue, or a whole new Palm Rest Assembly which is a rather pricey £50 odd!
So if anyone knows about Video hardware addressing between different OS's (any Microsoft techies for eg) please please give Dell a kick up the back side :)
larry_bar56
8 Posts
0
June 1st, 2003 15:00
I want to add my name to the list also. I have had this buzz for over a year now. I have been going back and forth with Dell on this and I just discovered this thread today. While I sympatize with all the people that have this problem, I'm conforted by all the company.
I see a lot of people talking about video causing this problem, but my feeling was that it was audio related. Everyone says that they hear it when browsing web pages. That's when I noticed it. I "fixed" that problem by uninstalling Macromedia Flash Player (see their web site for instructions on how to do that). That stopped the buzzing during web browsing (but of course I'm annoyed by the constant pop ups to install Flash).
Even with Flash disabled I get the buzz occasionally when I recieve an e-mail that has an embedded sound (OE lets you set sounds as background objects).
I'm running Win 2K and Dell tried to get me to reinstall the OS. When I told them that was out of the question they said the problem was my hard drive and they sent me a new one. Well, I used that drive to run tests:
Win2K buzz is present
Win98SE no buzzing.
Someone else has reported similar findings. This leads me to believe that it's a software driver issue. I tried every Win2K audio driver on the Dell site, no luck. If you notice, the same driver file is used for Win98, WinMe, Win2K and XP. That's because all these OSs support the Windows Driver Model (WDM). So, manufacturers can write one driver and it can work across OSs. When using WDM on Win98 you usually have to have some code in there that is Win98 specific. If I were debugging this issue, that is where I would start. (Anyone listening at Dell?).
I hope someone can figure this out. It is a very annoying little sound and without Flash installed there are several websites that cannot even be displayed and hence, become useless.
andrewnicols
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
June 1st, 2003 15:00
One person on this thread, took apart the entire computer and actually physically removed the speaker assembly so it definately isn't sound.
The problem is an audio problem, particularly whilst loading large graphics, or those with colour.
As it isn't present on Win98 etc, but is on 2k + XP, my guess is that it's those OS's utilising part of the graphics sub-system not normally used or something, but that's just a guess.
Oh well... Mine luckily isn't too bad :-)
Dionysius
6 Posts
0
June 1st, 2003 21:00
Ok, suppose you are correct that by disabling the audio it works. I wanted to try it with mine but I am not sure if I am doing it correctly. I went to the control panel and looked up the device manager. There i went under the Sound, Video and Game Controllers. I only managed to disable one of them (Intel 82801 ...etc... Audio Controller). The other devices can only be updated or removed. Is there some other way of disabling them? Or did you remove them?
I would love to think you are correct but at the same time I would be worried because having my audio permanently disabled is not what I would like in exchange for stopping the buzz!
Dionysius
6 Posts
0
June 1st, 2003 21:00
For my Inspiron 4100 it most certainly is a hardware issue unrelated to the audio. The reason I am so certain about this is because of the 'source' location of the noise. It is somewhere under my keyboard, similar to where others have mentioned in this thread.
If I have the noise I can be sure to stop it by closing:
- MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger (needs to be terminated in the task manager - how appropriate
)
- Windows Media Player
- Flash animations
- Games
Any of the above which might be open, on its own or simultaneously (possibly other applications which I do not recall at the moment).
Having closed these the computer is silent. It is clearly not an option to uninstall Flash, MSN and so on. Why should we be limited to what kind of software we can use? Surely one or two years after Dell produced these models they should have come up with a wonderfully simple answer......
Afterall, thats what the technicians are paid for. Isn't it? 
andrewnicols
1 Rookie
•
22 Posts
0
June 1st, 2003 21:00
I'm guessing then that there may be more than one type of buzzing...
Some people seem to get a buzzing from the Audio system... whilst others get it from the video.
Personally, I'm a video boy not an Audio.
larry_bar56
8 Posts
0
June 1st, 2003 21:00
Since so many people think this is video related, I tried booting my computer with the standard VGA driver to see if that made a difference, it didn't. I get the buzzing when viewing an e-mail message that has only a sound embedded in the background. There is nothing video intensive about that. If I disable all the Audio Codecs and the Audio WDM Codec (the driver) the buzzing is gone. Re-enabling the WDM codec brings the buzzing back. So, if that's not sound related, then I don't know what is.
I'd like to get some Crystal 4205 reference drivers from any source other than Dell and try those.