Ear Piercing Noise!

I think it started today, but there is an ear piercing noise coming out of my speakers. I turned the sound down and then it stops, so it's definately coming out of my speakers. It's pretty horrible sounding and very annoying. I'll try and record it and upload it if anyone wants to know exactly what sound it is. I've never had this problem before, so if someone could try n help, it'd be great. I just recently had 384mb of ram, i upgraded to 512mb ram, could that be something to do with it? thanks

Yes. For some machines a constant high pitched sound indicates a serious "over-heating" problem. You should shut your machine down immediately when you hear this alert. Open your case to be sure that all the fans, especially your CPU heatsink fan, are spinning vigorously. Clean out dust bunnies. Check all the IDE and power connectors. Look for any bulging or leaking capacitors. What "beep codes" occur at boot? Check to make sure all of your PCI cards are firmly seated. Check to make sure your new RAM stick is firmly/completely seated. (it should "click" into place and the locking clips on each end should easily/but firmly engage at both ends. Of course, be sure that you've installed a compatible RAM stick. Best Regards

i'll check now, thanks alot for the advice.

Do you have a Microphone. This could "very likely" be a feedback-loop, like what happens at a public event when they don't have the microphone and speakers adjusted properly. Usually occurs if your microphone is laying near a speaker. If you also have headphones, plug them in. Then the microphone is not likely to pick up a noise feedback loop. Keep us posted with your progress. Best Regards

(ill say what i did step by step so if anyone looks this up, they know what i did) I turned off my pc. Took the plugs out. I looked inside, no leakage, the RAM was inserted right, the RAM was compatable. I had quite a lot of dust, so i hovered it out. When i unplugged my speakers, the plug was EXTREMELY hot. Not surprising, seems my PC is barely off apart from at night. Maybe that was the problem? It may be time to buy some new speakers, preferably ones that don't get so hot. I do have a microphone. i don't have headphone sockets in my speakers unfortunatly. I don't think the microphone was near enough to my speakers to make this noise happen. I think the problem was to do with the over-heated speaker plug. (is this possible?) thanks for the replies, sorry it took a while to reply, but i left my PC off last night to cool down, and have been at a job interview this morning. Regards, Bizarrebob

just try to use headphones and see if it does the same noise. Nico

Not a good thing to have the words "EXTREMELY hot" in the same sentence with Speakers or Computers.

Heat is the enemy. Get it fixed.

When i unplugged my speakers, the plug was EXTREMELY hot. Not surprising, seems my PC is barely off apart from at night. Maybe that was the problem? It may be time to buy some new speakers, preferably ones that don't get so hot.

This old computer that I'm typing on right now is almost always on (literally 24/7 for weeks at a time with only short off times for cleaning and component changes, continuously for the past few years) Where I live, the weather has been over 100 degrees most days for the past 3 months. the machine Runs at about 30c internal temps (88degrees) and the CPU tops out at 47C occasionally. (It's a desktop with tower on air cooling)

I ran a laptop all day yesterday, all night last night, and still running this morning. Its on a table, but is cool enough that I could hold it on my lap if I wanted to.

Laptops, of course, have a harder time staying cool. I use a rubberized "mat" sort of like a dinning room "place setting mat" that you would put your plate and silverware on. It raises the laptop up about 1/4 inch off the surface of whatever it is resting on. because it is a "waffle-weave" type material, it provides a good amount of air circulation under the machine. It can easily be "rolled up" and put in my laptop carry bag for use anywhere I go.

I bought the mat material in a ten foot roll at a discount store for $1. I give sections of it to almost all of my clients who run Laptops. Might help you too, if you're running a laptop.

Hope your interview goes well.

Best Regards

It's a bargain you got a 10 foot roll for $1 !!! I'm using a desktop PC. The plug is one of them thick ones, i'll upload a pic of it just to show you how thick it is. Maybe i should try look for speakers that have a flat plug and maybe wont get so hot. It's probably my own fault for using the PC so much , but hey! what can i do? Thanks for your reply Dough. Thanks also to Siatnan. The noise hasn't come back since last night, so i'll keep an ear out for it, if it comes back, i'll try the headphones. Cheers.