Faint Laptop Beeping and Loud Monitor Thrumming

[Another Brian]

I have two hardware issues.

1) My Dell laptop is making a faint irregular fairly high pitched
beeping sound. It is coming from the back. It is not coming from the
speakers. Changing the speaker volume makes no difference. I beeps
every second or two for an hour or two and then stops for an hour or
two and then starts over again. Could it be something is overheating?
Is so, how would I tell? What free utilities could I get that might
tell me what is going on. The beeping gets very tiring!

2) I just got a couple year old Dell 20" CRT monitor. When I first
turn it on or wake it out of sleep mode, it makes a loud click-thrum
sound. What could be causing this? I seem to remember that when this
type of monitor was common around work, many of them made this noise.

Thanks in advance,
Brian

 

[Paul]

I have two hardware issues.

1) My Dell laptop is making a faint irregular fairly high pitched
beeping sound. It is coming from the back. It is not coming from the
speakers. Changing the speaker volume makes no difference. I beeps
every second or two for an hour or two and then stops for an hour or
two and then starts over again. Could it be something is overheating?
Is so, how would I tell? What free utilities could I get that might
tell me what is going on. The beeping gets very tiring!

2) I just got a couple year old Dell 20" CRT monitor. When I first
turn it on or wake it out of sleep mode, it makes a loud click-thrum
sound. What could be causing this? I seem to remember that when this
type of monitor was common around work, many of them made this noise.

Thanks in advance,
Brian

I cannot help with the first one. Yes, it could be overheat. Ask Dell
if they have a utility for measuring temperature.

The second one is easier. The "thrum" is the CRT degauss circuit. There is a
coil of wire in the frame of the monitor. It applies a steadily decaying
A.C. magnetic field, and the purpose is to erase stray DC magnetism in
the metal in the monitor. By degaussing itself regularly, the monitor
is maintaining its color purity. (For example, if you stick a powerful
magnet to the monitor, you may notice colored patches on the screen.
The degausser cannot remove those, as the degausser is too weak.)

For serious degaussing applications, if you go to a TV repair shop, they
have a coil of wire about 1 foot in diameter. It is a portable degausser.
You wave it in circles in front of the monitor, and slowly walk backwards,
away from the monitor. When 10 feet away from the CRT, turn the degausser
90 degrees, and switch it off only when it is no longer pointing at the
screen. Such an application will remove more serious "magnetism accidents".
But even with one of those, there will be limits. When I got my monitor new,
I walked into a TV/stereo store, and a salesman waved the degausser in
front of my monitor for free. The monitor was delivered with a color purity
problem right from day one.

So the coil embedded in the monitor, is only for very weak magnetism
problems. By keeping speaker magnets, fridge magnets and the like,
away from the monitor, the built-in degausser should gives years of
service.

The thrum is caused, because a temperature sensitive device is used.
When the monitor is off (and device is cold), a lot of current flows
at the instant the monitor is turned on. The device heats rather
quickly, once the A.C. starts to flow. Once hot, very little current
is allowed to flow into the degaussing coil. Some units include a
relay, to completely disconnect the thing. In which case, you may hear
an almost inaudible "click" at the end of the degauss cycle. If the
thing hummed continuously, or the frame of the monitor was hot to
the touch, that would tell you that something was broken.

Paul

 

[bxb7668]

I cannot help with the first one. Yes, it could be overheat. Ask
Dell
if they have a utility for measuring temperature.

The second one is easier. The "thrum" is the CRT degauss circuit.
There is a
coil of wire in the frame of the monitor. It applies a steadily
decaying
A.C. magnetic field, and the purpose is to erase stray DC magnetism
in
the metal in the monitor. By degaussing itself regularly, the
monitor
is maintaining its color purity. (For example, if you stick a
powerful
magnet to the monitor, you may notice colored patches on the screen.
The degausser cannot remove those, as the degausser is too weak.)

For serious degaussing applications, if you go to a TV repair shop,
they
have a coil of wire about 1 foot in diameter. It is a portable
degausser.
You wave it in circles in front of the monitor, and slowly walk
backwards,
away from the monitor. When 10 feet away from the CRT, turn the
degausser
90 degrees, and switch it off only when it is no longer pointing at
the
screen. Such an application will remove more serious "magnetism
accidents".
But even with one of those, there will be limits. When I got my
monitor new,
I walked into a TV/stereo store, and a salesman waved the degausser
in
front of my monitor for free. The monitor was delivered with a color
purity
problem right from day one.

So the coil embedded in the monitor, is only for very weak magnetism
problems. By keeping speaker magnets, fridge magnets and the like,
away from the monitor, the built-in degausser should gives years of
service.

The thrum is caused, because a temperature sensitive device is used.
When the monitor is off (and device is cold), a lot of current flows
at the instant the monitor is turned on. The device heats rather
quickly, once the A.C. starts to flow. Once hot, very little current
is allowed to flow into the degaussing coil. Some units include a
relay, to completely disconnect the thing. In which case, you may
hear
an almost inaudible "click" at the end of the degauss cycle. If the
thing hummed continuously, or the frame of the monitor was hot to
the touch, that would tell you that something was broken.

Paul

Thank you, Paul. That's about what I thought. It fits my many year old
EE education. Now if I can just figure out the beeping. I'll check
with Dell and see if they have any utilities.

Brian

 

[Nicole]

Brian, did you talk to Dell? My laptop just started making that sound a couple days ago and I am also concerned. Thanks!

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[Gordon]

Brian, did you talk to Dell? My laptop just started making that sound a
couple days ago and I am also concerned. Thanks!

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com

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