What is coil whine and why does it occur?
Explanation and information about coil whine and why it occurs
Explanation and information about coil whine and why it occurs
Symptoms
Users may experience electrical crackling or high pitch noise issues.
In many cases, these issues will be related to "coil whine", which is inherent in the design of today's high-power computer products and is not a hardware defect.
Coil whine is the result of electronic components vibrating at specific frequencies when current flows through these components, resulting in an audible tone that can be perceptible to the human ear.
The symptoms may be more pronounced in products with high-end graphic chips and may be more perceptible when operating the product in a quiet environment.
This is not a hardware defect. The product is operating within specification and within the acoustic tolerance for the level of sound emitted by the product during regular operation. No impact on the performance of the product exists.
Solutions
What is "Coil whine"?
"Coil whine" refers to the audible noise that is produced when an electrical current runs through electromagnetic coils. While the noise can be drowned out among the whir of high-speed fans or muffled by an insulating case, this high-pitched "whine" can be particularly annoying for many users and is especially noticeable in notebooks. It can be even more distracting in quieter fanless devices.
Why does "Coil whine" occur?
The source of the noise, electromagnetic coils, are found in all manners of electrical devices and components, and typically serve as inductors or transformers. As these devices have an electric current passed through them, they begin to resonate; at the right frequencies, these vibrations become audible noise, manifesting as a distinct whining hum. In general, the more power that flows through the coils, the more pronounced the whine will become — a problem for many of today's high-powered devices.
How can "Coil whine" be prevented?
Since the problem is the result of a physical process that occurs during the regular use of the device, there are few ways of preventing coil whine. If the coil whine is coming from parts in a desktop setup, the best solution can often be to put them in a noise-isolating case. Alternatively, plugging in a pair of headphones could be the most straightforward option for many users.
Lenovo does as much as possible to mitigate the effects of coil whine in our products, but, like any computer manufacturer, we cannot eliminate this phenomenon completely.
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