I recently bought a Lenovo X1 Carbon. It makes an annoying high pitched sound. At first I thought it would be the fans and it will go away when I configure the dynamic fan speed.<p>But it turns out it is "Coil Whine" and that is common among Lenovo laptops:<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=coil+whine+lenovo" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?q=coil+whine+lenovo</a><p>I cannot find any info on how to get rid of it.<p>So I will try to return the laptop. If I can't return it (Already removed Windows and replaced it with Linux), it would be a 100% wasted investment.<p>Since I otherwise liked it, I wonder what replacement to buy.<p>Are any Lenovo models safe from Coil Whine?
I had coil whine with Dell laptops and the decision is: never again. To save fractions of cents on components only to annoy the person that has dropped a few thousand euros on their main tool. Just drives me nuts.<p>These days I have a nuc in an Akasa case to make it completely silent for my Linux desktop and an MBP for the road, I wish there was a good linux story for the laptop but I've just given up. It really is a shame as the tiling-wm story on macos is unusable.
Any laptop can be affected by this, it is not related to Lenovo, or Dell, or any manufacturer. It is not even confined to laptops, or computers - for example, I have an old Panasonic plasma TV that has terrible coil whine when displaying bright screens...
Maybe your odds are different with various series etc, but it is hard to tell. Maybe your specific unit is defective, and you can exchange it for another one (you can always just reinstall Windows these days, the license is stored in the BIOS).
I have a Yoga Flex 5 and an X1 Carbon that both exhibit this. The Yoga is particularly annoying because it also has some little crinkly noises from the left speaker that come with the whine and make me wonder if it has a spinning platter HDD sometimes, and the X1 is just inexcusable at that price point (but it is a company laptop, so I can't really return it).<p>The coil whine was (relatively) less of a nuisance than the X1's fans, though, which were ridiculously noisy until I set the thing to 80% CPU speed.<p>So yes, Lenovo, if you're reading this, your customers have to kneecap your hardware to use it. Way to go proving value here.
Which model exactly do you have?<p>Specifically which CPU/RAM and display option?<p>I've just got a new X1 Carbon Gen10 with i7-1260P/32GB/WWAN/OLED screen, and it's one of the quietest laptop I ever used.<p>I did heard sometimes coil whine on my old Gen4 X1 Carbon, but not that it was super annoying.<p>I initially was spooked by the reports that 12gen Intel processors are not a good fit for an ultra-portable and may overheat and be too noisy, but that's not the case.<p>Did you had the same problem under Windows? Maybe it's some Linux-related problem?<p>In my case the only problems so far that webcam (that comes with OLED screen) and Fibocom modem are not yet supported under Linux ...
I think there's too much variance between Lenovo models with the same SKU that it's possible to rule it out for specific models. You might get one without coil noise from a dealer that checks it for you, or maybe you can get a showroom device that doesn't suffer from coil whine.<p>I suspect most users either do not hear it or do not find it that annoying. Maybe there will be more focus on it once fanless (and otherwise totally quiet) laptops and desktops will be more common, so that coil whine turns into an issue that UX designers care about.
Depending on how annoying it is, warranty swap it (though coil whine is not really a manufacturing defect, it’s the inductor on one of the switching power supplies vibrating at an audible frequency, so it’s really dependent on the manufacturer if coil whine is covered under warranty, you might have better luck under their returns policy depending on the age of the device) or crack that sucker open and glue down the offending coil (damping the vibration - you should be able to find the coil with your ear and your finger, applying pressure to the coil with your finger should dampen the vibration). HOWEVER that may void your warranty as manufacturers don’t like it when you do such things to your boards. I’ve also had good luck with applying pressure to the coil while reflowing the coil (so the coil is better seated on the pcb, again damping the vibration) or just swapping out the coil, but this requires soldering tools, bravery, and some soldering/rework practice as you don’t want to knock/blow off any components in the surrounding area. BUT again this could easily void any remaining warranty as they don’t like you reworking the board.<p>My advice, file a claim under warranty and try your luck, because even if they accept it as a warranty replacement and swap out the laptop, the next one might very well suffer from the same thing (as you pointed out, it seems a common thing with lenovo)
I can't say I've ever noticed coil whine, at least from the laptop itself. Not on any ThinkPad or Latitude/Precision I've used (and I've used many), not on my Framework, not even on the various cheapo HPs and Acers and such I've occasionally used as "servers" (in production! A story for another time, perhaps). Either I'm more deaf than I thought from the metal scene here in Reno or I've just been exceptionally lucky.<p>I have, however, heard it plenty from laptop <i>chargers</i>, especially of the Dell variety, and while I guess that's somewhat expected given the transformers converting from AC to DC, it still skeeves me out a bit to hear noises from the one thing in between my laptop and 120VAC.<p>I wonder if it'd be possible to use destructive interference / noise cancelling to "cancel out" coil whine?<p>In any case, it seems excessive to call a laptop with coil whine a 100% wasted investment. Even if you can't return it, you could always stick it in a cabinet or something and use it as a desktop or server or media PC. Or hell, surely you could find a buyer who's too deaf to notice ;)
A little update:<p>This makes the noise even louder:<p><pre><code> echo performance | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-9]*/cpufreq/scaling_governor
</code></pre>
This brings it back to the original, already too annoying, level:<p><pre><code> echo powersave | tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu[0-9]*/cpufreq/scaling_governor
</code></pre>
So it seems somehow related to the CPUs.
Hey in China market, there are much more stories like this, people say the noise is related with the flawed components within the computer, but its hard to say, some people manually changed the inner structure and things, this may reduce the noise. But yes, a lot of brands especially for gaming series laptops are more common to see this thing.
I have a T14s Gen-2 AMD version. Excellent design, performance, battery life, no coil whine. Highly recommended with the 400 nit display. Got it after paying a fortune for a loaded 2021 X1 Yoga with Intel chip that was always slow, fan always on, and had terrible battery life.
> So I will try to return the laptop. If I can't return it (Already removed Windows and replaced it with Linux), it would be a 100% wasted investment.<p>Try to return it without explaining why. Otherwise they will try to fix the problem by sending you another laptop which has a high likelihood of having the same issue. Best is to just get your money back and avoid doing business with them in the future.
Old but useful: <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/79igog/any_solutions_to_coil_whine_for_t440p/dp2cpd1/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/79igog/any_soluti...</a>
In my thinkpad T440p CPU whines, but only when it's in lowest power saving state. I can only hear it when I turn side ways to it, but it honestly doesn't bother me much, since lowest power saving states are quite rare to enter during any kind of work on laptop.
Oh, Mac laptops used to do this, way back in the days of the polycarbonate MacBooks. Could be very annoying. It became less of an issue, even disappearing completely(?), once they moved to the aluminium bodies.
All laptops suck nowadays. Lenovo and Dell learned from Apple that laptops don't need to last to be expensive.. since Ultrabooks happened laptops have serious QC issues.
As a counterpoint, Coil Whine can happen to any components...<p>I mainly have heard it happening to desktop GPUs, both nvidia and amd.<p>I have a Thinkpad T490s. No coil whine!<p>>Are any Lenovo models safe from Coil Whine?<p>Yes :)
Good luck with returning!<p>I would like to read an explanation from professional electric engineer about how this sound may be fixed if it occurs on my device.