High-pitched squealing noise from laptop

Crosswalk

Today I bought a new laptop and, within a few minutes of using it, discovered that a constant high-pitched sound was coming from it. The noise alters in volume occasionally. It is there whether the laptop is plugged in or not. It sounds like one of those high-pitched noises they use outside shops to discourage people from loitering.

The laptop's a Lenovo Ideapad u350 and it's pretty much just out of the box so I don't know what could be causing it. I tried disabling the microphone incase it was feedback coming from it but the noise is still there. I googled the problem and it seems fairly common but the only solution I could find was to mess around with the CPU and, according to others, that seriously reduces battery life.

Does anyone have any idea what it could be and if there's any easy way to fix it? I just got the laptop and I'd like to avoid having to deal with customer service as, judging from other people's experiences, they can't seem to fix the problem. I'd hate to have to return it as well as it was reduced in price and the only one left in stock.

Any ideas as to what I should do? This noise is giving me a banging headache!

Boxoffrogs

The exact same thing happens to mine when the sound is turned up, doesn't happen when I plug in earphones. Unfortunately my laptop is now out of warranty but you should be able to return yours.

Crosswalk

diddledum wrote: »

The exact same thing happens to mine when the sound is turned up, doesn't happen when I plug in earphones. Unfortunately my laptop is now out of warranty but you should be able to return yours.

Thanks for the reply. I do want to see if I can sort it out myself first though. I'd rather not get caught up in the horror of customer service and waiting for weeks to get the thing back. I was looking forward to having a new laptop but it looks like this one it's just as fecked as my old one!

It seems like it could be something to do with the hard drive because the sound fluctuates in time with the light on the 'drive in use' status indicator. I have a Dell hard drive lying around, should I try switching the two?

Boxoffrogs

Oh, that sounds like a very different issue then, hope you get it sorted, I know the excitement that comes with having a new gadget, that's a bit of a let-down alright. Sorry to add, I really know very little about the internal workings, just thought you may have had the same issue as me.

Alanstrainor

Crosswalk wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I do want to see if I can sort it out myself first though. I'd rather not get caught up in the horror of customer service and waiting for weeks to get the thing back. I was looking forward to having a new laptop but it looks like this one it's just as fecked as my old one!

It seems like it could be something to do with the hard drive because the sound fluctuates in time with the light on the 'drive in use' status indicator. I have a Dell hard drive lying around, should I try switching the two?

The laptop is brand new. I'm all for fixing things myself, but seeing that it's less than a day old i'd just bring it back to the shop and push for a replacement.

dmcg90

Try turning off the microphone levels in the sound controller.

Gdep

Same thing happened my brothers laptop when i installed skype and voip kit on it. I uninstalled the new software and rolled back the audio drivers and that resolved it.

Could be the audio drivers.