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I am having strange issues with Ubuntu 20 on my laptop since the Ubuntu 20 beta.

Every time I launch an application like Firefox, Files, Store, Terminal etc. (and sometimes even less than that, such as opening a tab on Firefox) there is a "buzz" sound coming from the hardware of my laptop.

It is not coming from the speakers, headset or anything like that. No, literally from the hardware itself. Please hear this video https://streamable.com/w3bu2w (you might have to increase your volume). I have launched two apps during the video.

I do not have this problem on Ubuntu Mate, OpenSuse Tumbleweed, Windows, nor did I have it on Ubuntu 19 default flavor.

Would anyone know what the issue is?

Hardware: Acer Swift 7 (SF713-51-MG25). Graphics Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 615 (KBL GT2). CPU Intel® Core™ i5-7Y54 CPU @ 1.20GHz × 4.

Thanks.

Edit: Surprisingly, it does not cause any sound when I launch VS code or Livepatch software.

apple pie
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  • I do not think we could help you. Problems like usually need a computer hardware person to really help. Had similar random sound blip coming from from my laptop for months, it seems to have disappeared in last couple of weeks. – crip659 Jul 02 '20 at 15:11
  • @Nmath Thanks for the response. The Ultrabook doesn't have a hard drive. In fact, it's pretty much a circuit board, SSD and network adapter.

    For clarification: it's pretty much with every software I would say, it's just that I barely use anything else.

     – apple pie Jul 02 '20 at 15:15
  • I would find it strange to be a hardware problem when (I think) that it's already isolated to just simply being on Ubuntu 20.04. I am not having this issue on OS' with equivalent software, drivers and kernel.

    Nonetheless, thanks for the comment.

     – apple pie Jul 02 '20 at 15:17

1 Answers1

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My dell laptop makes a similar buzzing sound, and on mine it's a known problem caused by the design of the processor (https://www.dell.com/support/article/en-us/sln84348/my-laptop-makes-a-high-pitched-buzzing-noise?lang=en). As electricity runs through it, the processor vibrates slightly, creating a sound pitched in proportion to the current processor frequency. I don't notice it while my laptop is plugged into the wall, but when I remove it from power and it goes into battery saving mode, the sound the processor makes drops into my hearing range, resulting in high-pitched buzzing.

It's possible that some new power saving feature in the beta is now bringing the operating frequency of your processor down into a range that you can hear, and if that's the case it will likely go away if you set the minimum processor usage to something higher (How to set "Performance" instead of "Powersave" as default?). Unless it seriously bothers you, I wouldn't recommend this, as it increases battery usage.

If you tried what I suggested above and it didn't work, what I'd personally do in your situation is take the bottom off, put my ear against each component, try to isolate the source and work from there towards a solution (this is how I figured it out with my dell). If you're not comfortable doing that, then I'd let sleeping dogs lie. Unless you have a hard disk drive that's tearing itself to shreds (in which case I'd think you'd have noticed a larger problem by now), it's unlikely that a little buzzing is going to cause any issues with the functionality of your laptop, even if it is a little annoying.

odd135
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  • Thanks for the reply! I'll give it a try and post the results in this thread. – apple pie Jul 02 '20 at 15:35
  • Unfortunately, that didn't do the trick. Great to know more about this though...can help me investigating. – apple pie Jul 03 '20 at 11:53
  • If it helps, I don't think that you're alone with acer laptops - https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/465220/laptop-making-buzzing-noise-help https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/578236/swift-3-buzzing-sound-help https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/534882/buzzing-crackling-noise-from-laptop-speakers-when-playing-games

    I just remembered that I had a similar piezoelectric buzzing with my dell laptop at work, which would only appear when I was moving the camera in my CAD application. I'm pretty sure that this is the problem, even if changing performance settings doesn't fix it.

     – odd135 Jul 03 '20 at 13:19
  • I'm using KDE on Ubuntu since a few days and I noticed that my laptop (Dell Lattude 5530) coil-whines extremely when KDE is in "Power saving profile: Performance" (only interrupted for a few seconds when unplugging the charger) and not at all on power saving profiles "Balanced" and "Save energy". – Lampe2020 Dec 10 '23 at 10:51