Processor making high-pitched sound?

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I have a new 15" Powerbook



Recentley, if I'm sitting in a quiet room, I can hear that the processor (im guessing) is producing a high pitched sound as it processes. If it's sitting idle it makes no noise, but if I click on something and it has to complete a task I hear the high pitched sound. Has anyone had this issue?



(P.S. I muted the speakers and the sound continued.)

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Yes, I've had that happen, and I've found it's a specific process that's causing the processor to squeal and use up a HUGE amount of computations.



    If you go to Activity Monitor in your Utilities folder, there's an option for "Disk Activity." Select it and then menu to Monitor>Update Frequency and Select "Update very often (every 0.5 sec)." Look for whatever process is eating away at a huge chunck of your CPU %. For me it was "HP Background," and would use up 60% of my CPU or more. It also slowed the entire system down.



    If you feel comfortable with quitting whatever process is bogging your system down, select Quit Process at the top of the window. For me, quitting HP Background made NO difference in printing (to my HP all-in-one), so I have never really understood why it loads or what it does...or why it takes up so much friekin' CPU! What I DO know is that the high pitch sound always goes away when I quit that process.



    Good luck.
  • Reply 2 of 5
    zenloofzenloof Posts: 23member
    I found that "HP Communications" was bogging by processor. What causes this to open? How do I prevent it from opening?
  • Reply 3 of 5
    cosmonutcosmonut Posts: 4,872member
    Yeah, I remembered the name wrong. I have no idea why it's there or what it does, but it's always a nuisance and it doesn't seem to do anything.
  • Reply 4 of 5
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Weird. I get a high-pitched whine from presumably the video card on my PBG4 when I click on a QuickTime file in Column View in the Finder. As soon as the preview pane is ready to play it, the whine starts. Of course, it's way too noisy at the Genius Bar for them to hear it. :P
  • Reply 5 of 5
    I'm hesitant to take it to the store for that percise reason. I'll sound like a loony if I tell them that they need to go to completely silent room - they won't understand that I want it to be _perfect_.
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