P90 high pitch whine sounds when the computer is reading data \ VOGONS

P90 high pitch whine sounds when the computer is reading data

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First post, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-08-28, 10:07

mombarak Offline

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Hi everyone,

I have a P90 with a Socket 7 mainboard and a Soundblaster 16S Vibra and a Matrox Milennium 2 MB PCI card. Instead of a classic HDD, i added a DOM flash disk which can be directly plugged on the IDE port. This works great. On my new setup I noticed that the computer makes these high pitches whine sounds for some seconds when it "reads" something. I say this because I think this is what it does while it happens. It is always reproducible when it loads the HIMEM.SYS during the MS DOS 6.22 boot in DOS. Other cases seem to be when I am using scandisk or do something on the disk or sometimes in a game.

Can this be the RAM or do I have to suspect the DOM module? I tried multiple and it happens on all. Also I have placed the ISA soundcard on the lowest slot and the PCI graphics card on the lowest slot on the board to get it far away from RAM and CPU.

Has anyone experienced the same? My next steps would be to try to swap RAM and to try a classic hard disk.

Reply 1 of 5, by dominusprog

Posted on 2024-08-28, 10:12

dominusprog Offline

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Well, where is the source? Try a different power supply.

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Reply 2 of 5, by mombarak

Posted on 2024-08-28, 11:41

mombarak Offline

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Ok so you mean it could also come from the AT power supply? Thanks for the advice. I have to test that too.

Reply 3 of 5, by A001

Posted on 2024-08-28, 13:41

A001 Offline

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Modern SSD's sometimes whine when writing data and motherboards (VRM) when moving mouse. So it's nothing extraordinary. On most old computers it's simply drowned out by fans and spinning rust.
You can use a tube of some sort to locate the source of noise.

Reply 4 of 5, by Nunoalex

Posted on 2024-08-28, 14:30

Nunoalex Offline

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A001 wrote on 2024-08-28, 13:41:

Modern SSD's sometimes whine when writing data and motherboards (VRM) when moving mouse. So it's nothing extraordinary. On most old computers it's simply drowned out by fans and spinning rust.
You can use a tube of some sort to locate the source of noise.

I laughed so much at this...

In the good old days who would notice any "whine" with all those fans, hard disks blasting on permanently 😀

Reply 5 of 5, by Shponglefan

Posted on 2024-08-28, 14:40

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I find that coil whine especially during HIMEM.SYS tests is common on older systems. As the above poster pointed out, older computers were quite noisy and the sounds of fans and HDDs would typically drown out things like coil whine.

Building a retro PC with solid state drives and quiet fans allows one to more easily hear other noises like coil whine.

The solution is to try to identify the source, whether it's the CPU, motherboard, PSU, etc, and then swap out the offending hardware.

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