High Pitch Noise Coming From Pinebook Pro

[zaius]

For anyone interested, I did some testing. Both were with the PBP on and mostly discharged, logged in to the desktop, and with the CPU moderately loaded via a muted YouTube video playing in Firefox.

Charging via barrel jack = audible high pitched coil whine.
Charging via USB-C = completely inaudible coil whine.

Not sure why the difference. Something to do with USB-C PD? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do you get it running off battery power with no charger?

[User 11436]

For anyone interested, I did some testing. Both were with the PBP on and mostly discharged, logged in to the desktop, and with the CPU moderately loaded via a muted YouTube video playing in Firefox.

Charging via barrel jack = audible high pitched coil whine.
Charging via USB-C = completely inaudible coil whine.

Not sure why the difference. Something to do with USB-C PD? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Do you get it running off battery power with no charger?

I've found that I get the high pitch whine when a USB-A peripheral (such as a mouse) is plugged in.

[wasgurd]

I've found that I get the high pitch whine when a USB-A peripheral (such as a mouse) is plugged in.

I can confirm a different noise with/without USB plugged in.

[zaius]

I've found that I get the high pitch whine when a USB-A peripheral (such as a mouse) is plugged in.

OK, that could be due to current load.  Although, I just tested the mouse I use with my MBP, and the meter shows only 19mA.

What happens when you try to run the PBP off battery power with nothing plugged into it?

[User 11436]

I've found that I get the high pitch whine when a USB-A peripheral (such as a mouse) is plugged in.

OK, that could be due to current load.  Although, I just tested the mouse I use with my MBP, and the meter shows only 19mA.

What happens when you try to run the PBP off battery power with nothing plugged into it?

When running on battery with nothing plugged in I can't hear any noises coming from the PBP.

[zaius]

When running on battery with nothing plugged in I can't hear any noises coming from the PBP.

It could be an excessively noisy power adapter. I've seen that before. Do you have another you could try?

[User 11436]

When running on battery with nothing plugged in I can't hear any noises coming from the PBP.

It could be an excessively noisy power adapter.  I've seen that before.  Do you have another you could try?

I have tried:

* A USB-C to USB-A cable to a USB-A plug adaptor.
* A USB-C to USB-C cable to a Dell monitor.
* The barrel charger that came with the PBP.
* No charging input of any kind.

In all of the above cases, the high pitch noise is there when I have a USB-A mouse plugged into the PBP. I haven't tried any other USB-A peripherals.

[venix1]

I've found that I get the high pitch whine when a USB-A peripheral (such as a mouse) is plugged in.

I can confirm a different noise with/without USB plugged in.

Just noticing this for the first time, here's some additional testing and observations related to my case.

1. On battery power, very very light high pitched noise.  Barely perceptible(ear on keyboard)
   
2. Plug in USB-A(yubikey), volume increases to a noticeable level.
   
3. Plug in barrel jack with USB-A.  Volume increases more.
   
4. Swap to USB-C. Same volume as 3.
   
5. Tried another power supply for barrel and USB-C, as well as another USB-C cable.  No notable changes, same as 3, 4
   
6. All tests, with Manjaro running from SD.  Being the first time I've noticed it and the first time not using the stock OS, I switched back and tested again.
   
7. All prior tests produced no perceptible noise when running stock Debian from eMMC.
   

[cheburashka]

Got my PBP a few days ago from the latest batch (ANSI keyboard). Also immediately noticed the high pitched sound and it's really annoying. Reading the comments here the sound immediately cuts out when I pull out the wireless USB mouse dongle.

I'm currently running Manjaro from SD (much smoother experience than stock from eMMC). Experienced the same problem with the stock from from eMMC by the way.

Tried a wire mouse as well, same result in both ports. Switching chargers (USB-C or supplied charger) or unplugging them doesn't help. So the problem seems to be entirely related to the USB ports being used. Also tried to just plug in a USB micro SD card reader without an SD card in it, and it still produced the sound albeit a little less noisy.

I'm quite sensitive to sounds like this so it's annoying the hell out of me. The way it is this laptop will probably be gathering dust until there's a way to fix it.

[cheburashka]

Just tried one more thing. I have my wireless mouse dongle plugged in, high pitched noise is there. I plug my phone in to the other USB port and it starts charging and the high pitched noise disappears. Take out the charging phone and it's back.

Seems to be some kind of input/output unbalance or something (okay maybe I just said something really stupid, but I'm pretty much a-technical).