I’m curious, how many people are aware of these sounds. I have designed, etched, and built my own switching power supplies along with winding my own transformers. I am aware of the source of the noise. So, does anyone else hear these high frequency sounds regularly?
I just remembered that the Dell docking station I’m using makes a sound when it processes data. I can literally hear my mouse move.
Don’t buy Dell.
FFS, that’s what that sound at work is…
My Dell does that! If I load a large image, ‘squeal’! Bought it used though, and anytime someone sells something, there’s a reason they’re selling it.
Yes. On a side note: do not buy hp printers they are really bad for their power supplies.
I will add this to the list of avoiding HP.
I don’t think I own anything that makes noise like that anymore, but we used to have a big TV a few years ago that I could tell was on or off from the other side of the wall.
Yes, often, especially lower quality ones.
You might want to ask this question versus age. Our ability to hear higher frequencies drops with age. They even make high frequency ring tones that teens can hear but their parents can’t.
I remember when I was little I used to hate my grandma’s old tv because there was always a high pitched noise that came from it when it was turned on or off, my grandma was never able to hear it though and I couldn’t understand why till I learned about how we struggle to hear higher frequencies as we age.
Yes, often. It doesn’t really bother me that much, plus tinnitus generally overwhelms those sounds.
My favorite is when the ringing from power resonates with the tinnitus and ends up with an oscillating tone. Drives me absolutely insane.
I have tinnitus and it sounds just like power supplies, except it comes from nowhere. So, when I hear the squeal, I turn my head. If the squeal noise follows the movement of my head, tinnitus. If it stays put, power supply!
It’s like skunk and pot! (I’m in Canada, it’s legal and everywhere.) If I smell it, I look around. If I see a burrow, skunk! If I see a dozy looking dude with red eyes…
It’s funny that you mentioned pot. Because people described the reaction of pot sometimes in the way of OPs question: When you smoke weed, you get sensitive for things your brain normally is able to filter out as irrelevant information because your head can only process so much before it gets overwhelmed. Some people described that when they smoke weed, that they can sit in their living room or kitchen and start noticing the humming of the fridge or the buzzing of an electrical object as your synapses are wired “differently” when blocked by THC and you start to notice things, your brain normally suppresses.
Sorry for your tinnitus bro. I hope you find ways to make it bearable at times.
It’s funny, I had a horrible toxic job for way longer than any sane person should ever have to deal with, and one aspect of it was dangerous noise levels. We complained, and the company always sent “independent” inspectors who always found that the noise levels were juuuust inside the legal safe limit. Even when they added enough equipment to double the volume! Funny that… Anyways, I am now over six months gone from that job, and I just realized that my tinnitus is way better than it was! Ditto my mental health… Now I just need a winning lottery ticket or a not-soul-sucking job…
Just checking that you know the tinnitus trick: palm flat on ear blocking sound, fingers drumming lightly on the back of your head.
Makes it go away fairly quickly for most people. Obviously isn’t a permanent fix but helps when it gets annoying.
Yup! It fades it out really quick, but it comes back within minutes. My tinnitus has gotten a lot better lately.
Reading people like you describe their tinnitus makes me think I have mild tinnitus myself… It’s not “loud” enough that I realize it’s there over the background noise of a house. But if things get really quiet, like in a power outage, or in a very nicely isolated room like a sound booth, I do hear a slight ringing that sounds extremely similar to CRT noise. I guess the years of blasting music in my headphones and metal/hardcore shows without earplugs didn’t help my case lol
Sometimes I wonder if my tinnitus is real or if we’re just so heavily surrounded by whines nowadays that it seems like tinnitus. I’ve been in an anechoic chamber and the first thing I noticed was that my ears weren’t ringing, but outside of that I have a near constant tinnitus-like whine in several frequencies that doesn’t go away even when I wear some kind of hearing protection. It’s weird.
Yes, and CRTs as well.
I really only notice them when the rest of the room is silent. Otherwise my brain ignores the sound most of the time.
Yes, but generally only bad quality loud ones.
When my monitor is on stand-by the led slowly blinks and every time it turns on I can hear it. Aside from that, I don’t think so.
Ugh. Now you got me thinking about hearing my heart beats.
Next you’ll start seeing your nose
(Sorry)
And now I can taste my tongue
Yes
I can’t of anything that makes an unwanted sound. Old CRT TVs used to, but I haven’t used one in years. My monitor at work makes a sound when it turns on or off (I believe there’s an ass-old fuse in there), but it makes no sound otherwise.
I’m still young and hear very well, as exemplified by my annoyance of half-closed bottles of carbonated drinks, which do make a sound.
I did a lot of stuff with CRT’s during ‘Rona and man sometimes that whine just pierced my ears - my dog (RIP love ya bud) would just look at me and slowly walk off every time lol
We have a VR system set up in our living room. I don’t even want to talk about how long it took me to figure out the receivers were making a steady, high pitched noise. There are 4 of them and they are situated near the ceiling.
I hear it from a lot of things when it’s quiet enough. Clock radios, tvs, monitors, my pugmill, heaters. There was a noisy power strip with a flashing one-off switch that I’m still convinced was going to kill someone.
I DON’T know anything about electricity - so mostly it makes me anxious that my house is going to burn down. I have bad enough hearing loss that I have to use closed captions on my TV - but it IS mostly because deep voices are extremely muddled. I’m surprised a bit by how many “not really” answers I see.
I still don’t get why the lighthouses can’t be turned on/off via SteamVR. There’s no reason they should stay running if I’m not actively in VR, and with the amount of noise they create, I have to imagine it’s negatively impacting their lifespan.
One of these days, I’ll get a smart plug for them, but I really shouldn’t need to imo.
You can.
You have to enable Bluetooth in the SteamVR Settings, and they’ll automatically turn off when you quit VR, and back in when you start it up again. Only downside is (at least for me) when you don’t use it for a longer time the connection seems to drop, and they won’t turn on automatically anymore. But nothing that can’t be fixed with a quick un- and replug
Whaaaaaa? I’ll have to look into this.
There’s an app I use on my phone to turn mine off through Bluetooth as well. I noticed they will turn back on if the power ever goes out here so it’s nice having the ability to turn them off without having to turn on my pc and go through steam.
I leave mine unplugged. It would be nice if they would turn off.
Well the flashing light is just a tiny low current neon tube that can’t hurt anything. The main thing to worry about with power strips is that they securely hold the connectors in place and not overloading them with more than their rated power, and the power of the circuit they are attached to in your home.
Switching power supplies for cheap consumer stuff are usually operating in the 20-30 kilohertz range. This is just outside of the audible range. What you are hearing is usually the windings or powder ferrite core of the miniature transformer physically vibrating. The audible sound is likely some lower order harmonic resonant peak that is in the audible range.
At the manufacturing level, the frequency of switching can be tuned to avoid unwanted noise, and the magnetics can be potted in a resin or other techniques used to dampen the vibrations. If you build your own power supplies like I have, they tend to make a lot more noise at the first prototype stage.
It’s all Science Magic to me. I am continuously thrilled that the world is filled with people who are much smarter and more curious than I am.
I’ll sleep a little better knowing the quiet strip flickering under my aquarium isn’t a ticking time-bomb though.
Yes, but a bit less as I’ve aged probably because the higher frequency hearing we have starts to diminish the older we get.
