Do you often hear the ringing of switching power supplies and devices when you are in a quiet space?

j4k3@lemmy.world to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 398 points –

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?

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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.

It's especially common among people with Autism/ASD and ADHD to hear noises other people often don't hear. Like those LED light bars, or coffee pot crackling, or electricity from appliances. For ADHD I've seen a few people claim that those sounds are just as audible for everyone else, but everybody just subconsciously filters it out and doesn't notice it, while people with ADHD are easily caught by it. I assume for ASD it would be somewhat similar – plus Autistic people are a lot more susceptible to sensory issues, although people with ADHD also often have fucked up senses, which can make noises like that a LOT more noticeable (and even problematic/headache-inducing/stressful/painful).

ADHD really seems like a superpower

This is an extremely common line that neurotypical people use to minimize the struggles that people with ADHD face on a daily basis. Pretty much every person with ADHD has heard the “well it sounds like you’re great at multitasking so it’s like a superpower” line. In reality, people with ADHD aren’t any better at multitasking; They’re just constantly forced into it because of their inability to focus on a single boring task at a time.

ADHD attention is directed by four main things: Interest, Novelty, Challenge, and Urgency.

If you find a task interesting, it’s all you’ll focus on. The person will struggle to focus on homework, but can focus on video games for hours. Even putting off basic needs like eating, sleeping, or using the restroom. A person with ADHD can literally focus on an interesting task so hard that they forget to feel hungry. This phenomenon is colloquially known as hyperfocus, and leads to a lot of common ADHD complaints (like how they’re always late, because they get hyperfocused on a task and completely lose track of the time.)

But if it’s not interesting, it needs to be novel. It needs to be something new. Pretty much every person with ADHD has a mountain of discarded hobbies, because the new hobby caught their attention while it was novel. But as soon as the novelty wore off, their interest waned. Because they weren’t really interested in the hobby; They were simply enjoying the novelty.

If it’s not interesting or novel, it needs to be challenging. People with ADHD will excel at big difficult projects at work, but struggle to complete the mundane day-to-day tasks. Because with neurotypical people, the brain will release a small amount of dopamine as a reward when they complete small tasks. It’s the brain’s way of saying “hey we did a good thing, so I’ll reward myself and be able to focus on it again next time!” But people with ADHD don’t get those small dopamine rewards. People with ADHD only get dopamine rewards for completing big difficult tasks. So they’re able to focus on those big difficult tasks, because they know it’ll lead to a big dopamine payoff in the end.

Lastly, there’s urgency. If a task isn’t interesting, novel, or challenging, it needs to be urgent. This is basically the “fight or flight” response being focused into a task. People with ADHD are expert procrastinators. Not because they enjoy procrastination or rushing at the end, but because the task isn’t interesting, novel, or challenging. So they need it to be urgent in order to be able to focus on it. This is basically just replacing dopamine with adrenaline.

But if it doesn’t fit any of the above four criteria, it’s basically impossible for a person with ADHD to focus on it. Even when they know they need to, or want to be able to. Instead, they’ll end up getting distracted by the fucking power supply whistling.

I did not have the brain power to reply so thank you for doing it for me and all of those of us who find it too "normal" to try to answer this for the like 20th time.

Ah yes, what a great superpower to have when your brain essentially registers every single noise like it needs your full attention, every time.

Framing extremely debilitating things as a "superpower" feels wildly ignorant and disrespectful.

"Seems" being the key word. Oh sure, we have our moments. I once finished a 20 page paper overnight. I also procrastinated on it for a month. Nah, for the 5% this "superpower" works, we get to deal with the 95% struggle trying to get our brain to listen to our brain.

And don't get me started on self-help articles and videos. You'll find very few of those that talk about "Get better sleep!" and also mention adhd. All neurotypical. ...which might be a good Youtube channel come to think of it. Taking all the advice and adjusting it to maybe help people with adhd.

A good night’s sleep, exercise, and a good diet make a huge difference to my ability to focus. It’s a shame that having ADHD means that I’m terrible at getting myself to exercise, eat well, and to sleep at a normal time, even when medicated. (Note that I haven’t watched those specific videos)

There’s a pretty great channel for ADHD on Youtube - the creator of all the videos above - https://m.youtube.com/@HowtoADHD - and I think she’s covered that topic.

Coil whine ? Yup. They told me it would go away as I got older and lost range of hearing. Still waiting for that.

Edit: typo

the moment I could bearly hear an old CRT when a younger friend winced in pain, I knew I was old

My father used to make fun of me for saying that I could hear the TV on even if it was muted, or that I could hear the furnace 'scream' before it came on.

One year, I got as a gift for Christmas, a handheld recorder and a fancy microphone from my stepfather a university music professor And that recorder could actually record the sound which he was able to show me on the computer.

That was like 25 years ago, I've been working with computers ever since, and now I am familiar with many many many devices that make high pitch whines.

The TV thing, from what I've gathered, is normal in kids and lasts up until your 30s or somewhere around there. After that your ears just can't pick up that pitch anymore.

CRT TV's stopped being common at the same time I was aging into the range that would be unable to hear their distinctive whine.

This must be a snippet from Anthony Doerr’s latest All the Squeals We Cannot Hear

Tinnitus crew checking in

Yeah I don't even hear the big 40A power supplies at work, usually 3 or 4 of them in a row on din rail.

The variable frequency drives are a different story, sometimes those sound like the worst high frequency you've ever heard in your life. But I don't even hear those all the time anymore, depending on the drive.

I take steps to make sure my tinnitus isn't getting worse. But about all you can do is try and protect your ears as best as you can. Once it's there, it's there to stay

I did as a kid, but my tinnitus covers it up now.

‎^^eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

I have tinnitus AND can hear my lightbulbs buzzing. Follow me for more tips!

It’s probably the type that’s brain side like mine. It’s not an ear thing but your brain has some reason for thinking you hear the ringing. But even so, I can still hear the slightest sounds. It’s bizarre because the ringing will be louder but I hear things that are quieter. It’s like having two sets of ears at once in those moments and is always unsettling.

Yes. I can hear to about 18kHz, so cheap USB chargers are no longer allowed in my house....

Worse, the EV chargers I used to work with had PEMs switching at 10kHz for the US UL variants. EVERYONE could hear those!!

Test your hearing range with this if you want...

https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/

I used the 10kHz tone to annoy the eng dept in the office till they changed the PEM switching freq to 20kHz....

I'm sorry but you're not generating true 10 Hz tones with speakers that are unable to reproduce such sound

Hell most premium speakers go down to 15-20 Hz at best

Yes. They drive me nuts. My family had a PC that would buzz whenever you moved the mouse. We have a bunch of cheap LED lamps in my apartment and every one has an especially loud transformer.

My main laptop is making similar noises all the time, I think they come from the CPU.

The CPU itself doesn't produce sound, but inductors (coils) can. Therefore, when you move the mouse, the CPU power increases, potentially causing inductors to go into resonance.

I thought it was maybe some kind of audio chip interference coming from the CPU as it's not tied to cursor movement in my case

Graphics system usually. Back in the day I used to be able to tell where on the screen the cursor was from the pitch of the coil whine.

I buy better hardware nowadays 😂

Not anymore.Age.

When I was a kid I hated going to the city art museum because all the humidity and temperature control devices emitted this awful high frequency noise that made me nauseated.

I can't hear the "mosquito" pitch noise emitters used to deter teenage loitering in some cities anymore. I kept that longer than I thought I would.

I had to throw out my carbon monoxide detectors. The constant beeping was giving me a head ache and making me nauseous.

/🥁

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.

Great, just what I need: resonating tinnitus!

I've been trying some of the tinnitus masking videos from "Dale Snale". It's been hit and miss though, some of the frequencies closest to my own have actually made it worse! So I've been trying stuff further away from the 13KHz region.

Yes and it drives me bonkers. I've had to leave rooms because the noise was just too loud

Despite me having tinnitus, I hear those sounds very clearly in quiet environments. They annoy the crap out of me...

I used to hear this...back when I was in my 20s 😭

Same I used to be able to tell when my boss shorted his board by the sound of the power supply going into overregulation. Now it's just eeeeee all the time.

please don't make me aware of more sounds I wasn't aware of before, I have enough of them already

I can hear coil whine from my PC's graphics card, but that's it.

Edit: Also our home stereo system (not the speakers) when it's turned on.

I used the have a PC that ran Windows XP, and when I moved the mouse, sound was heard from the speakers. It probably had a cheap sound controller on the motherboard.

My PC fucked with me with the coil whines.

Playing Metro Exodus with raytracing and shit? No noise.

Playing Grid 2, released over a decade ago? "Let me play you the song of my people"

Yes some of my smart bulbs make that sound when they’re off or on low power. I’m 38. I do have a mild tinnitus as well but it’s on a different frequency so I hear the difference.

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.

E: I just remembered that my speakers sometimes make noise if I listen at a certain angle and last week I heard someone's iPhone charger make a ringing noise while sitting on the socket so I disconnected it.

Yes, I can hear them. Usually it’s not a problem but I have had 1-2 power adapters that annoyed me.

Two of the best investments I've ever made were good quality PC fans and SSDs instead of HDDs. Now, the loudest noises I hear come from my tinnitus.

Yep. I was told I’d stop hearing it as I got older but I turn 40 next month and I still hear it.

Age related hearing loss can actually make you more sensitive to certain sounds. I have difficulty understanding speech but increased sensitivity to sounds including electrical buzzing.

Oh no I was so looking forward to just a little bit of hearing loss to finally stop hearing all these noises around me :-(

You will lose the high pitch whine, but you might trade it for more mains hum (60/50hz)

Got the fans in my pc turned up higher than needed just so i dont heat the coil whine.

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.

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.

I used to hear tv tubes, power supplies and all sorts of high frequency noise. These days I mostly just hear tinnitus. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

My air fryer has a blinking light whet it's on standby. Well, when the light's OFF, I can hear a high pitched noise. My partner is 4 years older than me and she can't hear it ლ(ಠ_ಠლ)

The transformer of my electric shaver makes a similar noise too.

I tend to flip off powerstrips at night because of that exact sounds. And also because I think my devices could be listening.

I used to hear all these sounds, but I'm 40 now so I don't hear them anymore.

43 years old here. I can still hear it. I think I put about 10-15 chargers in the bin because of the noise. I also really hate those anti-mosquito ultrasone emittors people put in their yards. I can hear them whenever I walk around the neighborhood.

Do you remember when you could hear text messages over your speakers before getting the on-phone alert?

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I'm 56, wear earplugs at night, and still hear an intermittent electrical noise. It's not a high-pitched whine, more like a low hum. I live in an apartment complex so it's likely the wiring. I have hyperacusis.

I remember sometimes waking up in the middle of the night and start noticing/hearing a loud as fuck deep humming sound that seems to have some kind of hearthbeat if I just stand laying on bed doing nothing, I have lived in totally different places and I remember hearing the exactly same sound sometimes at night I just seem to notice that happens the same day I would go hiking to certain place, everytime I notice the sound at night it feels like the sound is leaking itself through the walls and reverbs like being inside something like a water pipe

Could you be hearing the Hum?

Edit. This article implies that people can't hear it, but many people can, and, while it causes a mild annoyance with most of those that can hear it, it has caused severe disturbances in others.

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.

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.

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 can't hear it but I can often tell when it clicks over because it causes a spike in my tinnitus.

I have tennis and can still hear the noise. It’s weird. I have that background noise but I can still separate it from the other sounds around me. I actually went to do an audio test recently and had perfect hearing except I that I also hear extra things. Annoying as hell.

Use a spectroscopic app on your phone

It'll help you identify the source of high pitch sounds

I once noticed an external HDD was making a high pitch noise intermittently, as the LED turned on and off. It was bizarre

Edit: spalling

I wonder if that spectroscopic phone app could hear the ringing in my ears

If it's actually tinnitus, no

If it's something that makes you think you have one, yes

I swear my tinnitus is so loud I'm surprised no one else can hear it 😭

Hope you can recover!

Had suffered sound damage prior, my ENT doctor said I was super lucky to not cross the line after which it would get irreversible.

Currently having no ear sounds above normal.

It is never quiet enough in my house to hear myself think without difficulty, so it definitely never gets quiet enough for that.

My monitor has a power led that blinks when in stand by (and not receiving a signal.
And the coil whine between the onn/off-switching is audible.

I really only notice them when the rest of the room is silent. Otherwise my brain ignores the sound most of the time.

Ugh. Now you got me thinking about hearing my heart beats.

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.

Everyone with fully functioning ears can hear it if they pay attention. Just a reminder to protect your hearing!

Inside your ear are hair cells that detect sound. You're born with the only hair cells you'll ever have, and damage to them is irreparable. Hair cells naturally sustain damage over time and people's hearing decreases as they age. This process is accelerated if someone constantly listens to things at loud volumes. So, maybe don't turn it up to 11!

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

My friends and I used to drive out to an area of the desert, away from people and the general noise of civilization. However, there were large power transmission lines going through the area and we could listen to them crackle in the night as we watched the stars. Just a nice way to relax and get away from it all.

Even past 30 and with (mild) tinnitus, yeah my hearing is still great so I'm going to hear it. Light bulbs, chargers, the router etc.

Recently my computer's PSU has started randomly buzzing a not-quite-high frequency. It could be age (it's from 2019) though I'm pretty sure it's some kind of interference because sometimes it won't make any noise at all for days and I'm pretty sure my light bulb (an LED filament bulb which doesn't have much in the way of components) seems to also make different pitches of buzzing that coordinates with how much my computer PSU will buzz.

Anyways it bothers me, so as soon as I post this I'm going to power-down and unplug my computer and switch to a different device for the next day or so.

The switching frequency is usually set by a small capacitor that is on the mains auxiliary power circuit. This may degrade depending on what kind of capacitor was used. There is also a small electrolytic capacitor that smooths the auxiliary power for the chip itself. If this capacitor degrades too much, it can cause some switching frequency stability issues too.

My current laptop supply sounds about like R2D2 when my GPU is running full tilt and I'm maxed out on 18 of 20 cores with AI.

My current laptop supply sounds about like R2D2 when my GPU is running full tilt and I’m maxed out on 18 of 20 cores with AI.

But that's the thing it happens at idle, and I've tried fixing it by unplugging+discharging and letting it sit unpowered in my colder-than-average room for 5 hours or so and it was still happening when I booted back up. So time or some other random thing seems to be a bigger difference.

When I had it not happen for days, doing anything that made the fans ramp up didn't cause it to happen (even full tilt as you said). In fact most of the time it'd start with nothing open other than the browser.

I thought it might've been dust (despite my PSU being the least dusty component) but after dusting it doesn't seem to have been the issue.

  • Belkin travel surge protector
  • 5-port USB hub
  • wireless charger

Thankfully none else!

I hear some of them. There's a real cheap one my parents got with a security camera thats real loud to me, but they don't hear it.

Yes, but a bit less as I've aged probably because the higher frequency hearing we have starts to diminish the older we get.

I did when I was younger but I don't hear it since I hit around 30

Since I got older this got better. One benefit I guess?

Where can I get what you are having?

Good ears? the question is when, not where, and the answer is half a lifetime ago.

How do you consume those ears and what do I have to look out for if I want some product that you could consider good

Seriously, stop being an asshole. Coil whine is a well-documented behaviour that creates a loud, high pitched noise.

As coil whine is at the very limit of what human hearing can accomplish, it doesn't take much until you're unable to hear it. So you're likely too old or went to too many concerts to be able to hear it.