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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.uwa.edu.au!classic.iinet.com.au!news.uoregon.edu!inquo!news.seinf.abb.se!nooft.abb.no!Norway.EU.net!EU.net!Austria.EU.net!news.aut.alcatel.at!atusc75!ladavac From: ladavac@aut.alcatel.at (Marino Ladavac) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Memory making sounds. Date: 11 Sep 1995 19:07:02 GMT Organization: Alcatel Austria AG Lines: 54 Message-ID: <4321cm$s87@atusks02.aut.alcatel.at> References: <431vkc$n5v@ecom1.ecn.bgu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: atusc75.aut.alcatel.at X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Thomas B Blackman (gblackm@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu) wrote: : Ok, I know is sounds weird but its true. I have a friend running 2.0.5 : release and he gets a strange sound coming off the motherboard. : Listening closely its sounds like its coming from the memory banks and : sounds like a scratching sound. This problem mainly happens when he is : compiling something. : Has anyone experienced something similar? Its kinda weird to listen to. : We have tried all sorts ideas so isolate the sound, and we cant figure it : out. As far as we can tell, its the memory. : As for the computer, its a p90 with 24megs, old intel board (forgot the : model). Its not a triton. : : I have never seen another machine do this. My machine nor none of the : other users here have that same problem. (if it is a problem) and he is : kinda scared of runnin BSD until he can come up with something. The : funny thing is that it doesnt happen under linux, and yes, the memory is : good. Even tried different chips from another machine, same problem. : Any help that could be given would be much appreciated, he wants to run : BSD, but doesnt want to hurt his computer. Singing RAM ... again??? I seem to recollect this phenomenon as discussed on this group a few months ago. Then, just as now, Linux didn't make the RAM's sing. Is this a coincidence? Makes you wonder, do they sing because they're happy? /Alby P.S: as for an attempt at a serious answer ... well, if it doesn't cause any real problems, ignore it. P.P.S: as for an attempt at pseudo scientific hogwash ... are you sure it is not a fan on your CPU? You know, when your machine is CPU limited, which can happen during a compile, CPU doesn't get to idle very much. This means that it does not HALT, and therefore it does consume more power. Hence, it gets warmer. This can lead to slight deformations in CPU radiator which can cause the fan to scratch. Q.E.D. Now, since Linux does not get CPU limited on char reads (cf. various articles with Bonnie benchmarks in this very group,) its CPU idles more, and doesn't get so hot. From which we can conclude that higher disk performance brings its own (deserved?) accoustic penalties :) P.P.S: sorry for not being helpful, but this was too good to miss. (btw, see P.S) : Thanks... : TB