Standard 90w adapter causing warbling/whistling sound from X220

[justyn]

Hi,

My i7 X220 makes a warbling/whistling sound when charged and plugged into the 90w power adapter that came with my Mini Dock Plus series 3. It only does this when the battery is fully charged (or removed entirely), not while the battery is charging.

It is a loud warbling coming from the machine itself, not the power supply. It doesn't occur with the 65w adapter.

The adapter model number is 42T5292, and the X220 is the i7 model. I have tried two of these adapters (same model).

I originally noted this in the thread http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/90w-adapter-leads-to-unusable-jumpy-touchpad/t... and cletus_cassidy has confirmed that they see the issue too, but I thought this should go in a new thread.

Interestingly I see various posts on these forums, particularly the thread http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/X-Series-ThinkPad-Laptops/X220-cpu-throttling-problem/td-p/428879 that suggest that they don't see the issue with their standard 90w adapter (the slim 90w adapter has problems of its own).

I would like to narrow down why only some people are seeing the issue. Either it is only certain versions of the 90w adapter, or certain versions of the X220.

Could people able to test please post whether they see the issue, and what the model number of their 90w adapter is and the configuration of their X220.

Thanks.

[cletus_cassidy]

I have the warbling sound with my x220 when using the non-slim 90W adapter.  The warbling comes from under the keyboard (i.e. circuitry).  It only occurs when the battery is not plugged in OR is fully-charged (i.e. it does NOT occur when the laptop is plugged in and the battery is currently charging).

Adapter P/N:  42T5293

x220 Config:  i5-2520, 8GB RAM, Intel SSD, IPS Screen, 6205 network adapter, 720p webcam, fingerprint reader

Lenovo, please provide an update on this issue.

[der72]

I think the X220 has a defective motherboard. Look around the posts, 1) throttling, 2) problem with touch pad, 3) fan issues. They are all related to the power supply.

The bad news is that Lenovo is still selling defective units and/or does not provide update whether it can be fixed and when it will be fixed.

I suggest to return your unit for a full refund because this will not be fixed.

[Wconghorn]

Excuse me, but I wonder if you have attached the earth prong . I am not in the US and I see very few complaints in my country regarding the warbling and jumpy touchpad issue (most Thinkpad x220 4286-CTO users are complaining about the throttle issue,though) and we use grounding. So I wonder if it is caused by not grounding your thinkpad? I'm currently concerned because I own such model and has just shipped the same adapter you are using. Please let me know whether proper grounding solves this problem. thank you.

[Wconghorn]

hi, i just got my adapter -  as it turned out, it has the same behavior.

but i don't think the noise is too loud, and i believe that is not a serious problem.

i tried the same adapter on a 4-year-old thinkpad x60, the result, much louder warbling sound.

i'll just take it as a compromise for better performance - most importantly, no CPU throttling.

ps: i didn't experience the jumpy touchpad issue.

thanks 

[RichardW]

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Wconghorn wrote:
Excuse me, but I wonder if you have attached the earth prong . I am not in the US and I see very few complaints in my country regarding the warbling and jumpy touchpad issue (most Thinkpad x220 4286-CTO users are complaining about the throttle issue,though) and we use grounding. So I wonder if it is caused by not grounding your thinkpad? I'm currently concerned because I own such model and has just shipped the same adapter you are using. Please let me know whether proper grounding solves this problem. thank you.

---

Lenovo supplies 2 prong adapters for the US (no earth prong). The connector at the adapter also only has 2 wires.

In the Lenovo website accessory sales pages, the descriptions for all of power adapters say, "US/Canada and Japan adapter models are 2-pin; all other country adapter models are 3-pin".

[justyn]

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Wconghorn wrote:
Excuse me, but I wonder if you have attached the earth prong . I am not in the US and I see very few complaints in my country regarding the warbling and jumpy touchpad issue (most Thinkpad x220 4286-CTO users are complaining about the throttle issue,though) and we use grounding. So I wonder if it is caused by not grounding your thinkpad? I'm currently concerned because I own such model and has just shipped the same adapter you are using. Please let me know whether proper grounding solves this problem. thank you.

---

Hi,

I'm based in the UK so my adapter does have an earth prong, so that isn't the issue.

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Wconghorn wrote:

hi, i just got my adapter -  as it turned out, it has the same behavior.

but i don't think the noise is too loud, and i believe that is not a serious problem.

i tried the same adapter on a 4-year-old thinkpad x60, the result, much louder warbling sound.

i'll just take it as a compromise for better performance - most importantly, no CPU throttling.

ps: i didn't experience the jumpy touchpad issue.

thanks 

---

It is interesting to hear that your sound is not too loud - mine certainly is.

I don't think you have to put up with the warbling since it appears that other versions of the 90w adapter don't have this problem. It is my intention to buy a different one and try it, but I haven't gotten round to it yet. For now I'm just using the 65w adapter.

[Wconghorn]

Thanks for your response
Actually I have to update on this because I do experience loud ENOUGH warbling after some time I plugbthe 90w adapter. And I believe the sound is due to the cpu fan. But later I found out if you change a profile, the problem is gone. You can set up your own profile in power manager, remember to try to set the fan to something like "dynamic noise control" in English , and also remember to set the "way to expel heat" to passive. I tried that with 90w adapter and without the battery, I think this time it's acceptable. You can try it, and please let me know if it works for you.
Thanks.

[justyn]

Thanks for the tip. I'm not sure what the "way to expel heat" setting is, but I tried with dynamic noise control on and it didn't seem to effect the warbling.

As I noted earlier, the warbling only occurs for me once the battery is fully charged, with the adapter left plugged in.

[Wconghorn]

Today I updated the PowerManager to 3.62, a interesting thing happened that the "Reduce Noise Dynamically " option in

"Optimize Fan Control for" is gone! I don't know if Lenovo has removed this delibrately due to any technical problems or I had the wrong setting.

And, unfortunately, I'm still experiencing the warbling sound.