I have the same laptop. I7 620 , 6gb ram, 500gb hdd with win 7 x64.

I have also noticed this high pitched whine but its not constant like yours is.

I think it may be a capasitor on the mobo but since mine has not bothered me as much i havent really looked into it.

How does your rig differ from mine, that might be a indecation on were to start looking for the problem :D

My spec: i7 720, 6gb ram, 500gb hdd and Win 7 x64.  GFX is ATI Radeon HD 565v.

The noise only happens when i enable the idle CPU power management - i.e. when the CPU is put into a low power mode.

Are you able to cause the noise to stop/start in the same way on your laptop?  How do I identify whether its the capacitor?

Thx, Matt.

I called Dell Tech Support and they sent an engineer out.  He replaced the motherboard, FAN and heatsink.  It's still making the high pitch noise.  The conclusion is that it's the CPU making the noise when being underclocked in low power mode.  But I would expect Dell to already be aware of this issue...

Anyone know if this noise is heard on other Dell i3/i5/i7 CPUs?

Hi- I just got an Inspiron 15R 6 days ago. I noticed the high pitch frequency right away and thought I could deal with it but IT IS IRRITATING.  I called tech support and spent 2 hours on the phone trying everything with no avail.  A technician was sent to my house yesterday and he replaced the heat sink and motherboard and low and behold the sound was still there a few hours later (of course when he was here it wasn't making the sound).  The noise is most obvious when running on battery power versus adapter.  I'm going to request a new laptop but I am afraid (due to what I am reading on the net) that the new laptop will just do the same thing.  I am reading a lot about this noise on the internet yet the tech support and the home technician did not know what I was talking about and did not indicate hearing about this occuring.  I thought I would post on a forum so that it's here on record for whoever monitors this.    

So to answer your question Matt3278: Yes, this is occuring on a Dell i3 CPU.

i realise that the intell i series is a better overall cpu, but just as a note  I dont get the noise with the AMD tripple core 15R Laptops

Thanks for your response.  Another tech person found a solution, sort of. He narrowed it down to my bluetooth service.  This is worth a try for people hearing this noise.

1. Go to start menu and in search type "config"

2.  Click on "system configuration"

3. Select the "services" tab

4. Bottom left, check mark "hide microsoft services"

5.Find and Uncheck "bluetooth service" by clicking on the box next to it

6. Click apply and then restart your computer. This may stop the noise. 

This stopped the irritating high frequency noise for me. I  just had the bluetooth chip replaced but when I re-enabled bluetooth the sound was there again.  Of course this creates the problem of not having bluetooth if I disable it so I don't know what the next step will be as far as my issue. I just want to get this resolved.

Same f_+ing problem. I am speechless and really dissapointed with Dell. I thought they'd changed but... same old story!

The buzzing is not only irritating, it affects my laptop's performance. And none of the solution (official or unofficial) worked.

If someone finds a different solution please say something, but it amazes me how companies keep this 'little' issues in the shadow to keep a clean image while the users suffer the consecuences.

Dell XPS L501X

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q740

NVIDIA GeForce GT 435M

4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM

Seagate 500.1GB

Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64x 6.01.7601

I sent the i7 back to Dell. I bought a HP i5 and had the same problem. Leeser11 has the same prob with an i3. It looks like the issue is with the Intel iCore CPUs. My advice would be to get an AMD CPU. I'm pretty shocked that Intel are making noisy CPUs. I'm guessing some people can put up with it. I couldn't. Especially when working from home in an otherwise quiet room!

Yes, I think some people don't notice it but I did and it drove me insane. I think after awhile they just thought I was crazy (tech people).  Like I said turning off the bluetooth on the laptop stopped the noise (see my previous post). So I don't know if the problem was caused by the interaction of the CPU and bluetooth or what.  Dell sent me a new laptop and I could still hear the noise even when I turned off the bluetooth on that one so I ended up keeping the original since I could at least stop the noise. So it's a bit bizarre that what worked for one laptop didn't work for another. I asked the tech person if he had ever heard of this happening and his answer was "I have never heard of this problem on the 15R". He didn't seem to want to share too much.

It is a known issue with the Core i and some of the CPU-idle states.  An inductor in the voltage regulating circuit is usually responsible.  Sometimes the idle modes can be disabled and the noise reduced.