High Pitch sound from Monitor?

[P-Dub]

Recently I've been hearing a very high pitch sound coming from my monitor. The monitor is an old Optiquest Q71, 17" CRT. I think I bought this back around in 2000.

The sound is intermitent, and I seem to be the only one that hears it! My wife says she can't hear a thing. But I know it is there. I'd say very close to the 20,000 Hz range. I just need a mic and a frequency analyzer to graph the sound! If I had to guess, I'd say it is probably 18,238 Hz.

I'm hoping it is serious enough that my monitor will just black out! That way I can get a new monitor.

[Kevin P]

It's the flyback transformer. All CRT devices produce high pitched whines, though PC monitors are usually higher than TVs (it depends on the refresh rate) and I don't usually hear them. I can hear TV whine though, which is closer to 15 KHz.

In your case, your transformer is vibrating louder at times than others. I doubt it'll lead to your monitor "dying" anytime soon, but then you never know.

[Chris D]

This may or may not be the same thing, but I've found that I can hear when a monitor or television is on, and have been able to my whole life. It's probably CRT like you say, Kev. A lot of other people can't hear it, but I can walk into a room, and if a TV was left on, I can hear it, even if it's black and looks like it's off because there's no input or something.

[PewterTA]

I can tell in a heart beat if a TV is on in another room....

You can definitely hear it... but if it's getting more pronounced... it's probably starting to go. I had an old monitor in college that started to go, when it would get really warm (like after being on for an hour or two)...it would make a really high pitched whining noise (which anyone could pretty much hear)... I found the solution was to put a fan on the monitor and it stopped making the noise and still (5 years later) works... You might want to look at something like this http://www.3dcool.com/Products.asp?id=328

For the price and to have it cool your monitor significantly and make virtually no noise, it's well worth the price!!!

The only thing I did was add foam padding to the rubber feet they put on it to help isolate the vibration noise of the monitor cabinet. After I did that, works like a charm.

I have this on all 5 of my monitors for my family (not all my computers)...but it has significantly extended the life of all of our CRT monitors.

[aud19]

This may or may not be the same thing, but I've found that I can hear when a monitor or television is on, and have been able to my whole life. It's probably CRT like you say, Kev. A lot of other people can't hear it, but I can walk into a room, and if a TV was left on, I can hear it, even if it's black and looks like it's off because there's no input or something.

Ditto :B

[P-Dub]

Yup, me too on the TV thing. But the pitch of a TV is quite a bit lower compared to my monitor. We have a TV at the office, and sometimes people forget to turn it off after a satelite broadcast. I can hear the hum, eventhough it looks black and off.

Just to update, my monitor is still working. I think it might be heat related, as I moved end of June. Now my computer is in a corner that gets a lot of sun. I leave my monitor on all the time, with powersaving. I noticed that it went away for a month or so, but again recently it started to act up.

I might try the fan, but that would defeat the purpose of my monitor going kaput and allowing me to buy a new LCD. :B

I've got my eye on a 17" LCD HDTV capable screen and monitor.