Audible humming / ticking in fit-PC3

[htims]

Hi,

Been looking a long time for something to go under the telly to watch movies, play games, go on the internet etc. and when I saw this I thought I had finally found the perfect bit of kit. This noise issue has put a bit of a damper on it though. Can someone please confirm that by using this BIOS setting you can get rid of the noises completely?

Cheers

[gabrielh]

With this BIOS feature, the CPU will remain in the high performance power mode, and wouldn't skip to lower mode on demand (designed for efficient power management). There will be no ticking in that mode, however the FitPC3 will consume more power.

[htims]

Thanks Gabriel,

That's all I needed to know. I'm not too concerned about the power usage as I will not be leaving the machine on 24/7, just when in use. It was just as others have said, the primary reason for buying this over other cheaper machines is the silence. If it is not silent then there is no point paying the extra.

Cheers

[djbclark]

gabrielh writes:
All latest models of the FitPC3 are now updated with this feature. We will post soon the latest BIOS update, so our valued customers will be able to update their FitPC3 to gain this feature on demand.

I just got my Fit-PC3 (marketed as MintBox Pro) a few days ago. Installed a SSD, and this humming/ticking started annoying the hell out of me immediately (my audiologist tells me I have abnormally sensitive high-frequency hearing :-/ ) - significantly worse than a fan, because at least a fan is a regular sound, whereas this seems to be quite random and really distracts me.

I didn't see any obvious option for this in BIOS, so I just installed the latest BIOS upgrade, but I still don't see an obvious option to enable the feature. Could you tell us what the menu path is to get to it? I've already disabled power management and set the system p-state to "lowest". Hopefully I'm just blind.

If this isn't fixable, is the return-for-full-refund time the standard 30 days?

I also saw on this or another thread that the Intel processor-based versions may not have this problem - is it that they don't have the problem at all, or just that it is less noticeable?

I really hope that this issue can be fixed, because other than that so far the hardware is both pretty and pretty perfect :-)

[gabrielh]

Thank you for a positive feedback

You can disable the audible humming by disabling the Aggressive CPU Power Manager from the BIOS menu

[djbclark]

Thanks for your quick reply

That would be AMD -> Processor Settings -> Aggressive CPU Power Management [Disabled]?

Sadly it was already on that setting. To make sure none of the other things I set may have been causing the problem, I did the F9 default BIOS settings - and it turns out disabled is the default for the "Aggressive CPU Power Management" - and the problem is still there.

Is it possible I have a defective unit?

Is the Intel CPU Intense PC likely to be quieter in any case?

If the answer to either of those questions are "yes" I'll go put in an order for an Intel-based Intense PC and then RMA the AMD-based unit I have when it gets here; otherwise I'll just RMA.

[gabrielh]

Can you please enable back a Aggressive CPU Power Management and check the noise level?

[djbclark]

Sorry, I guess that was unclear. The setting was enabled by default, I left it that way, and the noise is there.

Is the Intel likely to have significantly less sound? I'm thinking maybe I should just try that.

[gabrielh]

Please disable the Aggressive CPU Power Management. It should significantly reduce the noise level

[djbclark]

I have tried it both ways; the sound I am / have been referring to is with advanced power management disabled.

You are correct in that it is considerably more noisy with advanced power management enabled - it sounds like a busy hard drive (as you'll recall I replaced the usual hard drive in the box with an SSD drive, so it's not an actual hard drive making the noise.)

Again, is this problem likely to be significantly less severe with your Intel chip computers?

I'd really like to keep one, but with esp. with air conditioning in my office off the irregular nature of the sounds is very distracting for me.