I disabled Intel SpeedStep in my Dell 1557 laptop bios (no option for disabling C3, C4 etc there) and that's seemingly fixed the whining problem for me! But of course this is hardly a fix, I've never used my laptop's battery, so at this moment in time this is perfectly okay for me.
And if I ever wanted to maximize my battery performance at the expense of whine, I could just make a simple bios alteration. I'm sure if you get into the habit of changing this bios option on and off, it's not such a big deal, just like typing a user account password when logging onto an OS.
If it works for you, please spread the word! Blogs, YouTube (videos and comments) wherever. So many people have this exceedingly annoying problem!
Of course a better work around would be for Dell and other laptop manufacturers to update their bios to automatically switch off SpeedStep when AC power IS detected and then switch it back on when AC power IS NOT present, or removed. An option for leaving SpeedStep off permanently would be good to keep as well, for those who are willing to sacrifice battery performance for a lack of whine!
If SpeedStep can be switched on and off through software as well, they could make a simple program to do the same thing.
Perhaps someone wants to start up a petition and get websites like anandtech.com, lifehacker.com, thinq.co.uk etc, magazines and online shows like Tekzilla to put pressure on laptop manufacturers to do this? Personally I've got too many health probs at the moment to bother with all this malarkey, so someone else will have to pick up the ball. I have no idea what percentage of people this will work for, but if it works for a significant amount of people, it may well be worth pursuing! Of course other fixes like the Bluetooth and RMClock ones should be mentioned.
Is the system alseep when it's whistling, or is it awake and just 'idle', like you've stated in the quesiton? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2010-03-19T23:23:09.143
It happens when the CPU is idling (not asleep). So when it's not doing any work (just sitting at the desktop, or waiting for a key stroke in a word processor). It's a known problem, and it's apparently caused by one of the power saving states of the CPU. So if I can disable this state, the problem should be fixed – Philippe Leybaert – 2010-03-20T08:42:14.517
if the system isn't in a sleep state, then it's probably not going to be a sleep state that's causing it. :) Have you contacted Toshiba about it? – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2010-03-21T23:23:04.463
The CPU is entering "idle" mode, one of the power saving modes. It's definitely this idle mode which is causing the problem. It's described all over the net, so it's a common problem. The only problem is that the few tools that can fix this problem do not work with newer CPUs like the Core i5. – Philippe Leybaert – 2010-03-22T07:26:43.930
I changed the title to refer to "idle (Cx) states", since "sleep" usually refers to the S-states. The C-states generally just seem to be called "C-states" or "Cx". – coneslayer – 2011-02-03T14:30:05.603