cpu sounds

kharnakkharnak Miami
edited March 2004 in Hardware
For those of you who have a receiver connected to the audio out of your computer, and you have your headphones attached to your head, and turned up pretty loud most of the time... and you're not listening to music.
Ya ever noticed how sometimes you can actually hear the various sounds that your system is making? like when you move your mouse, or open a program, or ... do a really heavy computation in a program like Maple, Photoshop, or Pifast when it's allocating RAM, or... something else..
Well... I've observed quite a few patterns and observations. It really spikes my curiosity as to what exactly the cpu is <b>doing.</b>
Observations:
For programs like photoshop, Cooleditpro, I hear mostly rumbling sounds and underwatery bubbly sounds, buzzes and such.
For Maple i hear many various things... one that sounds like a logarithmic sine sweep.
The most interesting patterns i've heard so far are from an .exe file called Pifast, used for numerical constant computation. For most constants, such as e, i hear a distinct pattern or beeps and throbbing sounds that seem to get longer and slower as the computation completes.

For anyone who knows a thing or two about cpu and math co-processors, please offer some insights.
This is sorta like putting your ear up to the wall and trying to figure out what someone is watching on TV. :type:
I love to sometimes listen to this stuff for.. a good while, it gets into a Zen-like mood sometimes. I have also been trying to use a seperate computer to record these sounds so i can sample them and use them in some music.
do Athlons even have a math co-processor? ...

Comments

  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited March 2004
    Hmm... Interesting concept. I don't know a whole lot about cpu and math co-processors. However, A lot of the rumbling and underwatery bubbely sounds might be your hard drive.

    However, I once had a 200MHZ K6 I used as a proxy/firewall, and when that one was approaching its death it would freeze up for about 4 seconds at a time and during that freeze up it would make the loudest highest pitched, ear pierceing noise. I thaught that was awefully strange.

    Thats the only noise I have heard from a CPU though.
  • kharnakkharnak Miami
    edited March 2004
    hmm i dont think it's the hard drive. You typically have to have the volume turned up pretty high for this. They sound almost electrical in nature.
    Only sounds i ever heard from a hard drive were squeeks.
    http://numbers.computation.free.fr/Constants/PiProgram/pifast.html
    Here's the thing. try computing a million or so digits of e or pi or something and listen closely.
  • qparadoxqparadox Vancouver, BC
    edited March 2004
    Hmm well you're certainly not hearing the processor itself. While the periodic heating and cooling of the silicon as the gates switch *might* create some noise in the audible range it would be exceedingly quiet. The most obvious explanation is that the EM radiation generated by various components is finding its way into the analog circuitry of the sound-card and being output. The mathematical calculations that you refer to likely include exceedingly long loops and its the changes in the EM field from different passes at the loop that you're hearing. No single instructions or even group of instructions could cause EM fields slow enough to create noise in the audible range, its simply not possible. So that would be my guess, the EM radiation from various components (be it the CPU, some co-processor) or otherwise is causing some other component to emit audible noise. In applications that are very memory heavy you may also be hearing the HD as information is swapped in and out of memory.
  • kharnakkharnak Miami
    edited March 2004
    nods* that's exactly what i would deduce is making the sounds. Although when it comes to analog circuitry.. i would not rule out wierd principles of induction and such to make audible noises as mere side-effects. Indeed i know most of this is way beyond the range of hearing.
    When running Pifast for long excesses of time.. the beeping patterns draw out to very long buzzes and eventually deepen into slow purrrrring sounds... and i notice new frequency components that are just becoming audible now that they are so much deeper.

    Anyway, i don't think there is much significance aside from fancy in observing this. I am curious what this sounds like on other systems and processors, and different amounts of RAM, or under 64bit environments.
    I noticed that when i put in a whole new 512meg stick of RAM, and increased the PF size... it sounded.. "healthier" in a way, the throbs and beeps sounded like it had an echo to it.
    mm mm....
    well.. let's all meditate on what computing the factorial of 25billion would be like ^^ on the NEC earth simulator
    http://www.es.jamstec.go.jp/esc/eng/ES/facilities.html
  • FormFactorFormFactor At the core of forgotten
    edited March 2004
    qparadox has a point.

    For instance. If I hook my laptop up to my reciever on battery only, without hooking up power cable the sound is fine. However when I plug the power cable in, I get all kinds of squelchy, kind of stacky noise from my reciever speakers. I blame it on electro static noise between components in my laptop. Might that be similar to your situation?
  • tophericetopherice Oak Ridge, TN
    edited March 2004
    I would agree that it is possible that what your hearing is the output created by EMI created by one or several of the componets inside you PC and is being picked up by some analog source. However I would think the freq. would be beyond the scope of human hearing. Check the cables to/from your soundcard, etc. Any small break in the cable (even if it is shielded and cannot be seen) will act as an antannae and pickup the sound from any electro-magnetic or electro-static field that it comes in contact with.
  • qparadoxqparadox Vancouver, BC
    edited March 2004
    Yeah my chief suspect would be the analog audio out cable from your cd-rom (at least I think its analog...) as any EMI that is added should not make it through a DAC. The analog out is probably also amped so that would allow it to be audible. I've noticed the same phenomenon on my laptop. I used to notice a sound whenever I clicked my mouse but it disappeared after a few months. I also noticed a definite pattern when I ran the PIFAST program.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Warning Historical note: In the 50's there was a lot of work being done trying to improve analog audio tape recording quality. A group at University of Chicago was working on trying to get quieter amplifiers. They managed to fully filter the 60Hz out and then they recorded without an input in order to listen to the other noise. As they turned the volume up they realized that they were listening to the vibration of the grids in the amp tubes (microphnoics). The basic frequency of these sounds is very high, but the lower harmonics are just audible. Once they got the volume loud enough all sound vanished from the tape. They had invented the use of bias in tape recording.

    There are similar effects in digital systems. Digital audio systems are built to minimize them, but there is switching noise and such. I would guess that most of what you hear is related to power being switched on and off for various componants. The power systems in PCs are very noisy.
    You might want to connect a line to your aux input and just hang it inside the case. It would act like an attena and might get you some more interesting sounds.
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited March 2004
    i've found that this little annoyance is only present for me when i'm using line in / microphone jacks
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2004
    Mondi! This is right up your alley! Where are you? ;D
  • kharnakkharnak Miami
    edited March 2004
    chuckle* i don't see it as an annoyance really. I find it somewhat usefull sometimes actually. I can tell if the computer is busy with something, or when it's finished, or even if soemthing's not quite right. It kinda helps me feel a little more connected and in tune with it actually.
    (I use the audio out on the back of my case, not the cd-rom thingies)
    And yes, i have met Mondi briefly so far, I hope to get a chance to talk more.
  • MizugoriMizugori NYC
    edited March 2004
    hmmm I get this without headphones, when I am benching my video card. weird medium pitched electronic sounds, sort of like if R2-D2 were to experiment with crack.
  • RoycemanRoyceman
    edited March 2004
    My computer also makes thes strange sounds when i use head phones or a audio hook up other then the SPDIF out put on my pc i can tell when the cpu or my computer is working hard or when it is idle its kinda cool i can not here it with intel based systems only with systems useing the AMD cpu's i have a 2400+ over clocked to 2.7 ghz with 2 gigs of ram the more the memory the more the sound and also with systems useing dule chan. ddr it makes more sounds
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