computer making high pitched squealing noise

Thus, it responds to the resulting cascade of communications failures by creating a series of audible alerts.Īnother explanation involves a deeper connection between your two devices. Computer noise, however, does not contain the sort of information that your phone's onboard computer is programmed to expect.

If the signal coming from your computer is strong enough, your phone could mistake it for a cell phone transmission. One explanation for the phenomenon you describe is that your computer unintentionally emits radio waves in the range of frequencies reserved for cell phone communications, typically around 800 megahertz (MHz). Inductive coupling can also have undesirable consequences, however. The same effect is used to heat pots and pans on inductive cooktops. This is how radio receivers detect the signals transmitted by radio stations. Just as changing electric currents radiate radio waves, radio waves induce electric currents in conducting materials.

Computers are particularly 'noisy' because they rely on rapidly changing currents to act as clock signals that coordinate their calculations. This is an inevitable by-product of using electricity to do useful things, and it is analogous to the clanking and clattering sounds that mechanical devices make as they work.

That's because the rapidly changing electric currents running through these devices naturally radiate electromagnetic waves. Virtually every piece of electrically powered equipment acts as a radio transmitter, whether it is supposed to or not. This sounds like a case of electromagnetic interference (or EMI), which is what happens when radio waves emitted by one device cause undesirable behavior in another. David Grier, chair of the physics department at New York University, dials up an answer to this mystery.

Computer making high pitched squealing noise