Any pointers on a hardware noise/whine issue?

[Ramses II CP]

Interesting thing about Azureus and IE pages. That would tend, IMHO, to suggest that it's related to your hard drive. Possibly it's within the range of normal operating noise?

Fortunately a on most laptops the HD is relatively easy to switch out, so the theory is testable, if Dell fails to come through.

The fact that it's more audible on battery could suggest that the HD power saving mode exacerbates it, or it could suggest that it's a type of power fault. You couldn't truly diagnose that without some equipment, and it seems unlikely that it would produce only noise and have no other side effects.

If performance has been consistent and you have good backups of your data I wouldn't be too worried about it. Try some bluetooth headphones to screen it out?

Good luck. I'd be interested to hear if you figure anything out.

[Caius]

Maybe its some overheating. My theory cosinsts in that your system when have to work much, it starts to use the cooler. Maybe the cooler its being forced to run too much, and it could be damaged.