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Re:XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available by paulmd on Thursday January 04, 2018 @03:19PM (#16073703)
Coil whine can easily be tested with this website (probably not a good link if you have epilepsy or Chiari malformations)

https://thume.ca/screentunes/

In my experience virtually all LCD displays have it to some degree, you just don't notice it except with certain patterns (like that one) that interact with the scanout mechanism.

Re:XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available by metaphor on Thursday January 04, 2018 @05:17PM (#16074609)
To be sure, what you're hearing from that website is not coil whine (inductor phenomena), but mechanical resonance caused by piezoelectric effect on solid state MLCCs[1] charging/discharging in your monitor during frame refresh.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceramic_capacitor#Microphony

Re:XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available by paulmd on Saturday January 06, 2018 @08:56AM (#16085245)
In common parlance, I'm not sure there's a distinction between coil whine and capacitor whine. That is probably not something you can distinguish without taking apart the component in question.
Re:XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available by metaphor on Tuesday January 09, 2018 @05:15PM (#16110654)
If by common parlance you mean amongst not electronics engineers, then I can see where you're coming from. The miscommunication that I'm seeing is asymptotic to the common misuse of Baud as a universal measure of bitrate...or in programmer speak, char and uint8 as immutable equivalents. From a hardware design perspective, qualifying the whine with coil transforms the remark from generally descriptive to technically specific with distinct implications.

Disassembly may not be required to trace root cause with high probability depending on the type of hardware exhibiting the issue, e.g. on a laptop, manifests upon affixing power adapter (as some have described) or tracks display pattern (as parent link).

Re:XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available by kingosticks on Thursday January 04, 2018 @04:02PM (#16074045)
I'm not sure why I would actively seek it out - ignorance is bliss.
Re:XPS 13 developer edition 7th generation available by strmpnk on Thursday January 04, 2018 @04:58PM (#16074456)
This is very interesting. I found my Surface Pro 4 had a very audible buzzing while my 12.9 inch iPad Pro didn't have any sound. It could be that the latter is better sealed so it muffles the sound effectively.