Noisy Router Investigation
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Noisy Router Investigation
02-05-2013 10:39 AM
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We are currently investigating 4 or 5 cases.
We have had three routers sent in to us which were meant to be noisy. We tried them here and couldn't find any difference between them and the various routers that we have in the office. If you hold the router to your head, you might here a bit of electrical noise. That's all we found.
I took one of the routers home last night to try (from Aspjashley1) and found no difference between it and the router that I have been using at home since December..
We have one customer who has been sent several replacements and they all make a noise. Interestingly, they only make noise in their village. Four miles down the road they are silent!
I will be crossing the Pennines later today to investigate and I will take various routers with me.
We used to ship ADSL routers with USB ports. I'm taking a USB router with me with ADSL firmware on it as one of the theories from this forum is that this particular hardware version does not suffer from this problem.
Graham
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
02-05-2013 12:01 PM
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PS. There have been suggestions on it depending on how good your hearing is
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
02-05-2013 1:03 PM
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Re: Noisy Router Investigation
03-05-2013 4:52 PM
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I took your router with me across the Pennines to the house of another customer who has reported noise.
She took me into the room with the router in it and said "Can you hear that?" I couldn't hear anything. Not unless I put my ear to it. Then I could hear a bit of crackling / static. Very subtle though.
I swapped her router for a fibre one reflashed to ADSL firmware and she said that she couldn't hear the noise anymore.
To my ears and hers, yours made the same sound and it seems that you have found the same solution.
I have sent yours and her router to Technicolor. Let's see what they say.
Graham
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
03-05-2013 5:17 PM
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Interesting that you couldn't hear it, though I'm not really surprised.
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
03-05-2013 6:22 PM
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Re: Noisy Router Investigation
03-05-2013 11:51 PM
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Quote from: Graham21 We tried them here and couldn't find any difference between them and the various routers that we have in the office.
Has anyone thought of checking these with a sound meter (specifically one that can test different frequency ranges)?
At any given moment in the universe many things happen. Coincidence is a matter of how close these events are in space, time and relationship.
Opinions expressed in forum posts are those of the poster, others may have different views.
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 12:05 AM
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Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 7:30 AM
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I recently had to reject a motherboard for a project at work because a single surface mount capacitor in the fan control circuit would make an unbearable whine. The manufacturer sent a replacement sample which they thought was fine, same problem. I could fix it by replacing the capacitor with something better. Could I get them interested to fix the problem, even telling them what part to replace? Of course not. The part they needed to fit was 10x more expensive.
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 8:01 AM
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Well it would be foolish not to at the end of the day, from my point of view i wouldn't recommend one to a freind either.
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 8:15 AM
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Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 9:59 AM
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Some devices will make rustling noises with little or no load. Switching power supplies may chirp under low load conditions.
The most common causes for noise are badly wound inductors - these tend to have a high pitched whine which changes with load.
Capacitors (as mentioned above) also can act as mini speakers under certain frequencies.
It could just be the modem circuits making the noise (inductors/capacitors) but power supply noise would be more likely.
As a suggestion, can you test the faulty routers with some kind of load plugged into the USB port - i.e. a mobile phone charger ? This will put around half an amp of load onto the PSU and may induce the noise you've been experiencing. You may also find the orientation of the device changes the amplitude of the noise.
You could also open up the faulty units and connect a load to the regulator circuits and see if that makes much of a difference.
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 10:14 AM
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I'm the only one in the family that seems to be able to hear it though, and it was in the kitchen where there's normally noise from other things as well, so it doesn't bother me. I'm not using it now so if you want another one to look at you can have it back
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 10:34 AM
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Funny, I've noticed it more since reading these threads !!
That said, I wouldn't want it replaced as it performs really well in all other aspects, including a great wireless range which I note others have issues with.
Re: Noisy Router Investigation
04-05-2013 10:51 AM
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