Beeping/Whirring Noise from my Laptop transformer

vicwatson

Started last night, it's a slight beep/whirr and it's coming from my Dell transformer - plug to transformer then transformer to laptop.

When I unplug it it slows to a stop like as if there is something spinning inside it. Say like a hard drive slowing down to a stop.

It's definitely from the transformer though

Any ideas ?? Thanks

vicwatson

I think it has died. sounded like a motor in it. surely not ???

coylemj

vicwatson wrote: »

I think it has died. sounded like a motor in it. surely not ???

+1 there are no moving parts in a laptop AC adapter, just a transformer and some solid state electronics. It must be a loose connection sparking so it needs to be binned, they are sealed and not serviceable.

Serious fire risk by the sound of it, I would stop using it immediately.

Overheal

I've seen chargers melt that people have brought in to me, I've had chargers go bad like that that have then had electrical faults, so they'd send nasty power noise up through the laptop, **** up the speakers and the trackpad, even shock you if you touched exposed metal from a USB port or microphone jack. Not safe to keep using. Bin it. Get a surge protector, something that advertises noise filtering. Especially in older homes, dirty power has a habit of slowly tearing away at the reliability of transformers and such.

ressem

No moving parts is sort of a simplification.

No fans and motors but the changing magnetic field in the transformer can cause the coil to vibrate. Usually it's fastened in place but sometimes this is done only using glue which can work loose.

If it's only happening when unplugged, it might be vibrating capacitors causing nearby components to resonate creating the noise. Capacitors expand and contract as voltage changes, and can burst making the device unusable.

vicwatson

It's binned thanks