iPhone 7 Plus Makes Hissing Sound Under Load, Some Users Complain (businessinsider.com)

Several commendable users are complaining that their iPhone 7 Plus handsets are making a "hissing" noise especially when they do some heavy weight work. Some users note that this issue extends to the iPhone 7 as well. BusinessInsider reports:Stephen Hackett, cofounder of podcast network Relay FM, tweeted that his iPhone 7 Plus "makes terrible noises when under load," and shared an audio clip of the noise. TechCrunch writer (and former Apple employee) Darrell Etherington responded that his "brand new, just-unboxed [device is] doing the same thing right now." It sounds like the problem isn't affecting all devices, and it's not immediately clear what's behind it. Hackett said on Twitter that Apple will be replacing his device with a new one, which suggests it's a defect rather than just an unexpected quirk of the new smartphone's design. There's some speculation out there as to what's causing it - but nothing concrete yet. Engadget's Jon Fingas suggests it could be "coil whine," a process where electronics make an unintended noise while working, for example.

Comments

Don't buy the first batches...

[hcs_$reboot]

I always wait a couple of months before purchasing a new device, especially in the smartphones department.

Re:Don't buy the first batches...

[dgatwood]

Customers were told that they wanted thinner, stronger, and water resistant.

FTFY.

"I would buy a new iPhone if it were just a little bit thinner," said no Apple customer ever.

Re:Don't buy the first batches...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Who (i.e. what customers) asked for this un-feature to be thrust upon us consumers?

"Please remove the headphone jack so I'm forced to buy new hardware" said no one, ever.

I can pretty much guarantee that no customer ever asked for this "feature". As for their remark that it was "courage", that's utter bullshit.

Storming the beach at Normandy took courage.
Running into a burning building to save someone is courage.
Martin Luther King Jr. standing up for equal rights was courage.
Jacklyn H. Lucas, who jumped on two grenades to save his buddies showed courage.

Removing a fucking headphone jack from a phone doesn't quite cut it in my book, sorry.

Re:Don't buy the first batches...

[whoever57]

Wait, who is asking for thinner?

Those people who put their phones in a fat extended battery case? </sarcasm>

bad inductor selection

[Anonymous Coward]

I would guess they chose an inductor too small and it is vibrating.

Re:bad inductor selection

[willy_me]

The big change in DCDC design is in the different modes of operation that a DCDC controller can support. It used to be simple pulse width modulation but now we have pulse width modulation and, to use a term adopted by Linear, "Burst" mode DCDC converters. The purpose of the "burst" mode is to achieve low power level efficiency by on/off modulating the DCDC converter. The resulting on/off modulation can be within the acoustic range even if the actual DCDC converter is switching in the MHz range. So Linear, TI, Analog - they all now support their own version of a "burst" mode.

In the past 5 years, far more parts from various manufacturers are available for designing systems that goes to sleep but require always-on power rails. You used to have to pair a DCDC and LDO together to achieve the best of both worlds. And companies like Murata have capacitors specifically designed to assist in alleviating the whine. Check out their product line for a more detained description. I have designed and built power supplies that have had a noticeable whine - typically under low load. So I can confirm - it is the caps.

#hissgate

[Anonymous Coward]

#hissgate

Re:The Holy Ghost of Steve Jobs Says

[dgatwood]

What do you expect when the phone doesn't have a headphone jack?

Fanboies are often the biggest critics.

[jellomizer]

I have noticed this in most equiptment over the past 30+ years of computing. I remember hearing the processing noise from my old Amstrad PC-1512C 8086. Which didn't have any cooling fans so when I did heavy processing it would make a whining sound.
I also hear a whining sound from my wireless router, I can often hear noise on LCD Displays, especially on a full screen refresh. I expect the the iPhone 7 it is doing so much stuff (whether it being useful or not is open for a another internet flame post) and the new CPU allows it to do more enough to cause a noise.

Dr Archangel says ...

[Archangel Michael]

Take two antiHISStamine and call Apple in the morning.

The headphone ports

[Anonymous Coward]

...They're haunting Apple. "Bring us baaaaaack.....*hiss*......Bring us baaaaaaack....."

Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?

[number6x]

Someone at Apple has been coding in Python instead of Swift.

Apple Iphone Proud Sponsor

[Oswald McWeany]

Apple iPhone, proud sponsor of house Slitherin.

Probably a combination of factors

[wierd_w]

Given that Apple is apparently quite obscessed with making their device the same thickness as a sheet of onion skin paper, the issue is likely a combination of things.

Namely, thermal noise needs to be overcome with higher voltages, which then get switched at pretty high speeds. That switching of higher than normal voltages (because it is under load, and having to overcome passive cooling only) coupled with a most likely saturating floating ground, means RF signal leakage. Given that one of the proposed reasons for Apple's removal of the headphone jack was that they were having problems with RF noise being produced and picked up on the headphones (and nothing to do with "Courage") I find this likely, and suspect the issue to be more systemic than apple wants to admit, especially in light of the Samsung battery disaster.

(EG, the reality that you can't reasonably push a design that thin without having very real problems with the electronics does not fly well with the ivory tower designers with sticks up their asses at Apple, but their marketing droids pay better attention, and realize this is a potential problem they need to be mum about. I would expect higher rates of failure from out of expected tolerance voltages on devices driven hard, and apple blaming the users, rather than the hardware like they should be.)

Re:Probably a combination of factors

[viperidaenz]

That's actually an explanation for their use of the word courage. It takes courage to release a product full of design flaws, masked by removing features you can't get working.

Re:Probably a combination of factors

[wierd_w]

The CPU gets hot when in use. To overcome thermal noise, the voltage on the CPU goes up a little.

There is an expected tolerance band for operation, and the control of the voltage on the CPU and ram has upper bounds for very good reasons.

I am suggesting that the normal operation of this voltage regulation under computational load results in increased bus noise due to a saturated ground, and that apple considered this acceptable because most users will just be listening to mp3s, or playing casual crap on Facebook, and not taxing the system this way, making the issue statistically ignorable.

The way you deal with signal bleed on a device that cannot be earth grounded is to have a very large conductor inside that serves as a floating ground. Usually this is sandwiched inside the PCB as a good thick copper layer. Apple wants a device that is practically lighter than air, and thin as a straight razor. Copper is pretty heavy, and extra layers inside the PCB add thickness. Both are things the idiots, I mean, "geniuses" in Cupertino think are trendy to do away with. As a consequence, I expect the grounding layer to be thinner than what is actually needed for the proper operation of the device at heavy load, resulting in ground saturation. When the ground saturates, coupled with a hot CPU from heavy load, the regulator pumps up the voltage to try to assure reliable signals are being generated. This adds to the problem, because now more heat is being added and the ground is already saturated, so rf noise leaks everywhere. Throw in a densely packed PCB, where lots of devices will pick up the noise, and you have a recipie for early component failure.

All the devices are working within design, but the design is poorly considered.

Rather than admit that the design is poorly considered, due to the absurdity of trying to make a high performance device that thin, I expect apple to blame users for overloading the phone instead. The noise only happens when the system is taxed, because it was designed to play on facebook, not number crunch.

I expect the engineers decided that transient loads of 100% were acceptable because it takes time to saturate the ground, and most things a user will do won't saturate the CPU like that.

For reference, most CPUs run between 1.2 and 1.5 vdc, with subtle changes up and down based on activity and temperature. This is normal, expected operation. In this case, the ground saturates when the CPU sits at 100% for a long time, and the voltage sits at 1.5v, with transient voltages from rf buildup pushing components outside that from the saturated ground.

Hypothetically.

Terrible noise?

[nuckfuts]

I take it this is a first-world definition of "terrible"?

I had to turn up my speakers to even hear the video.