High pitched sound coming from computer?

[MDesigner]

I've got the weirdest thing going on. I noticed that when I start playing a sound file of any type/format, there's a very quiet high pitched sound. I stop the player, and it stops after a couple seconds. If one of those Windows error dialogs pops up (and plays the error sound), I also hear the high pitched sound just for a few seconds.

The ultra bizarre part: even if my speakers are turned OFF, I can still hear that high pitched sound whenever a sound is played. What the hell would be causing this? This is a real baffler...

 

[FlyingPenguin]

If you have sensitive hearing like me (former sound engineer and I can still hear well into the 23 KHz range - CRTs with noisy flyback transformers give me headaches) then you're probably hearing a coil in the power supply "singing" under load. Some hard drives can also do this - it's an unintended harmonic produced by the frequency of the read head's movement. Power regulators or power transistors (on the mobo, video card or in the PSU can do it too).

I hear it sometimes (pretty sure it's PSU) on my rig when my computer performs certain actions.

You generally don't hear it unless you have a very quiet rig. My rig is extremely quiet.

Nothing to worry about unless it's REAL LOUD. Could be a precursor to a component failure if it's very loud, but other than that don't sweat it.

If it's in the same frequency range as mine, unless they're younger than 30 most people probably can't even hear it.

 

[MDesigner]

The sound only happens when a sound in Windows is played. I don't know why it happens. It's not a huge issue, it's just a big annoyance. Plus I work with music professionally, so I like to hear the stuff I'm working on play back WITHOUT the annoying high pitched tone.

 

[NightTrain]

I have heard something similar but figured out it was just the wife.

 

[MDesigner]