I’m curious, how many people are aware of these sounds. I have designed, etched, and built my own switching power supplies along with winding my own transformers. I am aware of the source of the noise. So, does anyone else hear these high frequency sounds regularly?
Since I got older this got better. One benefit I guess?
It’s especially common among people with Autism/ASD and ADHD to hear noises other people often don’t hear. Like those LED light bars, or coffee pot crackling, or electricity from appliances. For ADHD I’ve seen a few people claim that those sounds are just as audible for everyone else, but everybody just subconsciously filters it out and doesn’t notice it, while people with ADHD are easily caught by it. I assume for ASD it would be somewhat similar – plus Autistic people are a lot more susceptible to sensory issues, although people with ADHD also often have fucked up senses, which can make noises like that a LOT more noticeable (and even problematic/headache-inducing/stressful/painful).
ADHD really seems like a superpower
This is an extremely common line that neurotypical people use to minimize the struggles that people with ADHD face on a daily basis. Pretty much every person with ADHD has heard the “well it sounds like you’re great at multitasking so it’s like a superpower” line. In reality, people with ADHD aren’t any better at multitasking; They’re just constantly forced into it because of their inability to focus on a single boring task at a time.
ADHD attention is directed by four main things: Interest, Novelty, Challenge, and Urgency.
If you find a task interesting, it’s all you’ll focus on. The person will struggle to focus on homework, but can focus on video games for hours. Even putting off basic needs like eating, sleeping, or using the restroom. A person with ADHD can literally focus on an interesting task so hard that they forget to feel hungry. This phenomenon is colloquially known as hyperfocus, and leads to a lot of common ADHD complaints (like how they’re always late, because they get hyperfocused on a task and completely lose track of the time.)
But if it’s not interesting, it needs to be novel. It needs to be something new. Pretty much every person with ADHD has a mountain of discarded hobbies, because the new hobby caught their attention while it was novel. But as soon as the novelty wore off, their interest waned. Because they weren’t really interested in the hobby; They were simply enjoying the novelty.
If it’s not interesting or novel, it needs to be challenging. People with ADHD will excel at big difficult projects at work, but struggle to complete the mundane day-to-day tasks. Because with neurotypical people, the brain will release a small amount of dopamine as a reward when they complete small tasks. It’s the brain’s way of saying “hey we did a good thing, so I’ll reward myself and be able to focus on it again next time!” But people with ADHD don’t get those small dopamine rewards. People with ADHD only get dopamine rewards for completing big difficult tasks. So they’re able to focus on those big difficult tasks, because they know it’ll lead to a big dopamine payoff in the end.
Lastly, there’s urgency. If a task isn’t interesting, novel, or challenging, it needs to be urgent. This is basically the “fight or flight” response being focused into a task. People with ADHD are expert procrastinators. Not because they enjoy procrastination or rushing at the end, but because the task isn’t interesting, novel, or challenging. So they need it to be urgent in order to be able to focus on it. This is basically just replacing dopamine with adrenaline.
But if it doesn’t fit any of the above four criteria, it’s basically impossible for a person with ADHD to focus on it. Even when they know they need to, or want to be able to. Instead, they’ll end up getting distracted by the fucking power supply whistling.
I did not have the brain power to reply so thank you for doing it for me and all of those of us who find it too “normal” to try to answer this for the like 20th time.
I have tinnitus and it sounds just like power supplies, except it comes from nowhere. So, when I hear the squeal, I turn my head. If the squeal noise follows the movement of my head, tinnitus. If it stays put, power supply!
It’s like skunk and pot! (I’m in Canada, it’s legal and everywhere.) If I smell it, I look around. If I see a burrow, skunk! If I see a dozy looking dude with red eyes…
It’s funny that you mentioned pot. Because people described the reaction of pot sometimes in the way of OPs question: When you smoke weed, you get sensitive for things your brain normally is able to filter out as irrelevant information because your head can only process so much before it gets overwhelmed. Some people described that when they smoke weed, that they can sit in their living room or kitchen and start noticing the humming of the fridge or the buzzing of an electrical object as your synapses are wired “differently” when blocked by THC and you start to notice things, your brain normally suppresses.
Sorry for your tinnitus bro. I hope you find ways to make it bearable at times.
We have a VR system set up in our living room. I don’t even want to talk about how long it took me to figure out the receivers were making a steady, high pitched noise. There are 4 of them and they are situated near the ceiling.
I hear it from a lot of things when it’s quiet enough. Clock radios, tvs, monitors, my pugmill, heaters. There was a noisy power strip with a flashing one-off switch that I’m still convinced was going to kill someone.
I DON’T know anything about electricity - so mostly it makes me anxious that my house is going to burn down. I have bad enough hearing loss that I have to use closed captions on my TV - but it IS mostly because deep voices are extremely muddled. I’m surprised a bit by how many “not really” answers I see.
I still don’t get why the lighthouses can’t be turned on/off via SteamVR. There’s no reason they should stay running if I’m not actively in VR, and with the amount of noise they create, I have to imagine it’s negatively impacting their lifespan.
One of these days, I’ll get a smart plug for them, but I really shouldn’t need to imo.
You can.
You have to enable Bluetooth in the SteamVR Settings, and they’ll automatically turn off when you quit VR, and back in when you start it up again. Only downside is (at least for me) when you don’t use it for a longer time the connection seems to drop, and they won’t turn on automatically anymore. But nothing that can’t be fixed with a quick un- and replug
Yes. I can hear to about 18kHz, so cheap USB chargers are no longer allowed in my house…
Worse, the EV chargers I used to work with had PEMs switching at 10kHz for the US UL variants. EVERYONE could hear those!!
Test your hearing range with this if you want…
https://www.szynalski.com/tone-generator/
I used the 10kHz tone to annoy the eng dept in the office till they changed the PEM switching freq to 20kHz…
I’m sorry but you’re not generating true 10 Hz tones with speakers that are unable to reproduce such sound
Hell most premium speakers go down to 15-20 Hz at best
They said 10 khz not 10 hz
Only two orders of magnitude, can you really blame them?
Isn’t it 3? 10 -> 100 -> 1.000 -> 10.000
Yes some of my smart bulbs make that sound when they’re off or on low power. I’m 38. I do have a mild tinnitus as well but it’s on a different frequency so I hear the difference.
I just remembered that the Dell docking station I’m using makes a sound when it processes data. I can literally hear my mouse move.
Don’t buy Dell.
I can’t of anything that makes an unwanted sound. Old CRT TVs used to, but I haven’t used one in years. My monitor at work makes a sound when it turns on or off (I believe there’s an ass-old fuse in there), but it makes no sound otherwise.
I’m still young and hear very well, as exemplified by my annoyance of half-closed bottles of carbonated drinks, which do make a sound.
