Headphone HISS & LCD/CPU WHINE! ARGH!

[Dweomer]

Could others please confirm whether their N95s have a very audible WHINE when you hold the phone up to your ear? This whine goes away when the phone goes into standby. This whine may make or break if I return the phone.

Also, my N95's audio is incredibly hissy through headphones. Even the ones that come with the N95. Can other people confirm this? Is it reduced using bluetooth headphones? It is not as annoying as the WHINE (which you hear during EVERY call as you put the phone up to your ear) but it is on the verge of being so irritating that I cannot stand to listen to music.

Comments welcome. I love this phone. I don't want to have to return it to save my sanity.

[jamesjimmy]

Yep same problems on both counts. The high pitched hiss is incredibly annoying, though I do seem to have got used to it. Not great mind.

[Dweomer]

Before this thread gets buried, could at least a few more people say yes/no if they have these problems? Most appreciated.

Dweomer

[sicjoke]

I am not experiencing the whine you talk about. My N95 is utterly silent in all modes of operation - or at least not producing any ambiguous noises via the internal speakers aprt from the usual keytones and stuff.

I can confirm a slight hiss from the headphones during certain operations. It is almost like you can hear the precursor to the sound system activating, but it is barely audible most of the time and cannot be heard at all when the phone is producing normal audio.

[Symbian Sam]

I had the exact same problems and after seing a lot of reports from other users I tend to belive it's a universal problem for all N95 phones, some just don't think it matters or are not sensitive to those sounds.
I sent my N95 back. Useless as a music player because of the hiss. And the high pitch whine during calls was really annoying too.
I just hope Nokia will be able to fix those problems with a firmware upgrade. If they do I'll buy it again.

PS. My E65 has slight hiss during playback, my N91 is very close to hiss free (better then 2. generation Nano & 5.5 generation Ipod).

[Nyxmorph]

Hiya folks.

Right, the high pitch noise is a fault on *some* of them. Only the young with good ears can hear the high pitch noise. I sent mine back because of it, and I now have a nice new *SILENT* one.

Just send it back and get a replacement, it is a fault.

[Dweomer]

I'm still hoping that only certain batches of the N95s have the screen whine. I mean, I have asked several people to listen to the phone and they all say it is audible with your ear at 1" distance and that it should go back. I have a hard time believing that others are able to ignore this sound. I think the severity of the sound varies from phone to phone. Or at least, I hope so! I also hope that this whine is part of the problem with my headphone hiss. Others swear they have very little hiss but I just don't believe what I'm hearing could be described as such. Here's hoping they can swap/repair it. Because this is the phone that I want!

[Locoblade]

Quite a few on 3g.co.uk have returned them for the same faults, along with loose sliders.

I had a T Mobile N95 for a week or so before I returned it (due to poor signal quality in my area), and that had all three, a high pitched whine from the top of the screen when not in standby, a very audible hiss when playing mp3s through the headphones (or when any sound plays), and a loose slider that had movement on the right hand side, giving a double click sensation when pressing the buttons under the screen.

[Symbian Sam]

Originally Posted by Nyxmorph

Hiya folks.

Right, the high pitch noise is a fault on *some* of them. Only the young with good ears can hear the high pitch noise. I sent mine back because of it, and I now have a nice new *SILENT* one.

I have been following an ernormous thread on the N95 on a Norwegian board and everybody has the whine and the hiss. I'm 30+ years of age so I can hardly be described as having "young ears" Another poster was 40+ and he heard it too.
Seems to me that it is not a fault on *some* unites, rather a few unites may not have these flaws..

Originally Posted by Locoblade

Quite a few on 3g.co.uk have returned them for the same faults, along with loose sliders.

Did you get a hiss & whine free replacement?

As I said in a previous post a lot of people dont react to these sounds. The SE walkman phone line has notorious history of "hiss" in the music output signal, but it is VERY RARELY mentioned in reviews. And I'm talking a signal-to-noise-ratio compareble to FM reception or an old compact cassette walkman.
There can be multible reasons for the problem. Bad shielding, bad grounding, poor software optimization just to name a few. A few of these problems can be fixed with a new firmware, some can't.

I did a smallish review/comparison over at Head-Fi.org

[Symbian Sam]

Double post :(

[Symbian Sam]

Triple post :( :(

[Symbian Sam]

This is starting to look pretty bad..

[Kie77]

Yeah, my hand set has a high pitch whining noise too. If this is a known fault then I'm taking it back as it is painful on my delecate ears.

The MP3 player with headphones however is really good.

[Symbian Sam]

Kie77, Have you checked with volume turned down low and a pair of good headphones? And where is your N95 made? (Made in Finland or made by Nokia). What colour is the handset?

[Dweomer]

I just got my new replacement N95. The whine is gone (reduced to almost imperceptible) & the loose right slider is fixed. The hiss on the audio is still present (unfortunately) but seems lower (hard to determine). On the test Moby track my ears can hear the hiss at 30% volume or lower. When still just using the headphones and changing tracks the hiss can be hear going on an off with no audio playing. But the most critical for me was the LCD whine. If anyone has the two problems that my replacement has fixed, be aware that it is faulty and should be returned.