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On some LCD monitors this will cause them to emit a tone (epilepsy warning)
- wyager 12y agoAs I was holding my iPhone up to my ear, I realized that there is a constant static noise coming out of my phone speaker, even with the volume down! This page also produces a tiny bit of inductor noise near the middle of the device.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ddlatham 12y agoIn some humans this page will cause the head to ache.
- guruz 12y agoFor me it causes faster breathing and faster (perceived?) heart beat..
- Alupis 12y agoOh ya it does. For me, it's only when the bars get really bunched together... basically I can't stare at it anymore when it gets there.
- AustinG08 12y agogood god man, my eyes, I can't feel my eyes!
- chx 12y agoOr cause a tonic-clonic seizure.
- rjuyal 12y agoYes, I am one of those "some humans".
- craftkiller 12y agoMy refrigerator's compressor just happened to turn on when I clicked the link. I was impressed.
- Fuxy 12y agoI'm one of those humans. I helps not to look at the screen just listen and glance at it when you hear the tune.
- Houshalter 12y agoIt's similar to this image: https://i.imgur.com/Zihujue.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Zihujue.jpg Try staring at that for a few seconds. The best explanation is that it overloads the edge detectors in your brain. There are some other possible explanations here: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sgn7v/eli5_why_does_looking_at_this_picture_hurt_my_eyes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1sgn7v/e...
- fauria 12y agoMore info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856829
- VMG 12y agoworks here! but could use a warning
- smacktoward 12y agoI would think "on some LCD monitors this page will cause the screen to emit a tone" would count as a warning? :-D
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- pp19dd 12y agoWhat manufacturer / model?
- dumbfounder 12y agoI think the tone is my eyes screaming.
- ljd 12y agoIt sounds like a circular saw. I guess certain sinusoidal patterns sound the same.
- nikbackm 12y agoI've noticed this phenomenon before, then with the V File Viewer in CSV table mode until I changed its default colors. This page did not seem to trigger it though.
- Rooster61 12y agoIt would be fun to set this to a musical score, and run it on three monitors in harmony. Also, for some reason the effect reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4
- ugexe 12y agoI was hoping it was going to be musical and not just a rehash of the post from yesterday :(
- landtco 12y agoThis is some black mirrorish stuff here... I've suddenly forgotten who I am.
- angersock 12y agoLong live the new flesh!
- octo_t 12y agoCan we get a warning on the link for people susceptible to epilepsy, seizures or migraines? Thanks.
- skynetv2 12y agoalso, no one knows if it can cause damage to hardware
- baldfat 12y agoIf an image can cause damage to hardware we are in serious trouble with people out for the LULZ
- nitrogen 12y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863041
- baldfat 12y agoLED noise is not due to something vibrating. Former Sound Engineer and well LEDs make noise (super quiet). My guess it is the transformer that is making the noise since a LED powered monitor is regulating the voltage of the LED as needed if it didn't do that your power use would be many times higher than with a voltage regulating transformer. Wouldn't mean anything damaging is happening at all.
- teh_klev 12y agoI have two Dell 2408WFP panels which didn't exhibit this behaviour. The older 2405 panel did (and the pitch changed as the bars narrowed and widened), although it was barely audible.
- iolothebard 12y agoYou should try tinnitus, nothing is barely audible ;-)
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- bentcorner 12y agoI have a Dell 2407WFP and it made a sound, although I had to maximize it. I had a Dell 2007FP rotated to portrait and didn't hear anything - rotated it back to landscape and I heard the sound.
- tarikjn 12y agoInteresting. I have a Dell 2408WFP and it exhibits the behavior.
- ashmud 12y agoDell E207WFP and it produces sound for the entire range.
- dmschulman 12y agoI noticed this same effect with the Scroll Slow, Have Fun (scrollslowhavefun.com) demo from yesterday.
- colinbartlett 12y ago27" iMac does indeed emit a tone.
- reconbot 12y agoAny thought that this might damage our monitors?
- bnegreve 12y agoWhy is this downvoted, this is a very reasonable question. Noise is a mechanical wave produced by something vibrating. If you can hear it, it means that thing is vibrating quite hard inside your monitor.
- hamiltonkibbe 12y agoThe most likely culprit is inductor windings. The magnet wire used for windings is generating a changing magnetic field which causes them to vibrate, usually at the fundamental frequency of the excitation signal. (see image at http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/744773122/732-1258-2-ND/1638663 http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/744773122/732-1258-... for an example.) This is a fairly common source of audible noise in electronics.
- taternuts 12y agoWish I could get it to work to check it out. I've tried with my 4k monitor, an HP laptop, and a macbook air, and just in case a galaxy S5 and I'm not getting anything.
- mariuolo 12y agoIt does on mine (24" eIPS) at like 30% reduction. Any chance of damage?
- Cthulhu_ 12y agoTBH if your monitor would break due to a video signal I'd get a refund for supplying a sub-par product. Video signals shouldn't be able to break hardware (just people's brains according to some of the comments)
- goetterfunke 12y agoConfirmed iiyama PL2779Q. Loud and clear
- Cthulhu_ 12y agoInteresting. My primary screen, a 27 inch Dell something-or-another costing me €350+ a couple years ago gives an audible noise at the thinner bars. My secondary screen though, a Fujitsu Siemens 19 inch thing probably eight years old by now doesn't do a thing. However, that one broke down a couple of years ago - the condensators in that one had broken, and my dad replaced them with higher-voltage alternatives. Note that monitors breaking down due to capacitor malfunction is a common issue - the manufacturers intentionally install capacitors with a too low voltage limit, which will cause the monitors to break down within 3-5 years, shortly after the required 3 years warranty. Planned / designed obsolescence, and stuff. Free business opportunity for anyone with a soldering iron: buy old 'broken' TFT screens and replace the broken capacitors with ones with higher voltages. (note I'm not an electronic engineer and I forgot all of my education about the subject, my phrasing may be wrong)
- kefka 12y agoYou're very right. Most electronics are from bad or undervolted caps. The only thing to make sure is to put caps in the same polarity as the dead one (assuming polarity of said caps; some dont).
- Fuxy 12y agoConfirmed with LG 22MP65 IPS LED and iiyama ProLite E1906S. You can hear a faint sound when the lines reach a certain distance from each other and it fades out as the distance changes.
- codeaken 12y agoWay cool, worked on my Dell U3011! How does this function, why does the screen emit a high pitched noise?
- paulmd 12y agoThere's a working theory in the Github explanation. White and black pixels take different amounts of power to draw. As the screen scans up and down to draw the various rows, it thus has to rapidly charge and discharge the capacitors. The capacitors are expanding and contracting a bit as they do so, which vibrates the air and makes a tone. Frankly this sounds like an awesome way to blow up those capacitors.
- paulmd 12y agoDell P2210 emits a tone. Motorola Moto G phone does not.
- scoopr 12y agoI thought listening to CRT with AM radio was cooler, with Tempest for Eliza[0] :) [0] http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/ http://www.erikyyy.de/tempest/
- freshyill 12y agoNothing on my Retina MacBook Pro, Thunderbolt Display or 2011 27" iMac. Then again, I've got pretty bad ears. Now I need to send this to coworkers to see if their mileage varies.
- jlmorton 12y agoI have a 2011 27" iMac and I can hear it, but it's on the edge of my perception.
- gandalfu 12y agoFrom another thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8856829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8857209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8857209 I see that this screen has alternating black and white lines. I count 43 black lines on my monitor. Assuming 60 Hz refresh rate, that is 2580 Hz in terms of the pixels being off or on, which is a perfectly audible frequency. Even with 120 Hz refresh rate, that would be 5160 which is still easily audible. Without knowing anything else, I guess that there may be a capacitor somewhere that is charging and discharging along with the brightness of the screen as it is refreshed from top to bottom, which is causing it to flex in a way that produces an audible noise.
- shmerl 12y agoCan it damage those monitors?
- Zardoz84 12y agoMy old Samsung's SyncMaster T200 sound a little at the thinner bars.
- JohnBooty 12y agoWorks on a Dell U2713HM. The noise (well... at least the portion of the noise I'm capable of hearing) occurs when the bars are at their fattest. It's barely audible.
- stronglikedan 12y agoMy LG W2242P does it for a range where the bars are at there thinnest. When they start getting close to thinnest, it gets higher pitched, and then reverses when they start to thicken again.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 12y agoCan it be made to play 'Ode to Joy'?
- tzs 12y agoI'm somewhat relieved by this. I thought I had something wrong with one of my monitors. If I open a terminal window, make it cover most of the screen, and then view something with lots of long lines (such as Apache logs), I get a whining tone. It's bugged me for a long time not knowing what could be causing it.
- slashnull 12y agoI'm not crazy! Some text patterns (like, say, grep going through minified JS) make my monitor emit a weird noise I was having all the trouble in the world believing. Now I know this tone actually exists